Homeschool: What we do-Kindergarten

I have had several people ask and it often comes up in conversations what we do with Isaac in his Kindergarten year of school. I have also seen several blogs going around on it, so I thought I would share as well.

I shared a few weeks ago about what we do on Mondays. You can see that here.

Tuesday through Friday our day looks a little like this: Memory Verse and My First Book of Questions and Answers, Math, Phonics, and Latin. It usually takes us about 2 1/2 hours give or take to complete all of his school for the day. Then we read him his Bible before he goes to bed. I have listed below exactly what we use.

We recently found these on Kids Desiring God. I have not started using these yet but I plan to start next week. They are short but very applicable to kids from what I have seen so far. Its worth checking out!
This is the book we have been using for memory verses. It is a great book as well. So far Isaac has done well with the verses I have picked. I have not been doing them in order. I have been picking the ones I think he can relate to the most and ones that he will most benefit from. That's one reason we will start using the fighter verses.

This is a great book to explain some theology to kids in ways easy to understand, helpful for adults too! We have been through it once (we started it last year) and are going through it again for repetition and more explaining with each question. We have had Isaac memorize each answer to the questions. Its amazing how much he remembers as we are going through it for the second time. Kids brains are little sponges, really! The contents of the book is God, Creation, How Man Sinned, What happened because of Sin, Salvation, Jesus as Prophet, Priest, and King, The Ten Commandments, Keeping God's Laws, The Way to be Saved, Experiencing God's Salvation, Baptism and the Lord's Supper, Prayer, Where is Jesus Now, Death, Hell, Heaven.

We picked Horizons for his Kindergarten math. I am pleased so far. It does repetition on several things. Some parents would not prefer that but I am ok with it, especially in Math since it was my weakest subject! He has been doing great thus far and it has not been moving too fast for him. If anything not fast enough, but like I said I am glad to make sure he is understanding everything before moving on to something new.

Veritas Press is what we chose for Phonics/reading. We actually bought the package with Kindergarten and 1st grade curriculum so we will use it next year as well. It is a museum theme so that is right up Isaac's alley. We haven't started the readers yet. I believe he will be doing that on Tuesday, so I cant comment on how well we like those and how he does with them. Sometimes the lessons can be lengthy with several handwriting exercises but they also do some neat crafts/activities too. Ex: making butter when working on the letter B! It also comes with a fun CD to listen to before, during. whenever. His art ties in with this for now as well. He colors a reprint of a famous portrait with each letter and learns a little about the artist that painted it as well.

I don't have a picture but for his language we are doing Latin. We chose Latin because it is the basis for several languages. Why Language now? Because statistics say that from ages 4-6 is when kids best learn another languages. We hope that by doing it now it will help him to learn other languages faster and easier in the future. We did buy a curriculum but it was too advanced for him. Luckily it came with vocab cards, so we are just using those and do everything based on memory. Again, amazing what he can remember!!