Little Barn Academy: Our Kindergarten Schedule

  

This fall we officially started Kindergarten. I've been teaching Seth (and Silas) since they were two. Initially, I documented what we did every week. Then I documented every month. As much as I loved doing that, and I did, it just wasn't possible once we started homeschooling.
We started Kindergarten the last full week in August and it has been wonderful. Both boys love to learn, but I couldn't have imagined how peaceful teaching and learning would be. We stick to the same basic schedule Monday through Thursday, and only modify the time we start on Thursdays (I attend a women's Bible study on Thursday mornings so we do school after 12 and into the afternoon) or if some crazy event happens. Seth also attends a Kindergarten class at a local Co-Op on Fridays.

I chose Five in a Row for our guiding literacy curriculum. We've been learning sight words, working with word families, and working through First Language Lessons. We also try to read at least an hour a day. We already finished the Kindergarten Workbook A in Singapore Math and are working on Book B. We will work through the first grade book in the Spring. We also try to read a story from the Bible each day and I have been reading aloud the book The Story of the World. Next year, we will read through it again and will also work through the workbook/activity book that goes with it.  We do art and music and crafts and field trips as they fit in with what we are learning each week.

So here is our basic schedule:
-Prayer/Bible
-Read through our Five in a Row book of the week (we read the same story every day for 5 days)
-Do Five in a Row related crafts or activities
-Play Break  (outside if possible)
-Journal (Seth writes one sentence of his choice and draws a picture to go with it.)
-Handwriting Practice
-Play Break/Skill Building
-Math (calendar, counting to 100, math games, workbook practice, etc.)
-Reading The Story of the World
-Reading books aloud
-First Language Lessons
-Play (outside if possible)
-Read (we read off and on the entire day, everyday, even on weekends)
-Play

We begin our day between 8:30 and 9 and are usually done shortly after our lunch. Our entire schedule is flexible though. If we are working on an activity and we want to continue with that, we go with it. That is very different from my classroom teaching days! It is so nice to have the freedom to work on something all morning and not feel pressure to work on something else just because we have to follow a rigid schedule. We can work until we finish or need a break. If Seth catches on to something really quick (say in Math) we can move on to the next thing. If something needs to be cut from the day, the history and language lessons are the first to go. We try to cover everything else everyday.

The teacher in me will probably always worry about whether I am teaching everything that I need to be teaching, if I'm lacking anything, or if I'm doing too much. But my role as parent helps calm that fear and that's the beauty of homeschooling. I love the idea of unschooling but that really doesn't mesh well with my personality and teaching style. I also love the thoughts of Charlotte Mason and with a bit of tweaking I'm trying to lean more towards that.

Each year we will learn and figure out what's best for our family. If Kindergarten is any indicator of the years to come, I can't wait to teach these boys of mine. It always has and always will be the best job in the world!