What we are doing
I have been asked many times "What curriculum are you using?" To which I respond, "None. I feel comfortable teaching my children. I was a teacher after all." With that said we have some general resources we have chosen. I purchased "What your Kindergartner Should Know" by E.D. Hirsch which is part of his Core Knowledge series and we are using it as a guide for the minimums we should cover this year. We also signed Thomas up for a math website called Splash Math. I like it because he can navigate it himself and he gets "coins" to be able to buy stuff for their "games" which is a great motivator. I also got to go through all of my old teacher stuff and try to decide what we are ready for, what to save for later, and what if junk. Mostly I went though a bunch of phonics sorts and found some great ones.
Our days goes something like this:
-Everyone up, fed, dressed, and ready for the day by 9:00
-Devotional: a simple scripture, a song, and a prayer
-Word Work: learn sight words and do a phonics activity word families,word sorts, etc.
-Reading Practice: Thomas reads me 3 books (the sight words we learn are from the books I choose)
Everything else is done in varying order and at varying time, but this is what we try to get in:
-Play outside, take a walk, go to the park, or go swimming (if it's hot)
-Spanish time: Read a book in Spanish, sing a song in Spanish, and do a fun activity (such as playdough) in Spanish
-Splash Math for Thomas, Educational Apps on the Kindle for Stuart
-Read Aloud: a chapter for Thomas (right now we're doing a Boxcar Children book) and a picture book for Stuart
-A fun math, music, art, science, or history activity either from the E.D. Hirsch book or something we just want to learn about or make.
If they want to watch TV they can choose something educational for about an hour after I put Heidi down. Their choices right now are NOVA (which Thomas loves), Magic School Bus, or Dinosaur Train. We just purchased another series called Liberty Kids that we'll add to the list. Other than that we watch a movie on Friday night with our pizza, they can watch other shows on Saturday, and on Sunday they can watch our scripture movies.
Thomas also loves to listen to audiobooks throughout the day (especially in the car) and as he goes to sleelp at night.
I like to ask myself: Were my kids creative today? Did my kids get exercise today? Were my kids musical today? Did my kids read and/or get read to today? Did I spend a little quality time with each child today?
