First, here's a picture of our happy Kindergarten graduate.
When I had originally planned his Kindergarten year I had a very organized and structured curriculum in mind. When we experimented with that, though, it turned out that nobody was having any fun at all. The whole thing was just a drag so I went back to the drawing board and re-planned the whole thing. This is how we organized what ended up working very well for us.
First we set out to determine exactly what a kid “should” learn in Kindergarten. For this I consulted Rebecca Rupp’s Home Learning Year by Year and E.D. Hirsch’s What your Kindergartner Needs to Know. What came out of that research was roughly this:
Language arts:
- Know all upper and lowercase letters and the sounds of each
- Begin to read 3 letter words
- Recognize their own name in print
- Understand syllables
Writing:
- Be able to write all letters – upper and lowercase
- Be able to write simple words, messages & such
Listening & Speaking:
- Follow simple 1 & 2 step directions
- Retell familiar stories
- Invent & tell fantasy stories
- Memorize & recite short stories & rhymes
Mathematics & such:
- Be able to group objects into sets
- Identify and continue simple repeating patterns
- Count from 1-31
- Identify ordinal positions (first to fifth)
- Adding and subtracting number from 1-10
- Solve simple story problems
- Identify pennies, nickels, dimes, quarters and recognize dollar & cent signs
- Understand measurements of length, weight & capacity
- Tell time to the hour
- Know days of the week
History & Geography:
(Note: the books I referenced above recommend starting with
- Listen to stories about ancient times including Greek & Roman mythology
- Able to use maps and globes, learning
Science:
- Sorting objects according to physical characteristics
- Understand living vs. non-living
- Become familiar with plants
- Become familiar with animals
- The five senses and the associated body parts
- Basic composition of the earth
- Understand the seasons and weather
Art & Music:
- Name and describe colors, shapes & lines
- Experiment with a range of art techniques & mediums
- Be familiar with rhythm, melody and harmony
Health & Physical Education:
- Know importance of exercise, cleanliness, good nutrition & sleep
- Participate in age-appropriate athletic activities
Then, after compiling a list of things that a Kindergartener “should” learn in Kindergarten, the next thing we did was to assess what Simon already knew. It turned out that there was quite a bit he already knew. For example, by the time he was 5 he could read simple sentences and he already knew all the colors and shapes. Also he could already count to 100 and add & subtract numbers between 1-20 in his head without using manipulatives.
The next step in the process involved reducing the previously mentioned level of structure in our homeschool. So, we decided to decided to divide his “lessons” into two categories: formal and informal (or, structured and “unschooled” if you will).
The “formal” lessons were things that we tried to do on an almost daily basis and included the following:
- Math lessons: for this we chose the Singapore Math text and workbook level 1. We actually started with Saxon Math level 1, but it was really boring and repetitive so we switched in mid-year to
We didn’t do math lessons every day, but some days he would voluntarily do 3-4 days of lessons all at once so it evened out over time. From these lessons he learned more complex addition and subtraction (numbers 1-100) and even multiplication. He also began to learn the basics of division, but on a very superficial level. There were also a bunch of lessons about money… learning to add and subtract various coin amounts and whatnot.
- History: For this we used Susan Bauer’s Story of the World Volume 1 (Ancient Times) on CD. This is a 7 disc set and every night for the past year Simon has been listening to 1 disc at a time at bedtime. I tried reading the book to him also, but he was annoyed that I was just repeating things that he already heard on his discs so I gave up.
- Read good books: Every night at bed time we’ve been reading novels like
That was it for the “formal” part of our lessons. Everything else was informal or “unschooled”. For us, what this meant is that we would pay close attention to the sorts of things Simon was interested in and we would make sure that he had all the books, software, videos, arts & crafts, comics and everything else he wanted to do his own research into these things. We decided not to impose any further subjects on him, but rather to trust him to develop and pursue his own academic interests. This may not work with all kids, and it may not work with Gwen in a few years, but Simon had already established himself as being able to deep dive into subjects he was interested in and we figured that would continue.
The way this took shape over the course of the last year completely met our hopes and expectations. On his own Simon continued to research and study everything he could get his hands on about astronomy. The boy is completely obsessed with stars and planets. We found a ton of books for him and also some really great free astronomy software (Celestia) that allowed him to tour the solar system, visiting every planet and moon and also to learn about the constellations. As part of this we are constantly printing out black and white pictures of the planets the he loves to color. Then we cut them out and he will carry them around with him all day talking about them. His bedroom is filled with planet books, planets hanging from the ceiling, little plastic planets littering the floor and giant inflatable planets pushed into every available nook and cranny.
What has been especially interesting about this is the way that other subjects become organized as part of his particular passions. For example, introducing him to Greek & Roman mythology was easy, once we learned that they Roman Gods have the same name as the planets. Then, when we read the myths we were, from his perspective, reading stories about the adventures of the planets. Also, becoming a better reader became important to him because he wanted to read more about astronomy, so he put a lot of effort into learning more words and letter-sound combinations. And, he became interested in really large numbers, because of the distance between the planets and the sun. So, he learned about hundreds, thousands, millions, billions, etc.
(The other day Barb and I were sitting in the living room and Simon walked in and asked: What’s 365 times 248? We said “huh”, but he insisted we find the answer so we pulled up the calculator and figured out that it was 90,520. Then he explained that 90,520 was how many days it took Pluto to go around the sun.)
But, the best education Simon is receiving happens after bedtime, after we read to him and shut his door for the night. It turns out that the boy is a night-owl. He loves to stay up late. So, after some discussion we’ve decided to let him stay up as late as he wants, long after we’ve gone to bed. The following rules apply: he was to stay in his room with the door shut (except to visit the bathroom) and he must be quiet and not disturb anyone else.
Neither of the kids will ever have a TV or a computer in their bedroom, so he spends this time (from 9pm until after midnight) reading and playing with toys. Before I leave his room for the night he will often ask me to pull some books down from high on his book shelves for him. Also, recently he asked us to get him a set of foam letters. For the past couple of weeks he has spent this quiet time with these letters and a couple of phonics books. The other night I peeked in on him at about midnight and he had the books open and was spelling out words with the foam letters. I asked him how it was going and he started telling me all about letter “blends” and what different letter combinations sound like if you put them together. We did not suggest that he do this at all, it was all up to him.
So, that’s been our first year of homeschooling. We’ve decided that there are a few things that should be learned in a systematic way (like math and history) but for almost everything else we’ve learned that we can trust him to more or less teach himself. Our job is mostly to pay attention to the kid’s interests and then to make sure the house is full of books, software, art supplies and toys relating to those interests and they pretty much do the rest.
Now that I review the list of things a kindergartner “should” learn with what Simon actually learned this year, there are only a couple of things I think we missed. Foremost of these is to develop skills associated with summarizing stories and repeating back the story’s basic theme or plot. We haven’t done much of that. Later in the year when we start first grade I plan to add an additional “formal” lesson to our repertoire dealing with general language skills. I plan to use Jesse Wise’s “First Language Lessons” which is a two year program for 1st and 2nd grade which is a gradual and systematic study of grammar and other aspects of English language study. It includes memorizing short poems and also begins the process of learning to summarize story elements (first verbally and later in writing).
Overall, though, Simon’s kindergarten year accomplished just what we hoped. It has become a blend of the classical approach (with an emphasis on history and “great” books) and an unschooling approach in which we follow the kid’s interests. We’ve decided that there are some things that should be taught in an organized way, but that many things can be left up to them with us more or less just supplying resources.
The way that these two elements of our homeschool are balanced may change over time, but for now this seems to be working for everyone. It’s been a good year.
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