As I looked back over my lesson plans from two years ago, anticipation started to build for doing kindergarten a second time! There will be some significant changes from the way I did kindergarten with Número Uno. Most notably, we are no longer in a Classical Conversations community, so those activities which I used to reinforce handwriting and memory work will be very different!
Reading
We will continue with All About Reading! Número Dos made it through all of AAR Pre-Reading level last year, and maybe the first quarter of Level 1. We will pick up where we left off, and hopefully be able to start Level 2 at some point this year. Maybe, maybe not. Time will tell!
I also plan on working our way through some of my favorite readers, both vintage and new, that I have on hand: Farm & City, Little Bear readers, and a collection of Usborne Phonics Readers.
Language Arts
For Número Uno, we used Handwriting Without Tears throughout pre-k and kindergarten. It’s a lovely program, and worked well for him. Of course Número Dos made me switch things up, haha! He did well with the lessons, but nothing was sticking! He could not write letters upon request when we were using HWT. So, last year, I switched over to IEW PAL Writing for his handwriting instruction, and he loved the letter stories so much! We made it through all of the lowercase letters last year, and will start back with uppercase instruction when school starts. We will also be using IEW PAL Writing for storytelling/narration/journaling/other language arts.
For copywork, we will use the beautiful illustrated copywork pages provided in our Playful Pioneers curriculum.
Math
As I stated in my last post, we are switching away from Saxon this year. Número Dos completed Saxon Kindergarten last year in Pre-K. This year, we are so excited to be part of a Pilot Program for a new Math curriculum being produced by one of my favorite Math bloggers and authors, Kate Snow. I used her Math Facts That Stick books with Número Uno last year and loved them so much. I found myself wishing she had written a curriculum; she is in the process of doing so! The program is called Math With Confidence, and I am thrilled to get to be a part of its pilot year!
In addition to Math With Confidence, he will also get to use the Star Wars Kindergarten Math Workbook and will tag along for Life of Fred read alouds.
That’s my picks for Kindergarten, round two! Stay tuned for tot school ideas!
Setting the Feast 