The kindergarten curriculum is now available in book form with a complete, week-by-week schedule, supply lists, and more!
Last week marked the halfway point of our first term working through B’s Charlotte Mason-inspired kindergarten curriculum, so I thought it might be time for an update as well as a link to Term 2!
What Has Worked
I think, for the most part, everything has worked for us extremely well. The majority of the readings have been a success so far with just a few exceptions that I had a problem with instead of him. He at least hasn’t complained about any of them, and usually looks forward to the reading time as he draws in his nature notebook (usually just things from his head rather than the beautiful nature books I got for him 😐 ) while he listens. He thinks the smiling bean in Seed Babies is hilarious, and has been especially attentive during all of the stories of The Irish Twins so far. He loved the Winnie-the-Pooh and Beatrix Potter stories when he was younger and that hasn’t changed at all. He has also enjoyed Old Mother West Wind so much that we started reading the other Thornton Burgess books (that aren’t in the later AO curriculum – all free for Kindle) and those have been a huge hit as well.
I’ve tried some narration with him just to get him used to that, but not a whole lot as I don’t really think it’s necessary right now. I can often tell just by the way he listens whether or not he is actually listening, and for the most part, he is.
His handwriting has also improved a lot already with the copywork, and it’s nice to have a visual record of how it evolved just these last few weeks. I also love our new math program (read more about that change below) as that gives me another visual record of what he’s been doing so far. I think being able to look back on his little math and handwriting activities when he’s older will be fun. 🙂
We have our regular “school” time four mornings per week (usually Monday through Thursday unless something else comes up), and then Fridays we try to go for a nature walk. Each school time lasts about 45 minutes (including “morning time” – see below for that – so the part listed in the curriculum below is probably only about 25 – 30 minutes), which is just about the perfect amount of time for B to sit still. Sometimes he likes to keep drawing in his nature notebook after he finishes his copywork (and I keep our composer on the radio), and sometimes he’s ready to do something else at that point. Ultimately, the short lessons and limited school time have been pretty perfect for us.
What Hasn’t Worked
The original math book I had picked out, Arithmetic for Young Children, was more difficult to work with than I had anticipated and I found that I needed more direction. Before starting the term, I had debated between that book and MEP, but E said he liked the book better and he’s the “math person” (being an engineer and all) of the family, so I deferred to him. It ended up being 15 minutes of me just asking B question after question after question, with some of them not making much sense to either one of us and I think we were both a little frustrated.
Right around this same time, a blog post about MEP that was written last year by one of the AO Auxiliary members, Brandy Vencel (who has an incredibly helpful Charlotte Mason blog) happened to show up in my Facebook feed and that sealed the deal for me. We made the switch, I haven’t looked back, and I’m excited to keep going with this math program. As I mentioned earlier, I love the little activities the program offers, that I have a little record of what he has been up to this year, and that’s it’s free. 🙂
I also switched out The Eskimo Twins after a somewhat graphic description of a bear-hunting trip and what the Inuit did with the carcass. Not that it was offensive in any way as I appreciate the fact that they were respectful to the animal and realize that many of their customs come from that respect. But it just wasn’t something I wanted to be reading to my son at this age. When he’s older, I can definitely see it being a good discussion book. This is yet another thing where you’re the best judge of what to read to your kids and maybe this is something that wouldn’t be an issue for you.
We exchanged that for The Irish Twins which has been a lot more innocent, though I do read through these chapters myself before we go through them during school time just so I know what to expect as there have been a few paragraphs I’ve needed to modify as I go.
I also changed out one of The Children’s Treasury of Virtues readings (“Boy Wanted”) because I didn’t care for the overall message or the language. Your mileage, again, my vary!
We’ve also not done well with handicrafts. Honestly, if I don’t have time scheduled for something, it just doesn’t happen, so I think I may have to be more intentional about that going forward. He pulled out his lap loom in September and was working on that for a while, so maybe I can get away with that…maybe? 🙂 There was no finished product, though, so maybe not….
I did update the downloadable curriculum to reflect all of these changes as well.
Morning Time
One thing I didn’t mention when I posted the first term curriculum was “morning time,” because I hadn’t planned on doing it at that time. AO recommends a hymn and a folksong each month, but I wasn’t sure where to fit that in and if it was even appropriate at this age, so I left them out. But then, as I listened to The Mason Jar Podcast and this concept of morning time (where some parents include the hymn and the folksong) was mentioned a few times, I decided to look into it more.
Essentially, how I’ve heard it described is that it’s a sort of “catch-all,” especially if you’re educating more than one student, where you can make sure you cover all of the readings/songs/poems/etc. that might otherwise be lost. You can also throw in there anything that you think might be important for your family. So, for instance, our morning time looks like this:
- Pray
- Bible Story (from The Jesus Storybook Bible and once we finish that, we’ll start the Children of God Storybook Bible)
- The Lord’s Prayer
- Art (we take a pretty quick look at whatever our art piece is – this is probably B’s least favorite part)
- Folksong (this is from AO, though we have substituted as necessary – last month we did Shoo Fly instead of Blow the Man Down)
- Hymn (also from AO, but we substituted this month Take My Life and Let It Be instead of Jesus, Lover of My Soul)
- Poem (this is something I pick randomly – last month we did The Mist and All and this month we’re doing A Bed in the Leaves)
- Doxology (again, something we recite/sing in church, so I’m including it to memorize it)
- Benediction
I download the two songs (if I don’t already have them) from Amazon or iTunes and we sing along with the music. For the poetry, I just find a poem that I think will be seasonally relevant and these two pieces are the kids’ favorite parts. B hides under the table and hums or sings along to the music (shy) and C belts out the words she knows…usually the last two or three of each line (not shy).
It’s fun to have them both be able to participate in some aspect of it since C isn’t all that interested in the math and reading time later on unless there are gratuitous pictures in the stories. As I mentioned, a few of these are things we do in church on Sundays so it’s not all that unique for morning time, but I like them, so I included them based on things that other parents using morning time had brought home from their churches.
I’m sure this will evolve as it’s extremely short right now (only about 10-15 minutes, depending on how long the songs are) and I’ve read that some other morning times last upwards of 2 hours, but it suits us for now.
Term 2
And so, without further ado, here is term 2! It’s almost identical to term 1 except I added a pre-reading element. I was able to find the BOB Books Pre-Reading set at Costco for $11, so I decided to include those (though we’re definitely not adding any formal reading instruction right now). It’ll all pretty much be review for B since he knows his alphabet very well and all of the sounds the letters make, but I think it’ll be good to get us used to using the BOB Books as that’s the reading method we’ll be using next year.
The only new books other than the BOB Books, are Science in Seconds in the science section, and The Artful Year in handicrafts. Otherwise, the rest of the books match Term 1 which you can see below.
Notes and Resources
Bible
- The Jesus Storybook Bible (this is my favorite children’s Bible, hands down.)
- Children of God Storybook Bible (this one was recently suggested by a blogger and I thought it was beautiful when we picked it up from the library, so I thought we might try it.)
This isn’t specifically mentioned in the curriculum because it’s part of morning time, but we do one story per day.
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
- Stories of Great Americans for Little Americans (free on Kindle)
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])
- The Seven Little Sisters Who Lived on a Round Ball That Floats in the Air (free on Kindle – I highly suggest pre-reading this as some very small parts of the content can be offensive)
- Rookie Read-About Geography (various) (we’ll be checking these out from the library during the weeks that we need them)
Nature Study
- Old Mother West Wind (free on kindle)
- Seed Babies
Another option here would be any of the Among the…People books by Clara Dillingham Pierson (all available for Kindle for free), and in fact, I think I might actually end up switching out the Burgess book for one of her books as I think they’re better at focusing on some of the more “technical” aspects of nature (but still in a living way). We’ve already read all of them, though, so I wanted to try the Burgess book first.
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.
Science
Literature
- Winnie-the-Pooh
- Beatrix Potter (we’ve actually read all of this and Winnie-the-Pooh when B was very young, but it’s been a while so we’re reading them again)
- The Children’s Treasury of Virtues (this is a combination of The Children’s Book of Virtues, The Children’s Book of Heroes, and The Children’s Book of America)
Poetry
This 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
- Mathematics Enhancement Programme Reception Year (free)
- Colored Pencils
- Colored Sticks
- Construction Paper
Art/Composer
- Giotto
- Medieval Era Music (the best and most affordable music I’ve found for this term can be found through the links on the AO website)
Generally, I print out the pieces from the art study on card stock and laminate them (I have this laminator). I go through one picture every two weeks during which time they sit propped up on a table-top easel on B’s school table. We look them over fairly briefly each day during morning time and I’ll usually just ask him simple questions like colors he notices or if he remembers who painted it or what the title of the piece is. There are more details on Ms. Mason’s views on picture study here.
For the music study, I play each selection (divided up on the AO website) every day while he’s working on his copywork and then also in the car when we’re on our way to our nature study for the week.
Handicraft
Copywork
- Simple Charlotte Mason Manuscript Copywork (free – 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 :))
- WorsksheetWorks.com Pre-Cursive Handwriting Practice (free)
The Simply Charlotte Mason copywork sheets are fantastic if you want something quick and premade to print out. I used this very successfully all during Term 1. Begninng with Term 2, I’ve started taking the poem we read each month during morning time and creating copywork pages from that on WorksheetWorks.com.
Habit
- Laying Down the Rails & Laying Down the Rails for Children Bundle (you can buy each of these separately, but the bundle is more economical)
I don’t have this listed in the curriculum, but I wanted to add it here as I think it’s a great resource and we do cover it during school time. We usually do two lessons per week of whatever habit we’re working on.
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 great discounted prices.
This post is part of a series on our Charlotte Mason Kindergarten year. You can read the others posts in the series here:
- Charlotte Mason-Inspired Kindergarten Curriculum (Term 1)
- Charlotte Mason-Inspired Kindergarten Curriculum (Term 3)
- Charlotte Mason-Inspired Kindergarten Recap
- Kindergarten Morning Time
I don’t have any kindergartner anymore, but this looks great and I would have appreciated something like this when my kids were younger! We just made the switch to MEP last year as well and I’m really appreciating how they’ve put things together!
Isn’t MEP great? I’m a little intimidated by the use of metric measurements later on as the US is behind the rest of the world in that area, but I know of several American homeschoolers who have used it with great success so hopefully it still works for us! 🙂
I love all of this! I’m “trying” to figure out how to dive into Charlotte Mason with my K/1st grade boy and I love how you laid this all out. So helpful!
I’m glad it’s helpful! 🙂 I really found the Ambleside Online website to be helpful, too.
I am attempting to dive into homschooling with my almost 5 yr old. Since writing this are there any tid bits/advice you would have liked to included in your already very informational post?
I’ve tried to update it as the year has gone on and I’ll have more updates to add when we’re completely done, but I think the biggest thing has been not to rush! And to have patience…not to expect too much (especially in the area of narration). Let it be fun since this is meant to be more of a gentle introduction to homeschooling for both your student and you. 🙂 Good luck!
Thank you, this is the best list of books I have seen. I am excited to check these out! I don’t get to be a SAHM, but I plan on substituting/supplementing her education in the evenings and fun nature and science experiments on the weekends.
This whole curriculum only takes us about 30-45 minutes/day, 4 times per week, so it’s very doable even if you’re not with your kiddos during the day!
Thank you so much for this! I’ve been looking for a resource like this to help me get started. Seems like my little boy is the same age as your little one…so will be starting first grade in the fall of 2017. I will anxiously await your update for 2017/2018. Thanks again!
Thanks, Tawny! I hope to have a new kindergarten curriculum up by mid-summer and then I’ll be sharing our 17-18 plans shortly after that. 🙂