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KINDERGARTEN CURRICULUM PICKS 2024-2025 | HOMESCHOOL CURRICULUM CHOICES
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Jun 19, 2024
Making some last-minute changes to my kindergarten homeschool curriculum for the fall...what do you think of this plan? MENTIONED IN THIS VIDEO: ⭐ My Father's World Curriculum — https://blessedhomeschool.com/mfw VIDEOS YOU MIGHT LIKE: Making Curriculum Choices: https://youtu.be/w0GLAQ4WMrw ********************************************* Hey there! I’m Sara, and I’m a teacher-turned-homeschooling mom to 4 kiddos (including a set of twins!). I balance homeschooling while working full-time from home, and am so thankful you are here. I love sharing about homeschooling on my blog, Blessed Homeschool, where you’ll find tips, resources, and curriculum reviews. Whether you are a newbie or a veteran, I hope you will leave inspired and equipped with what you find. ⚡DISCOUNT CODES ⚡ • 20% off Homeschool Hall with code BLESSEDHOMESCHOOL — https://homeschoolhall.com/activity-journal?aff=blessedhomeschool • 20% off one item from Homeschool Style Co. with code YOUTUBE20 — https://www.homeschoolstyleco.com
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Kindergarten homeschool curriculum. Let's chat about that today. So I thought that I had my
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kindergarten curriculum all planned out and knew exactly what I was going to do. And last week
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I changed my mind. Welcome back to my channel for another video. Welcome. If you are new here
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my name is Sarah and next year I am going to be homeschooling a kindergartner. This is going to
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be my second time homeschooling a kindergartner. We actually began homeschooling when my oldest
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son was in kindergarten and that son is now going to be in seventh grade next year. I also have
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twin daughters who are going to be in sixth grade and that is kind of the wide range of kids that I
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am homeschooling from kindergarten to seventh grade. That being said, the reason I thought I
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knew what I was going to do was because I was going to simply just use the same kindergarten
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curriculum that I used the first time around. And spoiler alert, I am going to be using that same
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curriculum. However, not exactly in the way that I intended to use it. Because when I used this
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curriculum the first time around, I only had my oldest son that I was homeschooling. My daughters
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were three years old at the time and they kind of hung out with us, played with us
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did some of the simple activities with us. But for the most part, I had a lot of time to spend
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with my son. We weren't involved in a co-op. We didn't have a lot of extra sports or activities
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besides BSF and Iwana that took up our time. So I had a lot of time in our home just to focus on him
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which was great because again, that was our first year of homeschooling and I had a lot that I
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needed to figure out. What I realized that I wasn't thinking about now though was that
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life looks 100% different now as we're going through kindergarten again. I'm not just homeschooling
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a kindergartner. I'm homeschooling a kindergartner to sixth graders and a seventh grader. So last week
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as I was sitting down and kind of organizing everything, gathering my thoughts, figuring out
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how I was going to fit everything into our daily routine, I realized that I could use the same
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curriculum, but I was going to have to use it in a different way. I couldn't use it the same exact
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way I did with my kindergartner in the past. And I really did want to use this curriculum because I
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had great memories of it. I loved using it before. So I wanted to figure out how I can make this work
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and what this would look like. If you've been watching my channel for a while, you probably
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know that I've mentioned using my Father's World kindergarten curriculum with my oldest son. This
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is a curriculum that I mentioned to all moms who ask me, you know, if they're starting out
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they're homeschooling a kindergartner, they're wondering, how do I start homeschooling? What
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should I use? This is what I recommend to them. This right here. This is God's creation from A to
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Z, the kindergarten curriculum from my Father's World. This was such a blessing to us in our first
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year homeschooling. And I love so many things about it. Not just this kindergarten curriculum
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specifically, but my Father's World in general. I love the detailed open and go lesson plans
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I love the literature, the living book focus, the focus on character development
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their family style learning, and their focus on keeping God's word at the center of what we are
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learning and so much more. So I am planning on doing a flip through of this curriculum so I can
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show you more in depth what it's like and some of the things that we did with it. But for now
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let me just give you a brief overview. This curriculum covers all subjects, which was a
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big appeal to me in the beginning when I had no clue what I was doing or thought I had no clue
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what I was doing, because at least I knew I was going to have everything covered. So this curriculum
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is going to include everything. Your math, your reading, language arts, art, science
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and there's a music component. I think, I think that's it. But there are 26 different hands-on
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easy to teach units. So you go through every letter of the alphabet and you go through a
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different science topic each week. And then you also have related Bible concepts and character
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training that you're going through with this. So it's very easy to follow typical my father's
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world. For example, this is what your schedule kind of looks like. So it's broken up into days
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and then you have your reading, language arts, and math portion. You have your different activities
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here, which is going to cover a lot of your science concepts. So like this week was penguin
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and then they have their, their character concept right here. I show love to everyone
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especially my family. So you've got your activities. There's some Bible, some music in
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here, art, and then you have a read aloud portion as well. And then outside time, that's pretty open
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but this is kind of what a typical schedule, a typical day would look like using this curriculum
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And that's a very general overview, big picture overview. So now that you know what this covers
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let me talk about what I'm going to be changing and doing next year. So as I was organizing my
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older kids materials last week, I was looking at my girls science curriculum and realized that the
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curriculum was differentiated and could be used for older and younger students. And I realized
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that the curriculum I have for my girls actually can be used for kids kindergarten through sixth
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grade. My girls are going to be sixth grade next year, and I like the curriculum that I'm going to
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be using for them. So this is the science curriculum that, that I'm going to be using for my
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sixth grade girls. It is from Brain Builders. It is Science in the Beginning. And so my wheels
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started to kind of turn a little bit as I was trying to piece all of this together. My son
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loves hanging out with his big sisters, loves to be a part of the big kids stuff when he can
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and I started thinking that maybe I could have him, my kindergartner, do science with my daughters
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next year. So this curriculum, Science in the Beginning, introduces science topics using history
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as its guide and has its lessons built around activities and experiments, which my son really
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loves. And there are different levels of review for each lesson, so it's very easy to differentiate
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So this is going to be pretty different for us. I'm actually kind of curious to see how it's going
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to go, but the science portion of My Father's World Kindergarten is a big chunk of their
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kindergarten curriculum. So like I said, each week you focus on a letter and a science topic
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that begins with that letter. So like I mentioned, you know, for P, you would be learning about the
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penguin that week, and you would be focusing on that letter and that topic. Most of your activities
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are going to center around that topic, and you have to pull books from the library to kind of
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supplement learning about that and, you know, find any extra resources that you want to use. So not
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only is that a big part of the curriculum, but it takes up a good chunk of time for me planning-wise
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just to gather some of those extra pieces that we're going to need. And again, that's not a huge
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deal if my kindergartner was the only one that I was homeschooling or one of two or something
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but by combining science for him with my daughter's, it is actually going to save a lot of time
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for me, you know, in not having to teach two separate lessons each day and also saves time
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in that extra prep work for prepping for two different curriculums. It's brilliant, I know
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but seriously, will this be a terrible idea or will it work out? My kindergartner with my
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sixth graders? Time will tell, and I will let you guys know. And part of me is a little bit sad because
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I really did have fun using this curriculum. My older son and I have some great memories with
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the different activities that we did and the things that we learned, but maybe that's a good thing. I
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have those memories that I can hang on to with him, and that's kind of our thing. And moving
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forward, I'll get to create some new memories and different memories with my youngest. And also
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I think there is just so much value, so much beauty in our kids of different ages getting
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to learn together. Not only will this help my kindergartner and will he benefit from it
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but I think my girls will really love helping their younger brother throughout the year and
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getting to spend some time learning with him. So what else am I going to use for my kindergartner
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Well, I briefly considered picking out a different curriculum for reading and one for math, but then
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I realized that really I can still use my father's world for those since I already have the materials
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I already have, um, there are different student sheets that come with this curriculum. I had an
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extra set of those, and I have all the materials from when I did this before. So figured why
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throw any money into different curriculums when I have something that works perfectly fine here
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or that I think is going to work perfectly fine. So I'm going to use this curriculum for
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reading slash language arts and math, and that is, if I flip back to this page, this is the top
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block right here. So the reading slash language arts and math. So there is calendar work here
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there's handwriting practice, poems, phonics-based lessons, and then typical kindergarten math lessons. Those are all included, and the plan is to simply use this until we have problems with it
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or it isn't working for us. As far as the activities portion here, I'm going to take these
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on a week-to-week basis. I do love the character building activities and some of the things that
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we did before, so we will probably work those into our days somehow. There are Bible lessons
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here, but we are still going to be attending BSF and AWANA, and I do plan on having my kindergartner
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sit in on the Bible lessons that I'm going to be doing with my older kids through their curriculum
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which is My Father's World, Creation to the Greeks. But the science-related activities we are
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going to skip since we'll be using the other science curriculum. And for art, I will probably
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have him tag along with my older kids as well and just do some simpler versions of some of the art
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projects they're going to be doing with their curriculum. And then this bottom row, like I said
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is the read aloud section. I will do this as well as there are some great books that are included
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with this curriculum, and I will probably end up reading those to all of my kids, maybe during our
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morning time or something like that. So I do plan on doing the read aloud section of this curriculum
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So that's it. That's what I'm going to be doing with my kindergartner next year. Reading, language arts, and math. A little bit of character training that we'll be using
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with the My Father's World curriculum. Science will be done using Bree and Builder's Science
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in the Beginning. We've got Bible taken care of, both separately and integrated into these curriculum
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choices. And my kindergartner will also be tagging along when he can for some of the things that my
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older kids are doing. I think that for this age, reading and math are especially important to start
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focusing on. So I'm definitely going to be keeping an eye on how he is doing with those with this
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curriculum. And, you know, I hope it works well, but you never know. If we need to, we can try a
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different reading curriculum or a different math curriculum, either supplement or add something in
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new all together. So that's the beauty of homeschooling, being able to make those changes
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and make those adjustments as we go. I hope that if you are homeschooling a kindergartner next year
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or if you're homeschooling a kindergartner along with older kids, this kind of gave you an idea of
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what you can do, how you can make that work. Maybe you're not using the exact same curriculum, but
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maybe you see how you really can make homeschooling work for you, for your schedule, your kids
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your limits. If you are looking for a great kindergarten program, I highly recommend this one
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If you have other kids you are homeschooling though, just consider your limits and make sure
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that you are not stretching yourself too thin by trying to do too many things at once. Combine what
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you can, if that is an option for you, combining, you know, and working with your kids together
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I'm really looking forward to seeing how that goes this year in our homeschool. I would love
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to hear your thoughts, your comments, your questions, any and everything. So leave those for
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me in the comments below. Give this video a thumbs up if you enjoyed it, and please consider
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subscribing to my channel if you want to hang out with us this year and kind of see how this all
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goes. I love sharing updates with you guys on my channel, along with curriculum reviews
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homeschooling tips, and more. Thank you so much for watching. I will see you next time
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