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Our (Practically Free) Kindergarten & Preschool Learning Plans 2012-2013

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A Heart For Home: Our (Practically Free) Kindergarten & Preschool Learning Plans 2012-2013

Wednesday, August 22, 2012

Our (Practically Free) Kindergarten & Preschool Learning Plans 2012-2013

This year, we're not planning on purchasing any official curriculum. Below is our pieced together, mostly from materials we already have on hand, curriculum. In a small way I feel like this helps to balance the fact that we're still paying off my Elementary Ed degree :)

Bible
Our children will be learning about God, his love for them, and what they can do to love him back. For our "official" Bible studies we'll be continuing with breakfast readings from 365 Read-Aloud Bedtime Bible Stories. We'll also be walking through the Bible with the What's in the Bible? DVDs and the My Bible Coloring Book.


We'll also be reading from The Jesus Storybook Bible as well as other Bible storybooks.

We'll continue to focus on prayer with our Prayer Pail and we'll keep memorizing scripture with this simple Scripture Memory Box system (which, by the way, we love). For more ideas check out our Raising Children for God Pinterest board.


Language Arts
Our family will be focusing on reading lots of great books together. We'll also be listening to some wonderful audio books (partly so I can get some work done and partly because we all enjoy them so much).

All of the kids will continue to utilize our growing collection of Alphabet books and Alphabet activity books. We will also interact through many Alphabet activities and games and continue to talk about letters, letter sounds and words in real life situations.


We will also be learning and reviewing with several Alphabet videos including Letter Factory, WordWorld (Rocket to the Moon, Lucky Duck, Flying Ant), and free online videos as well. We'll also be attending story time at our local library once a week.

Jonathan and Eliya will also be doing a very simply Letter of the Week focus with a two or three activities each week on a specific letter.

Emahry will continue with simple phonics work and will continue to learn sight words from the Dolch sight word list to help make reading easier. She'll keep reading with Set 1 of Bob Books, which my mom gave us, and will complete many of the activities we've pinned in our Teach Me to Read board. Emahry will also continue to write in real world situations, making to-do lists, writing letters to family and friends and writing labels and descriptions of drawings. She'll also work on writing her full name, address and phone number. We like this website for making handwriting printables.
Type in any word(s) & this website generates handwriting worksheets

History
For a general overview we'll be reading through the History for Little Pilgrims that I picked up at Goodwill for less than a dollar. This book has 15 short chapters, each with a simply activity and a handful of questions. We'll go through one chapter each week.

After that we plan on starting a history overview using children's books. We have not decided yet if we'll begin in the beginning with books on the Ancient World or if we'll start closer to present day with an overview of American History. Here's a list of children's books about the Ancient World divided by time period and civilization. My friend, Kristin, has a great list of American History books organized into time periods as well.

Math
We'll be spending the first 11 weeks teaching and reviewing numbers 0-10 with a number of the week for our three oldest children. We'll also be using numbers in real world counting and completing lots of the counting activities found here. We may also go back to the Funnix Beginning Math Program once Emahry becomes more consistent with recognizing written numbers.

Emahry will also be keeping a math journal for recording facts about numbers (or like this), counting, graphing, and pattern work. We'll also add some number activities like this to her journal. We have this Primary Journal with space for drawing at the top and lines for writing on the bottom half.

Emahry will also work on counting to 100 and will begin to work with money, skip counting, and simple addition and subtraction using a variety of books, workbooks and activities. She'll be using some of these free 20 question math practices at least once a week as well.

Science
This fall, we'll be focusing on a nature study of trees. We'll be reading lots of books about trees, starting with this list, and enjoying the autumn weather observing local trees and collecting lots of leaves. We'll also be completing some tree and leaf projects we've pinned here. In the spring we'll pick back up with our study of plants and gardening.


We'll also be studying the seasons through books and activities.

Art
We'll be starting the year with a simple study of shapes and how to draw them. We'll then begin combining different shapes to make pictures. We'll be following many of the How to Draw... activities pinned to our Art Activities board. We'll also have some fun making fingerprint art like this.

Music
We'll be using Songs for Sapling Questions with Answers CDs as part of our Music time this year. We will listen to these 4 CDs throughout the day. I'm sure the ABCs and 123s CDs will sneak into our rotation as well. We'll also focus on learning two different hymns, This is My Father's World and Take My Life, and Let it Be.



Physical Education
Our kids are all very active. We will continue to play at home and at local parks & playgrounds. We will also go on regular nature walks. During warmer weather, our children will regularly swim in their grandparent's pool.

We're counting finally nailing down this plan as our finished project for the week. Would you like to share what you've accomplished? Link up to our Finished Friday blog party.

We're sharing this post at Pin the Tail on the Bloggy Pinterest Party @ Fox Hollow Cottage.

Today's Question: We'd love to hear about your homeschool plans for this year. Feel free to leave a link if you've blogged about your plans.


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9 Comments:

Anonymous Babychaser said...

I'm calling what we're doing this year "K-1", but really it's probably just first grade.

I blogged about what we're doing this year (at least part of it) here: http://babychaser.com/2012/08/home-educating-new-plan.html.

August 22, 2012 at 12:00 PM  
Blogger Kristin said...

I have a fun book to add to your Gardening List (if it's not already there). We recently read Jo McDonald Had a Garden by Mary Quattlebaum. Fun for all of us.

August 22, 2012 at 9:47 PM  
Anonymous Sarah said...

I'm homeschooling again this year (I took 6 months off at the end of 2011- the spring 2012 semester when I was pregnant and had 2 foster kids!), and since my son is very advanced in several areas I decided to just "wing it" this year to see exactly where he's at and learn how he learns. I'm also babysitting, so it helps to do things as a group.

My oldest is almost 7 and reads at a 4th grade level while being very strong in math. My daughter is 5, the boy I babysit is 4 and I have a 4 month old. Our day looks like this:

After breakfast, we set the baby up either on the floor or in the exersaucer so he can be involved and I get out our book that we're reading. This first session is "The Wind in the Willows". After reading the chapter to everyone, I then use the same handwriting worksheet generator you use and print up words from the chapter. After that, the baby is usually ready for a nap...yay!

The younger 2 at this point are allowed to play together either in my daughter's room or with play dough, etc while I work more one on one with my son. We pick a science subject from the book (with this book having animal characters, we look up a different animal every day), read about that animal, watch online videos, google search, etc. Not only is he doing science, but he is also learning how to use the search function to find things that interest him (be involved and be sure you have a good filter). I then google images of that topic (usually with "coloring page" in the search) and print it and we diagram and add notes about what we learned. The other 2 like to have their own copy of that page to color.

For math, I use xtramath.com for practice with drills, and I use a combination of http://www.lessoncorner.com/worksheets and workbooks from walmart and the dollar store for math lessons.

To add extra work, I often let him watch science videos from the library, do extra reading on starfall.com or other learning sites, watch science videos from the "wild kratts" section of pbskids.org, and many other resources I've been given.

It's lots of fun for us both and the younger kids can be as involved as they want. Maybe in a year or two I'll actually invest in some curriculum!

August 25, 2012 at 3:47 PM  
Blogger Unknown said...

I want to let you know how big of a blessing this post and your blog and websitefor is to me. I am crying tears of relief and joy as I type! (Seriously) Let me explain: This will be my first year to homeschool my 10 year old daughter and a very involved, soon to be, four year old son. While she has ecurriculum especially for her, I was at a loss for my son including lessons, activities and scheduling. I couldn't sleep last night and have just gotten introduced to pinterest. One of my friends had a pin to one of your activities; I clicked and instantly God gave me an intense curiosity of your site. I can't praise Him enough or tell you how thankful I am that He led you to make this website! Thank you for the time you put in amongst your obvious already busy schedules and for all these valuable resources you provide! ---Heather

August 26, 2012 at 1:30 PM  
Blogger Linda said...

My daughter is older (doing 6th/7th grade work)but there is a site that she has enjoyed as "fun/educational time". It is called Learning Games for Kids and has lots of games in language arts, keyboarding, and other subjects. Best of all it is free, so you might find something there to enrich your young elementary age kids. What we use as our core homeschooling curriculum is Time4Learning, and while not free, it is certainly cost effective for my only child. Enjoy homeschooling and the wonder of watching your kids learn, it's addictive as the parent/teacher to see the joy of learning in your kids!

August 26, 2012 at 11:14 PM  
Blogger Rachel @ day2day joys said...

What a GREAT plan you have! This is our first year and we're going University Style schooling, half at a Christian school, half at home.

August 30, 2012 at 9:02 AM  
Blogger Christina at I Gotta Create! said...

Pinning! Visiting from Fox Hollow’s pin party.

August 30, 2012 at 9:24 PM  
Blogger The Charm of Home said...

Fantastic! I am babysitting 3 days a week with an almost preshooler. Always looking for new activities. you have given a great resource right here in this one post! Thank you! Visiting from the pinning party.
Sherry

August 31, 2012 at 12:54 PM  
Blogger Lauren @ mercy(INK) said...

Allyson this is super encouraging! Even as a non-homeschooling mom, I feel like there is such great material to focus on with kids.
Thanks so much for linking up again at Heart&home... love love love your inspirational but PRACTICAL ideas! thanks so much :)
blessings,
lauren
www.mercyinkblog.com

September 2, 2012 at 8:52 PM  

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