Charlotte Mason-Inspired Kindergarten Curriculum (Term 1)

This post contains affiliate links and I may be compensated if you make a purchase after clicking on my links. Also, as an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases through them as well.
Charlotte Mason-Inspired Kindergarten Curriculum (Year 0.5) - ahumbleplace.com

The kindergarten curriculum is now available as a book with a complete, week-by-week schedule, supply lists, and more!

It is with some trepidation that I’m announcing that we’re ready for the first term of kindergarten to begin in just over a month…..eep.

I’ve actually been working on this for over a year now because that’s how I am. I changed my mind over and over again about whether or not to just start him on AmblesideOnline’s Year 1 now, or try and do a kindergarten year. My dilemma really just boils down to where his birthday happens to fall in the year….August. It’s like this blackhole of school-start uncertainty…. Wait a year and have him be one of the oldest in his “class”…..or start him young?

I’ve been of the mindset that waiting is better than starting too early for a while now (and I should emphasize that Charlotte Mason suggested waiting until the age of six to start any kind of formal instruction), so I’ve just kind of stuck with that up until now (which is why we didn’t start last year). My natural penchant for being lazy has also agreed with this plan.

I did know, though, that I wanted to at least start something this fall. After asking for advice and mulling it over, I decided to wait until next fall for year 1 and use this year to get us both used to a more structured homeschool (we did do a preschool curriculum, but it was very loose, so this will be just as much of a learning process for me as it is for him). Thus my version of year 0.5 (referring to something between AO’s Year 0 and Year 1) was born.

I’ll readily admit that I am not a Charlotte Mason expert by any stretch of the imagination. I even hesitated adding her name to the title of this post. But she was the impetus for me making this, and I’m trying to stick to living books as much as possible (or at least, my understanding of what living books are), so I decided to cite her as my inspiration. The use of living books is also why this curriculum looks dramatically different than most others you’ll see.

Term 1

Notes and Resources

Bible

We also do verse memorization, which isn’t listed on the schedule but is worth mentioning. We work on this every morning during breakfast using the Simply Charlotte Mason Scripture Memory System (free).

American History

Geography

  • The Irish Twins (this and all of the other “Twins” books are free on Kindle – I suggest pre-reading any of these as some of them have content that might not be suitable for younger children [hunting descriptions])
  • Rookie Read-About Geography (various) (we’ll be checking these out from the library during the weeks that we need them)

Nature Study

Another option here would be any of the Among the…People books by Clara Dillingham Pierson (all available for Kindle for free). We’ve actually read all of them already, which is why I didn’t include them here.

Along with the reading mentioned here, we’ll be going on hikes at least once per week. This has become a habit for us and is really the best way to observe the natural world, especially if done on a steady basis on one particular trail as it allows us to see how things change through the year. I’ll also be picking up a few sketchbooks and we’ll attempt nature journals….attempt being the keyword here.

Science

  • One Small Square: Backyard (this one and the previous subject could be interchangeable, but we’ll be doing a science-specific book next term, so I decided to split this up)

Literature

Poetry

Favorite Poems Old and New - ahumbleplace.com

Our entire reading list was downloaded from the Water on the Floor curriculum. I was so excited when I found this as the other curricula had just mentioned a single nursery rhyme per week and a single poem per day from a children’s poetry anthology. I liked this one so much better because it sticks to one poet per week which I think gives him good exposure to different styles of poetry as well as introducing him to a variety of different poets.

Math

*This was formerly Arithmetic for Young Children, but I found that I needed a little more instruction than what that book provides. MEP has been fantastic so far with daily interactive activities that I can save in a binder for eternal memories (aw). B is also really enjoying it as it’s a little less question-after-question-after-question than AYC was. I also love that MEP is free!

Art/Composer

Generally, I print out the pieces from the art study on card stock and laminate them (I have this laminator). Then I sit down with B and look over it with him before hanging it on the wall for two weeks so we can look at it whenever he’d like (you can see this written out in more detail here). As he gets older, I want to bring more to the artist study (obviously). But I think this is good for now, especially as I don’t want to crowd his brain with my interpretation and understanding of the paintings and let him use his imagination when he looks at them.

For the music study, I usually play a piece first thing in the morning while I’m making breakfast (or driving somewhere in the car or folding clothes, etc.) for two weeks before I move on to do the same with the next piece. I’ll sometimes mention the composer’s name and the title of the piece, but I don’t go into a lot of details. The point is really just that they are exposed to this type of music. B is getting a little MP3 player/radio for his birthday, so he’ll be able to listen to it in his room as well.

Handicraft

I originally had Sewing School here, but during a particularly insomnia-ridden night, I remembered that I had these books sitting on my bookshelf already. Honestly, I have no idea if each project is going to take us a month, so we may end up doing more. But I wanted to be sure he had plenty of time for each one he wanted to do.

Copywork

  • Simply Charlotte Mason Manuscript Copywork (free and pre-made – this is really just to work on his handwriting which isn’t bad at all, but he does need a little help with the direction of some of his letters :))

Habit

This is something we’ve been working on, but I wanted to make sure I had specific habits in mind when we start the year. Outdoor Life seemed like a great place to start for a Charlotte Mason-based curriculum. 🙂

Etc.

I tried to keep cost to a minimum when I put this together, so quite a few of the books are available for free on Kindle or were ones we already owned. For the ones we didn’t, I’ve been able to use Bookfinder to find them at greatly discounted prices.

I’m still working on Term 2, which won’t begin until January. Once I have that finalized, I’ll be posting that here as well.

I hope someone finds this helpful! 🙂

Charlotte Mason-Inspired Kindergarten Curriculum (Year 0.5) - ahumbleplace.com

Other posts in this series…

Similar Posts

12 Comments

  1. I love your .5 year layout. We are doing .5 AO year also but just revising the yr1to work better for .5yr.
    Did you make your own chart/book selections? Or is this listed somewhere on AO site that I’ve missed?!

    1. I was going to do that with Y1 too, but when I started looking at it, I got a little overwhelmed. 😀

      There is an unofficial AO Y0.5 Yahoo Group (https://groups.yahoo.com/neo/groups/AO_Year0_5/info) and quite a few of the books on that list are on this list. Part of this is from curricula that I found around the internet that I took parts from and part of it is just books I inserted on my own. 🙂

      I’ve been editing as we’ve gone along and also plan on changing it more once we’re done…I’m going to replace Old Mother West Wind with one of the Among the …. People books by Clara Pierson as I think those will fit there better. It’s been fun to do and has been great practice for next year when we’re “official.” 🙂 How is your Y0.5 going?

  2. Thank you for taking the time to do this. I get overwhelmed when I look at AO, but this seems gentle and doable. Your website is lovely!

    1. Thank you, Andrea! I’m so glad someone out there finds it useful. 🙂

  3. This is fantastic! Just what I have been looking for. Thank you for including all of your sources, as well!

    1. Thanks, Heidi! 🙂 I hope you find it helpful!

  4. Simply wonderful! I have a 7, 5, 3 and 4 no old. I’m about to take on homeschool full force and love Charlotte Mason methodology. These term plans make next year feel more possible for me. Thank you for your hard work!

    1. I’m so glad it’s helpful, Jill! 🙂

  5. Thanks so much for sharing this, including the links to the free Kindle books. I love the schedule you have laid out. I was planning on starting my son for Y1 but after seeing this, I think I’ll wait and do Y0.5 instead. I will use the same schedule as you. I just need to do some revisions because there are some books that my son has already read. Do you also have a link to a version I can edit? I don’t have MS Office (I use a Mac) but I can edit using google docs. Thanks again for making our lives easier! 🙂

    1. I use Google Docs to create it (I’m also on a Mac and have MS Office for Mac but find Google Docs so much easier to work with!), so when I post the new version a little later this summer (I’ll be changing a few books), I’ll be sure to include a link to the editable spreadsheet. 🙂

      1. I can’t seem to make the Dropbox link work, REB. Could you point me in the right direction, please?

Comments are closed.