My nephew is going to be a kindergartener and embarking a new homeschool journey! So I compiled a list of curriculums that we tried and worked for our family. Below are my Kindergarten Homeschool Curriculum suggestions and recommendations.
Keep in mind that kindergartener needs lots of time playing and a simple rhythm or routine. In school, students in Kindergarten differ in their maturity and ability vastly. Some are at the end of the spectrum and others are at the other end of the spectrum. Kindergarten teacher definitely needs patience and ability to differentiate learning systematically. But in a homeschool, you can adjust learning according to your child. With love, patience, simple easy structure, and curriculum that fits your child’s learning style, you can succeed in homeschooling your kindergartener.
For some kids, they might not be ready and need to go slow. For my Sweet Captain, he needed more time. It took him until the end of first grade to pick up all the phonics and start reading. For my Cutie Pie, she was ready. She absorbed everything she learned without any issues. So don’t worry if your child is not really ready and needs to go a bit slow. Here are some of the homeschool curriculums for Kindergarten that I recommend.
Bible
We’ve always worked on character training on our own. But I heard so many great things about GrapeVine Studies or Picture Smart Bible for studying the Bible. Kids can put the Bible in their own drawing and thus retaining more of what they learned.
Our kids are 2nd, 4th and 5th next school year, and we are studying “Who is God?” by Apologia and “How to Study Your Bible for Kids.” We are testing it during this summer, and we are pleasantly surprised by the content of Apologia and by the level of engagement with “How to Study Your Bible for Kids.” Because we also have 2nd grade child, we do the Bible study altogether. Eventually, I see that kids can study the Bible on their own with the Bible studies with Kay Arthur.
English Language Arts
The Good and the Beautiful Language Arts program worked very well for our Cutie Pie. The Level K Language Arts course incorporates God, family, nature, art, and strong moral values. The course is easy-to-teach and yet engaging and hands-on. You do not need prep-time to teach this course. It comes with phonics guide cards (Reading Booster A Cards) and books set (Reading Booster A Books Set). The Good and the Beautiful Language Arts (TGTB) course covers reading, phonics, writing, spelling, literature, grammar & punctuation, geography, and art.
Just a side note, for some children, this works perfectly. But for others, this English Language Arts (ELA) course is too fast paced. TGTB Language Arts course cover a lot of areas of learning but gently touches on it. So it is hard to check if your child has mastery over certain skills.
Overall, the course is for students who are ready to read, knowing most of the alphabet sounds. So you might want to wait until your child is ready with most of alphabet phonics. But if your child is ready, this Language Arts course is simply perfect.
Conclusively, it worked really well for one of my daughters but not very well for other kids. The Good and the Beautiful courses are beautiful, well thought-out and engaging but it might not always work for your family.
Reading/Phonics
All About Reading is more comprehensive phonics program. It is fun and engaging. Each lesson has clear objective. It takes some preparation time in the beginning, but once you get into a routine, it is open-and-go program.
This works well with students who struggle in reading. All About Reading and All About Spelling is based on Orton-Gillingham approach, research-based and multi-sensory (sight, hearing, touch and movement) teaching strategies. It works well for students with dyslexia.
My Sweet Captain was struggling to read even by the end of first grade. All the letters seem to jump out at him and made him despair. He needed short lessons with clear objectives and especially clear phonics rules. As we worked on All About Reading, he slowly gained confidence and started reading!
Handwriting
We tried A Reason for Handwriting and The Good and the Beautiful Handwriting Level K. Both are very good, but the Good and the Beautiful includes fun activities kids that our kids liked.
Math
We have been using Math in Focus: Singapore Math for all of our kids. I tried Singapore Math but didn’t really know how to teach them, but Math in Focus has teacher’s manual that guides you what to do in each lesson and unit. (You might not need teacher’s manual for Kindergarten.)
Math in Focus Kindergarten can be easy for your kids, but I regard it a valuable time to get your kids be interested in Math and regard it something fun. I also tried to use everyday materials (e.g. beans, erasers or pencils) as manipulatives to show them simple math.
Math in Focus materials are trying to move children from concrete objects (e.g. 2 apples, 3 beans) to pictorial representation (diagrams or visuals). Eventually, Singapore Math introduces Bar Modeling as a pictorial representation in 3rd grade and gradually introduces kids to abstract (e.g. A, 2A and etc..) math concepts.
History & Science
We teach history as a part of a family subject. To see more about history and science curriculum that we use, please see 2022-2023 Homeschool Curriculum.
Conclusion
Kindergarten is fun and yet challenging. Remember that God has bestowed you among billions of people to be the parent to your child for a reason. If God thinks you can do it, you can definitely be sure that you can do this well.
I can do all things through Him who strengthens me.
More Resources
Be sure to check out my other resources that can help you start your homeschool journey.