Our Kindergarten Curriculum for 2015-2016

This is the first year that I am "officially" teaching two students. Little Britches is in fourth grade and Baby Britches is officially a Kindergarten student. Now if you've been following my blog, you also know that Baby Britches has been doing oddball school things with me for the last two years, but this year, he wanted to do "big boy" school. So I embraced the request and put together an official Kindergarten curriculum for him...but unlike Little Britches did five years ago when we were just getting started, Baby Britches has a lot more "extras" and variety! New student...new plans!

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It was rather difficult to make my final decision for Baby Britches first "official" year of school, but I have whittled it down to the following selections. I know that what we end our year with will probably be different from where we are right now, but these are in the plans for us as of now!

Our Core:

My Father's World- Creation A to Z

I love this program and I debated a lot about whether or not to use it the like I did with Little Britches. I wasn't sure that it would work for him, because he's been doing "school" for awhile and is beyond the basic bare bones beginning of phonics and math. But as I evaluated it some more, and pulled out our work from when Little Britches did it, I knew that I really wanted to experience the program again through new eyes with Baby Britches

Math:

Singapore Math: Essential Math Set A and B

Because Baby Britches can already identify his numbers, can count to 20, and can do most of what is part of beginning math for Kindergarten, I knew I wanted to get an actual math curriculum for him. He is totally different from his brother in how he does school, so I knew he'd be most likely a good candidate for Singapore math which I really liked--but Little Britches didn't. I found these Kindergarten level books to prepare him for Singapore 1A and we will be working with through them at HIS pace whether 1 page or 8 pages a day.

Language Arts:

First Start Reading

We reviewed First Start Reading earlier this year and Baby Britches did really well with it. I plan on using this program to go with the phonics that is part of MFW. He is so close to making the reading connection that I look forward to this year and seeing if we can make it happen!

Social Studies:

Expedition Earth

We will be doing this fabulous geography curriculum as a joint class with Little Britches. I am excited because I've eyeballed this program for a long time, and think it's going to be the perfect one to do together.

Story of the World-Volume 1

We will be also using Story of the World as our joint history class. We used this curriculum a couple years ago, but I am going to it back this year so we can do it for both boys. I have always liked this curriculum and I'm glad to be getting back to it. I plan on adapting it as needed for Baby Britches and we may do a lapbook to go with it. We are using the text and activity book for our class.

Health:

Horizons Health Set Kindergarten

This was another one that I reviewed earlier this year and we enjoyed it. I like what is included in the program and think it's a great addition to our year. 

Miscellaneous:

Super Teacher Worksheets

We are in the process of reviewing this product right now (will post 9/15), and I know that we will continue to supplement with it.

Visual Learning Systems

This is the science curriculum that Little Britches is using and I am letting Baby Britches sit in on it and do the projects. He's enjoying doing it with big brother. MFW has a great science portion, but I know he'll enjoy doing more with his brother.

ARTistic Pursuits

I plan on including Baby Britches in our once a week art project that we will do together. We have two of the ARTistic Pursuits books and I will be going between them for our lessons.

Various review goodies
As part of being on the Schoolhouse Review Crew, we will be having products to try throughout the year which I will cycle in and out, so I know we will be doing all sorts of other things as we go along!

So there you have it! It might look like a lot, but understand that each of these things only fills up a small part of the day and Baby Britches is a child that demands school! He gets plenty of play time, but because he wants to be doing school when his brother does school, I had to come up with something to make that happen!

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