Kindergarten is the start of learning, it should be fun and exciting! My kinder learns best with repetition along with fun and excitement. He does not really like a lot of coloring, although we still do it, but does like cutting and creating. I created a morning workbook we do everyday to start his morning. I designed all the pages and printed them out, put them in sleeves and he uses a dry erase marker to complete it. He likes knowing exactly how his morning is going to start and loves that he has his own folder.
First we go over the days of the weeks, months of the year, and days of the month. When practicing the days of the week we sing the Jack Hartmann “seven days in a week” song (as Kernel learned the days of the weeks we stopped watching the song and he sang it on his own). We talk about the day before and the day after. We then go over the months of the year also listening to Jack Hartmanns “Month of the year” song (Kernel still listens to this song). For the day of the year we go over that day, the day before and the day after, and practices writing the date in number format. I designed the pages to be simple and not to distract him but also inviting.
Next we work on numbers. Kernel practices writing his numbers 1-19 then by 10’s, 20-30. We then pick a number of the day and figure out if it’s even or odd and write it in tally marks. He then figures out 1 before, 1 after and 10 before, 10 after. I found that figuring out 10 before and after was a little difficult when not just counting by 10, 20, 30 etc. but once he got it, he got it. I explained that the ones place never changed that only the tens place changes by 1. We continue with his number of the day by splitting the number to see how the whole number is made. This also shows how the number is even or odd. We do this with beans so he can visually see. Next I created a “piggy bank” and visuals of what the front and back of coins look like and what they are worth. He then has to take fake coins we have and figure out his number of the day in money. He loves this part 🙂 I added in later a skip counting page where he practices counting by 5’s, 10,s 2’s and skip counting by tens starting at 17. He can do this by counting to me but I wanted him to practice writing it and visually seeing it.
Kernel then works on his letters, more so for penmanship then letter learning, but this also refreshes letter memory, he writes capital and lowercase. Some days I only have him work on the ones he is having trouble with and not all of them. We then work on his word of the day, from his reading words of the week. He writes the word 3 times, boxes it, builds it (with scrabble tiles), how many syllables, draws a picture, and writes a sentence from his book using the word (making sure to start with a capital and end with a punctuation)…he loves this page!
Also included is a clock page that he fills out the hours and minutes and then shows me times with the hands. A phone number page so he can start learning my phone number, which he has down already 🙂 and an address page. I think all kids should know this in an emergency!
I2AET Homeschool 