Must-Have Kindergarten Homeschool Curriculum Picks
Homeschool curriculum has always been such a hard choice for me. It can set the tone for your whole year! It has to be a good fit for everyone. Good thing is kindergarten is a great year to feel out curriculum, see what works. The kindergarten expectations and even school standards are minimal enough to easily meet.This year is a good year to hang back and try to figure out their personal interests. We want to be sure to lay a good foundation so for kinder I focus mainly on the basics: Reading, Writing, Math. Here are my choice as follows:
- Reading – All About Reading
- Writing – Handwriting Without Tears
- Math – Kindergarten Math with Confidence
Reading-All About Reading
The main focus here is and should be of course is phonics instruction. AAR definitely delivers this as well as phonemic awareness, reading comprehension, and much more in a fun, open and go style. I always have and always will sing the praises of this curriculum. AAR is not considered a full language arts curriculum but in my opinion, for kindergarten this is all you need and should be your main focus until more fluent reading is achieved. AAR is a Orton-Gillingham approach. It systematically teaches each and every phonogram with its sound. It is aimed for children with dyslexia but I’m hesitant to even say that because in my opinion all children should learn this way. Every level comes with a different character that pops up every couple lessons with something funny to say and a little encouragement. It is scripted and comes with a game to back up almost all the lessons along with letter tiles (sold in separate bundle) and 3 readers.
Writing-Handwriting Without Tears
This is the only other language arts component I use in kindergarten. That’s right, no writing essays for my five year old *said sarcastically*. I was hesitant to buy Handwriting Without Tears or any handwriting curriculum at first because I thought “its just handwriting, thats easy to teach…” but I learned the hard way once bad habits are formed in handwriting they are hard to break. HWT has a lot of components and add-ons which you can definitely get, but if you want to go the cheaper route I would get just the student book and wooden pieces. That really takes the curriculum to the next level by adding in the sensory component, helping the letter formations stick. I will be doing a full review on HWT soon so keep a look out for that.
Math-Kindergarten Math with Confidence
This is a great fairly new math curriculum that we have loved. We usually use RightStart Math but when we went to start level A with my, on the younger side kindergartner it was just too… “fussy” for her. KMWC was a great alternative that the creator Kate Snow says will lead quite nicely into RightStart next year. The lessons are short,concise, effective and stay on the same subject throughout (no frustration for child) and uses household objects for manipulates. My daughters favorite is when she gets to use her teddy bears or toys for her lessons.
Extras
Games and books. We use all kind of games like “I see 10”, Bingo(tailored to what we are learning),Uno. I also have a full post here listing some educational activities. Last and very far from least , we read. Alot. I read aloud picture books, chapter books, funny books, Dr.Suess books. Anything they want!
That’s all folks. I hope any of this was helpful. Remember to always have fun! Come check out our Instagram at Lilysandleis_littlefarmouse to follow our homeschool journey and see what we are up to daily.