fun, packaged, detailed curriculum for K

[celticadea]

I am nearly scrapping all my plans for kindergarten for my daughter (5 this august). We're getting a handle on issues like slow processing, difficulty with auditory processing, possibly dyslexia (lots of the pre-reading signs), maybe aspergers/social-language pragmatics, etc....

 

She needs direction and scheduling. She needs hands-on, and visual learning.

 

We recently started AAR-pre and she _loves_ Ziggy and its good practice for scripting and interaction. So....I'm planning to continue with AAR-1 when we get there. I've got MIF-K for math. We're starting HWT to work on fine motor control and letter orientation and I plan to continue with it until we've got a good handle on it and can move into writing/copywork maybe late K or 1st or later as needed.

 

Since we've got plenty of hard work to do, so I'm looking for something that is fun (activities, projects, etc) and put together for kindergarten. I'd prefer more secular than heavily religious. I'm thinking about MBTP (5-7), Sonlight (4-5? or 5?), the reading list and enrichment guide from MP, Timberdoodle kindergarten, Intellego package, ....?????

 

other ideas? thoughts on the above? other companies that I don't know about?

 

comparisons on the reading lists of the above?

 

--I understand that many people don't do a packaged or actual 'curriculum' for Kindergarten but it's something that I need to keep us all on track and ensuring that she gets something fun and coordinated to balance the work we need to do for the other areas.

 

I'm new to homeschooling, let alone special needs, so I need lots of hand-holding Even if the package isn't the greatest education in the world, it's only Kindergarten and I want it to be fun for her. She gets and will continue to get plenty of free play time.

 

ETA: added intellego to the list

[freeindeed]

Oak Meadow Kindergarten is what I'll be using with my special needs dd5 in a few years. Right now she's using their preschool package in combination with a couple of other Waldorf-inspired resources. I find that this method of teaching/learning suits her very well.

[sewingmama]

We are using MBTP 5-7. It's very school like, lots of worksheets and writing. If your DD has processing problems I don't think it is the way to go for her.

 

If you want something fun and want to work on processing skills I would use either BFIAR or homeschool share units which are free. Sonlight might also work but in the early ages its just reading without activities.

 

We use homeschool share units as our curriculum after the basics and we use Sonlight as a reading list. The sonlight books are engaging and most children love them.

 

We use homeschool share because its free and I can find most of the books at my library.

 

Anyway if I had a child with processing issues I would be using a curriculum that was very heavy in reading aloud. Especially at that young age.

[lea_lpz]

Maybe too religious but my dd needed more hands on, multisensory learning and less worksheets as well as a slow and steady pace. I wanted to have the fun stuff to use as a carrot to get her to do the meat if the work and finally, I wanted all are material integrated to reinforce what we were learning since she had trouble retaining what she learned, and mfw k fit the bill for that. We spend about 5-10 minutes a day on Bible and the concepts are pretty general and widely accepted among most Christian denominations, plus you can tweak them. For example, if you aren't new earth then don't use the dinosaur book, or if you don't want to teach the concept of a wife submitting to the husband, leave it out. Just thinking of some points I had some conflict off the top my head with the material. Mostly though it's language, math, Bible, read alouds, and a rotation of activities including science, social studies, hands in math, art, music, crafts, cooking, etc.

 

Some things that could be helpful in your case-it takes only about an hour and half to complete on average and you can break it up easily into small 15 minute chunks. My dd does take more like 2 hours to complete a day of scheduled work because it takes her longer to complete the language and math work (45-60 min.) which could be the case for your child too, but because at least some of it hands on and the material is varied, this keeps her interest. Also we incorporate HWOT and Singapore Early Bird math, and Bob Books, so I guess that's really what's bringing our day to 2 hours.

 

We're happy with the results. In preschool we were advised to hold her back a year and do pre-k as well as test for learning disabilities. She is going to complete her entire k curriculum this year and be ready to start 1st in target. This is much more than I could have hoped for. We worked at her pace and I was fully ready to slow down if necessary, but she was able to handle it beautifully.

 

There are posters on the mfw board who have used the curriculum with children with a wide spectrum of learning disabilities and share the modifications they've made, if any.

 

Here's the link:

 

http://www.mfwbooks.com/products/M50/20/0/0/1

 

 

 

 

[celticadea]

thanks for the ideas. :) I'll have a chance to look at MFW at a conference next month. hopefully I'll see oak meadow too. I'd dismissed that one because it seems all the stories are included in their book instead of outside story books.

 

I'm really looking for something that's coordinated so the projects are about learning and not just only a random craft that resembles the story. she's a bright child and creative but just doesn't get information in from hearing it or without a visual reference.

 

for example, a few weeks ago i got some 100 number puzzles to show her the idea of repeating nature of numbers. I had no plan or expectation that she would count to 100. At the time it was a bit frustrating continual scripting on my part about finding the first number on the piece and then finding its spot in on the puzzle. (I know I need to script and be explicit with her and my frustration level has gone down so much after realizing this.) anyway, 2 days ago while watching a show I realized that she was whispering numbers. as I listened she counted to 100 on her own and was very proud of herself! :) she also loves to make up songs and remembers things well from them.

 

I've thought of FIAR too but I'm hoping for incrementally tied together so there's a flow to the info. (like, do this book book, then this one, etc..) I'd love to do simple Americana & holidays. I like the progression/topics of intellego but really dislike digital books for teaching and would rather a list of picture books about the topics than info in a document.

[ondreeuh]

Calvert Kindergarten would work nicely. The lesson manual lays out each day's schedule, and includes gentle math and basic phonics. The beauty of the program is that all of the craft activities and recipes are right in the lesson manual, so there is NO flipping around to figure out what to do. Lots of activities are scheduled in that most programs leave out, like telephone manners, teaching your kid to jump rope, building obstacle courses and games, etc. GREAT activities for Kindy. Even though I won't be using Calvert I have extracted many of the activities to do with my kid.

 

MBTP uses worksheets in their activities, and some people don't like that about the K program. There aren't any worksheets in Calvert; everything is discussion and hands-on.

[celticadea]

is it possible to do calvert without their phonics? can you get only some of their curriculum? I've been looking at it a lot but din't want to spend $1000 and then not use half of it :(

[ondreeuh]

I got the lesson manual from a used book store - I actually have an extra copy of an older version if you want to pay for shipping. Their phonics program is easy to skip because it's very basic - but that activities would be fun to add to any K phonics. Some of the activities are to introduce a letter, identify the whether words have that sound in them, compare sets of words to decide if they have the same vowel sound. The LA includes comprehension too - cute stories from the Poems & Prose and Rainbows books are used to teach story elements.

[alisoncooks]

I was going to suggest MFW also, but wasn't sure re: the religious content. Fun science activities/observations each week, loved learning about animals through the program (my kids are science geeks), great book suggestions.

 

My oldest wasn't able to keep up with the phonics, though -- one of the problems with a program that integrates everything throughout the year...