Fun Kinder Curriculum

[MiddleCourt]

My third and last child will be in Kindergarten next year. I already have her phonics and math picked out (I think), but I am looking for something fun to go along with it. I created my own thing for my oldest and my second did barely any kindergarten due to low interest, so I feel like I’m starting over. 

I’d like something that has topics that change throughout the year (like, no US History for the whole year) that covers fun little kid topics of interest, like pumpkins, weather, holidays, etc. Because I’m homeschooling two others and do have to work a little throughout the week, I’d like it as open and go as possible.

I’ve researched tons of different curriculum but there’s so much out there, maybe someone knows of one I’m missing. I think My Father’s World is the closest I’m looking for, but I don’t really want to focus on animals all year. 

Maybe the best bet would be to do a letter of the week type thing and incorporate themes? This is my last kindergartener so I want it to be FUN!

[Lori D.]

Brightly Beaming Resources - Letter of the Week = FREE online lists of ideas and overview lesson plans; lots of ideas
- lesson plans
- booklist -- children's book with the week's letter in the title
- suggested daily activities + list of possible alphabet books to enjoy

She also has free online lesson plans for:
- Science of the Week -- based on the Let's Read and Find Out About Science series
- Country of the Week (geography) -- (in progress) done by letter of the alphabet so it can be combined with Letter of the Week, if desired


Also, you might just have fun pulling together weekly or monthly themes -- see the links to The Spruce blog articles for big lists of celebration daysfor each month)
September
(list of holidays and observances)
- Labor Day
- National Read a Book Day (Sept. 6)
- National sewing month
- National library card sign-up month
October
(list of holidays and observances)
- autumn
- Halloween
- national butterfly and hummingbird day
... etc.
November
(list of holidays and observances)
- Thanksgiving
- 100 Day = 100th day of school
December
(list of holidays and observances)
- winter
- Christmas, Chanukkah, Kwanza 
January 
(list of holidays and observances)
- New Year's
- MLK Day
- 100 Day = 100th day of school
February
(list of holidays and observances)
- Valentine's Day
- President's Day
March
(list of holidays and observances)
- spring
- pi day (14th of March ... 3.14)
April
(list of holidays and observances)
- Arbor Day
- Earth Day
- Easter
May
(list of holidays and observances)
- Memorial Day

Edited February 16, 2021 by Lori D.

[MiddleCourt]

8 minutes ago, Lori D. said:

Brightly Beaming Resources - Letter of the Week = FREE online lists of ideas and overview lesson plans; lots of ideas
- lesson plans
- booklist -- children's book with the week's letter in the title
- suggested daily activities + list of possible alphabet books to enjoy

She also has free online lesson plans for:
- Science of the Week -- based on the Let's Read and Find Out About Science series
- Country of the Week (geography) -- (in progress) done by letter of the alphabet so it can be combined with Letter of the Week, if desired


Also, you might just have fun pulling together weekly or monthly themes:
September
- Labor Day
October
- autumn
- Halloween
November
- Thanksgiving
- 100 Day = 100th day of school
December
- winter
- Christmas, Chanukkah, Kwanza 
January 
April
- Arbor Day

Your list is exactly what I’m looking for, but I want someone else to do it for me, ha! I’ve just found that when I do it myself, I let it Peter out. I’m finally admitting to myself that we all do better when I have a curriculum I can loosely follow. I’ll have a third and fourth grader to work with, plus I work for an online charter school, so it’ll alleviate a lot if I can have it laid out for me. Thank you for your input!!

[Lori D.]

38 minutes ago, MiddleCourt said:

Your list is exactly what I’m looking for, but I want someone else to do it for me, ha! I’ve just found that when I do it myself, I let it Peter out. I’m finally admitting to myself that we all do better when I have a curriculum I can loosely follow. I’ll have a third and fourth grader to work with, plus I work for an online charter school, so it’ll alleviate a lot if I can have it laid out for me. Thank you for your input!!

That's what summer is for... 😉 Spend a week this summer having fun deciding what you want to do for each week as your fun focus; find a craft or song or activity or book through a quick online search, make your "master list", and then at the start of each month run through your master list and pull together all your resources, toss them in a bin, and pull it out each day and check off a fun thing. 😉 

Edited February 16, 2021 by Lori D.

[Lori D.]

Or, maybe:
Five in a Row
Blossom and Root

Edited February 16, 2021 by Lori D.

[MiddleCourt]

3 minutes ago, Lori D. said:

Or, maybe Five in a Row??

FIAR was my original plan, so that’s also a possibility. I think both my girls would enjoy it, if I go that route. 

[Terabith]

Wee Folk Art is lovely!

[medawyn]

If you really want it all done, Ivy Kits are spendy but come with all the supplies you need for games/crafts/stem activities surrounding a book a month.  When we were subrscribers, adding a sibling to the kit was very reasonable ($5-6 doubled everything in the box).

Blossom and Root and Wee Folk Art are both lovely, and if you have summer to prep all supplies/crafts it's great.

[Pintosrock]

I liked FIAR, but couldn't get over the cost. Highly recommend Wee Folk Art. We also did Weekly Virtual Book Club for kids. Same intent as FIAR, but free and someone else creates the ideas for you!

https://m.facebook.com/groups/159517497822475/?ref=group_browse

[2_girls_mommy]

32 minutes ago, Pintosrock said:

I liked FIAR, but couldn't get over the cost. Highly recommend Wee Folk Art. We also did Weekly Virtual Book Club for kids. Same intent as FIAR, but free and someone else creates the ideas for you!

https://m.facebook.com/groups/159517497822475/?ref=group_browse

I was like how is FIAR expensive.  I have found used copies of the guide so cheaply several times and then used the library or our own collection for the books.  But I just looked up the starter packs, and it is pretty high if you don't find it all used! 

[2_girls_mommy]

OP, yes, Letter of the Week, the first link in Lori's list is a great resource.  I have used it a few times.  I just preprinted the whole thing and hole punched and put into a book.  Then I checked out library books weekly, printed coloring sheets for the activity (sometimes we glued things, painted, or did other hand on things with the printouts too.) And I printed out any poetry links to go along. 

Then the activities were pretty simple.  We did the index card color words which I have used with all of my kids, and then did all kinds of activities from the lists, never all of them, just whatever I wanted to. 

But I also did themes like she gave on animals, holidays, and other seasonal things.  For that age it is so easy to google for a short lesson plan and craft for most of those things.  

Another idea that I have done in co-op twice is unit studies on Dr. Seuss books.  That is lots of fun.  I have a Dr. Seuss preschool calendar, so I taught calendar stuff with that as a circle time each meeting time, then we did activities for different books each week.  All lesson plans and printouts were found free. 

If you do a list and do some of the preplanning in the summer as suggested, it is pretty easy.  When we did animals, I would do like bats and owls in October.  We did apples and harvest things in Sept.  Then in November Thanksgiving topics like Native Americans for our area or learned about the pilgrims or whatever, then December was reindeer studies and Christmas studies and crafts, I would just get a library book or two on each topic, look for printables. and so on. 

One idea is to pay for a Subscription for schoolhouseteachers dot com.  As a member there are so many preplanned out classes on there for this age to pick from. 

Or you do the Scholastic learn at home subscription.  They offered a couple months of it free last year when the lockdowns started, and my then Ker loved it.  We worked through the Pre/K lessons and into the 1st/2nd grade free ones and she was very sad when it wasn't free anymore.  They are set up like a little unit a day around science and social studies topics.  Each lesson had a book they read to the student, a literature story, very good titles, then a non fiction story on the topic, then a short film, online game activities, then movement activities each day.  Then there was a list to free online links that would have crafts, games, and other fun websites on each topic.  I would just skim the list and look for a craft and an easy online game she could do.  I did not love the online game/learning activity for each lesson, the vocabulary,  but I think I just don't like online learning in general.  It is kind of easy to just click around until you get the right answer, but eventually mine figured out what they were asking and could do them the right way.  She really liked these activities, and it required zero planning.  The movement activities and crafts involved basic household items.  Some of the links to craft things might require a printer or not as handy items, but you can pick what you want to do in the extra resource section. 

Edited February 16, 2021 by 2_girls_mommy

[Elizabeth86]

I'm coming up on my 3rd kindergarten child and I think I'm doing FIAR. Memoria Press Enrichment was a close second.

[maptime]

Have you taken a look at Memoria Press’ Kindergarten enrichment?  Each week is centered around a different read aloud picture book, with a coordinating craft and often a light science or history tie-in all planned out for you.  Each week also introduces the child to a poem, a musical piece, and a piece of art work, often (but not always) loosely tied to the topic of the week.   It really is a sweet program.  Here’s a peek at the read aloud books and science books they use so you can get an idea of what kind of books are scheduled.  Obviously a lot of these can be found at the library so making a huge purchase isn’t necessary🙂

Kindergarten Enrichment Read Alouds

Kindergarten Science Supplemental Books

[Ellie]

What about Volume 1 of KONOS?

[MiddleCourt]

These are all great ideas, and I now have lots to think about. Thank you to everyone who took the time to respond, I’ve been quietly reading along.

[My4arrows]

I’m another for FIAR. It’s an all time favorite for our family. I’m starting all over again with Before FIAR with my preschooler and 1st grader and ALL my kids come and decide to sit in and recall our days of FIAR. 
The new manuals are more expensive so I’d buy the old ones used. They are the same content just with a few added things like worksheets.  Most of the books are easy to find at the library or used. Anything out of print I just skip over if we can’t find it except for one favorite I splurged on when I found a “good” price. I’m planning our volume 1&2 for next year and I love the memories that keep coming up. 

[MiddleCourt]

1 hour ago, My4arrows said:

I’m another for FIAR. It’s an all time favorite for our family. I’m starting all over again with Before FIAR with my preschooler and 1st grader and ALL my kids come and decide to sit in and recall our days of FIAR. 
The new manuals are more expensive so I’d buy the old ones used. They are the same content just with a few added things like worksheets.  Most of the books are easy to find at the library or used. Anything out of print I just skip over if we can’t find it except for one favorite I splurged on when I found a “good” price. I’m planning our volume 1&2 for next year and I love the memories that keep coming up. 

I do own the first volume already, so this is definitely an option. 

[eternallytired]

Okay, this is a totally different direction than everyone else has gone, but when I think "fun, open-and-go, with varying topics of interest to early elementary," I think Mystery Science.  My kids LOVED those units from about K-2ish.  You sign up for a yearlong subscription.  They have a wide variety of topics of interest to kids that you can select from, with a prep list (print this page, have a ruler handy, etc).  Then there are videos where they very conversationally talk to your kid about the topic and lead them in a hands-on activity.  We had so much fun, and the kids still remember these fondly. I also remember them fondly, since I had very little prep to do and could just sit back and enjoy with them.   Mystery Science also offers--free--a weekly email with a science question posed by a kid and answered in just a few minutes.  Kids could vote for one of three questions to be answered the next week, which they thought was cool.  The only drawback there was that they didn't seem to pre-screen the questions, so some of them were very appropriate/science-y (Why do I feel yucky when I get sick?) while others were less so (Who invented pizza?).