In my “Part 1″ post on our homeschool plans for Madeline’s Kindergarten year, I covered what we’re doing for reading/phonics, handwriting and math. In the other subject areas I am trying to have a basic plan in mind that can be done with minimal preparation and minimal time for the actual lesson, but with plans for going deeper. I’m sure that at some points during the year we’ll be lucky to get in a short period of schoolwork during the day as other things disrupt or distract us, while we may have some weeks where we want nothing more than to spend hours on the couch reading togther. Here’s a look at what we’re doing for the other subject areas.
Bible/Character: I probably should have included this as a “core” subject in the other post, since I really do consider this to be a very important part of our homeschooling. But the division of “The 3 R’s” in one post and everything else in another was just too appealing. We’ll be going through the book “Leading Little Ones to God” either two or three days a week, probably at the beginning of our school day. This book has devotional thoughts about the character of God, the nature of the Christian faith, and so on. I like the fact that it isn’t just the same simple Bible stories as we read at bedtime every night. Besides a short reading there are verses to look up, discussion questions, and even a suggested hymn (not that I would be able to figure out how to sing those just from the words!).
Then two days per week we’ll be studying various character traits. In our homeschool co-op we’ll be covering the Fruit of the Spirit this fall, and some other Biblical character traits in the Spring. We’ll study them at home by looking up verses and possibly doing some other activities if I am organized enough to come up with them. What I would really like to find for this fall is a good children’s book or study on the Fruit of the Spirit, but I haven’t found anything I am really excited about yet.
In my ideal world I would like to spend two days per week on each of those areas, and a fifth day on some other kind of fun Bible lesson — maybe activities, dramatic play or crafts based on those topics or on Bible stories. My guess is that realistically that won’t happen, and we’ll either do a third “Leading Little Ones to God” lesson each week or despite our best attempts, end up only doing 4 days of Bible/Character study per week.
Social Studies: My goal in this subject for Kindergarten is to give Madeline a brief overview of history and geography as general topic areas to build a foundation for more in-depth study in subsequent grades. I want her to know a few basic things, like who George Washington and Abraham Lincoln were, what the difference is between a city, a state, a country and a continent, and so on.
We’ll focus more on history in the fall, and more on Geography in the spring, though we will start out the fall with an introduction to Geography and maps, and a quick study about our neighborhood, city and state (about three weeks total for all of that). We’ll use library books and downloadable resources for this study.
After that we’ll spend the rest of the fall on history, primarily American history. We’ll use most of History for Little Pilgrims and some stories from History Stories for Children. I also have a few library books in mind. Both of those resources are fairly easy reads, so we can, at minimum, spend a short amount of time each week reading together and still cover the bases. I hope we can go just a bit more in depth though with library books, marking places on a map, and making a basic timeline.
Then in the spring “semester” our homeschool co-op will be studying the seven continents. We’ll piggy back on that with a geography study at home, though I am not sure what resources we will use. I have heard good things about Galloping the Globe, but I don’t know if it will fit our needs or not.
Science: Our co-op is doing a science study based on the seven days of creation this fall, so we will do likewise. The the co-op selected, “God’s Wonderful Works” as a text to guide our study, as we will be using it at home as well. We’ll reinforce the topics we learn at co-op, and cover some topics in the text that we don’t have time for as a group. If we are feeling pressed for time we can just cover the basic topics in the text and a few simple activities included in the book.
I am hoping to also add in a few simple experiments from a workbook I found in the Target dollar section, as well as a science activity book we got at a used book sale that happens to cover many similar topics as the ones in our textbook. If we want to go even more in depth on some of the topics, we will probably find some books in our collection of kids non-fiction books I have been building at home, or from the library.
I am still undecided on science for the spring “semester”. One idea I am considering is studying animals and/or plants from each continent as we study the people and places of each continent in our Geography lessons. I don’t know if there are any resources out there designed to do this at a K level, or if we would have to piece it together on our own. I’ll be doing some research and trying to figure that out sometime before January rolls around.
Spanish: Our co-op is using “Play and Learn Spanish” this year, so at a minimum, we will listen to the assigned track from the CD and practice a few vocabulary words a couple times per week at home. But, I know we will only get out of it what we put into it, so depending on Madeline’s interest level and our available time and energy, we may extend our learning experiences with books, DVDs or other materials from the library.
The Arts: Madeline loves to do art in many forms, so I know I don’t need to worry too much about providing those art experiences for her as long as our art cabinet is well stocked. She’ll do it on her own with minimal prompting from me. I’ve checked out the book, “Drawing with Children” from the library to see if it might be a method I could use to help Madeline improve her drawing skills. It often frustrates her that she can’t figure out how to draw something and make it “look right,” and I am of very little help in that department. Maybe this book could teach both of us! We have a few books at home with photographs of great paintings and other works of art, so I hope we can find a few moments here and there to look at those books together.
Madeline will get a brief music theory lesson at co-op every-other week covering topics like keeping a beat and singing a simple tune on pitch. Hopefully we can practice those lessons at home too. I’d love to fit in a little study about the instruments of the orchestra too at some point during our school year, though I am not sure if that will happen or not. I have the book “Meet the Orchestra” and that might be a nice jumping off point for a study of classical instruments.
Coming in Part 3 of my “Homeschool Year Plans” series is a look at our read-aloud plans for this year.
