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skillsubjects

How to Effortlessly Blend Kindergarten Homeschool Subjects & Life

July 21, 2022 | Leave a Comment
This post may contain affiliate links. For more information, please see my full disclosure policy.

Blending kindergarten homeschool subjects and life doesn’t make it easy to determine kindergarten homeschool curriculum.

However, today I’m helping you to know how to effortlessly blend the kindergarten subjects with what you’re doing naturally every day.

Further, don’t forget up to this time you have not used any curriculum in your instruction.

Sometimes very little kindergarten homeschool curriculum is needed.

In addition, families vary in their needs, but all children benefit from a gentle and relaxed approach to the kindergarten homeschool subjects.

How to Effortlessly Blend Kindergarten Homeschool Subjects & Life

Moreover, it’s important to build a strong foundation for lifelong learning.

And it begins what the subjects that are foundational and the subjects that can be folded into your day naturally.

Beginning my journey 20+ years ago, I didn’t have to make a choice about common core and by the time the No Child Left Behind act was passed, I was well on my way to homeschooling.

Because the educational world can be muddled to trek through, I will give you a glimpse of what is important at this age.

Essential Kindergarten Subjects

Too, it’s important for you to first to know what subjects you need and want to teach.

1. Begin with the subjects your local homeschool law requires.

First, begin with your local law.

No, you don’t choose homeschool curriculum first because your local law could be relaxed or it could be rigid. And your curriculum can help or hinder you meet state law.

Choose curriculum after you’re familiar with the subjects you must teach.

2. Second, focus on math and language arts which are your essential subjects

Then, know what are foundational subjects for kindergarten.

Although curriculum companies tout that you need all subjects, the truth of it is that math and language arts are the key components.

How to Effortlessly Blend Kindergarten Homeschool Subjects & Life

But, I know you want details because that is what I needed to when teaching my first child.

What’s more look below at this list to see what skills you need to focus on.

ESSENTIAL SUBJECTS IN KINDERGARTEN
MATH | LANGUAGE ARTS (Tip: The subjects vary by age and grade.) For Kindergarten, the subjects are Reading, Phonics, and Writing.

SKILLS TAUGHT IN MATHSKILLS TAUGHT IN LANGUAGE ARTS
Know the ordinal numbers up to 10, but recite numbers to 100Names the parts of a book like cover, back, and inside pages. Understands which direction to hold the book And knows that a story has a beginning, middle and ending .
Knows how to compare two groups to understand the more than, less than and equal to.Recognizes the letters of the alphabet and understands that the letter represents sounds.
Recognizes shapes, and understand patterns ABC, AABBCC, ABBCC, ABAB, etc.
Identifies money.
Is familiar with conventional measuring tools like rulers, but starts with unconventional tools like a pencil.
Can see that we read right to left and top to bottom. Associates sounds with symbols for writing and begins with inventive writing which letters can be indistinguishable. And practices adding new words to his vocabulary.
Compares objects based on size and capacity.Can retell stories and can even act them out.
Counting by 10s and understands what is a pair.Begins to learn and recognize signs from his community like stop signs, etc.
Is familiar with a clock and the numbers on it.Recognizes his name and attempts to “write” it.
Becomes familiar with word that represent position like under, through, on top of, etc. Also, begins basic addition and subtraction by learning how to group sets and break them apart.Begins to sound out and read CVC words like cat, rat, and sat.

3. Decide how to pair kindergarten subjects with life skills.

Next, look at these skills above which are normally introduced in curriculum through a scope and sequence or order.

Kindergarten Subjects

So, you can either use a laid-out curriculum or continue to do what you’ve been doing up to this time in your child’s life.

For example, look at how I effortlessly blended the kindergarten homeschool subjects with life skills.

  • Reading aloud increases your child’s vocabulary, ability to retell, and encourages him to act out what he has learned.
  • Point out words or signs in your home and community to explain their meaning and what they say.
  • Provide plenty of pictures books to your child to look at and dream about.
  • Plant a garden to cover science, measuring, and “write’ on plant markers.
  • Instead of using the app on your phone, have your Kindergarten help with a grocery list.
  • Encourage your kindergarten to understand money by adding some to his piggy bank and paying for small items with your supervision.

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Kindergarten Homeschool Ideas

Also, here are more ideas of things you’ve probably already been doing.

  • Take care of a pet and learn to measure the pet’s food or medicine.
  • Practice and recite rhymes. Rhymes are not just child’s play but the foundation to hear rhyming and syllables of a word. These skills are the beginning of phonics. Eventually, the sounds will be put to writing to learn spelling. It’s important to rhyme.
  • Use paint brushes, q tips, sticks, to ‘”write” with.
  • Bake cookies and learn fractions and the measurements on the cups.
  • Take a nature walk and look for patterns in nature. For example, look at the repeating patterns of petals and the seeds in the head of a sunflower.
  • Do crafts and make a clock with moving hands.
  • Play games like uno and dominoes to learn number and additions.
  • Use popsicle sticks and glue on 10 beans and use as a counter for 10s, 20s, and etc.
  • Use these fun rock crayons which encourage the correct grip prior to holding a pencil.
How to Effortlessly Blend Kindergarten Homeschool Subjects & Life

Moreover, as you can see all of this can be done without worksheets. Puzzles, play props, and play-doh should still be part of kindergarten.

Do not give up what you’ve done for the first five years of your child’s life. Learning doesn’t always have to be divided into subjects.

Finally, if you need a curriculum, remember to use it as a framework, but do not make it the ultimate way a child learns.

What things are you naturally doing with your kindergartner each day where you’re blending learning and living?

How to Effortlessly Blend Kindergarten Homeschool Subjects & Life

Other Kindergarten Homeschool Curriculum Resources

  • Homeschooling Kindergarten: What Subjects to Teach and For How Long?
  • Delightful Kindergarten Homeschool Curriculum Which Promote a Love of Learning
  • 21 Fun All-In-One Kindergarten Homeschool Curriculum
  • BEST Free Kindergarten Homeschool Curriculum With A Gentle Approach (List)

Leave a CommentFiled Under: Homeschooling, Teach Kindergarten Tagged With: homeschool subjects, homeschoolanguagearts, kindergarten, language arts, languagearts, life skills, skillsubjects

Skill Subjects vs. Content Subjects: What’s the Difference?

February 24, 2015 | 4 Comments
This post may contain affiliate links. For more information, please see my full disclosure policy.

I can’t help it, but my heart sinks each time I read or hear about a family sending their kids back to public school.

t’s true that we don’t really know another family’s problems or struggles and that may be their only choice, but a lot of times it’s because we all struggle with how to simplify our homeschool day.

Sharing about skill subjects vs. content subjects: what’s the difference, I don’t want to weigh you down with one more must do in your day, but I want to show you how to lighten up without compromising on your standard.

I don’t say this thoughtlessly either, but homeschooling does not have to be stressful, time sensitive, and always overwhelming.

Uncovering the secret to a simple and relaxing day with your younger kids and teens is to understand the difference between skill subjects and content subjects.

Skill Subjects vs. Content Subjects What's the Difference

Getting down to the nitty-gritty of teaching is what lightens your load because then you will be able to prioritize subjects.

For example, when a struggling homeschooler shared with me her list of school subjects for the year, it looked like this: (a real case example)

Composition, singing class, gymnastics, penmanship, science, Bible study, math, violin practice, learning Spanish, phonics, history, co-op class and Spelling Power.
She asked me if she had missed anything.

I wanted to reply, “Uhmm, you may be missing out on a good night’s sleep from now on with that list.”
I don’t say things like that though because I can sympathize with the tug on us as home educators to fall into the trap that more means more meaningful. It does not.

Too, children are just like us in a lot of ways when it comes to mounting pressure. They long for a simplified day or list.

Homeschool Zen – Skill-Based Subjects Versus Content Subjects

The secret to covering more in the day is to organize or separate the skills-based subjects from content subjects.

They simply do not have the same importance or can be covered differently.

Just what exactly is the difference between skill-based subjects and content-based subjects?

Skill-based subjects are those subjects that without them they could possibly handicap your child from learning anything at all or impair your child from learning about other subjects.

They are the very essentials, backbone and framework of any education.

For example, it’s hard to learn about history or the Bible when you can’t read.

Too, our children will have very little appreciation for the wonder of science if they can’t write anything in a science journal.

How will a child learn to budget or secure a well paying job if he doesn’t understand the basic 4 operations of arithmetic?

Can you take a guess at which subjects should rule your day?

Reading, writing, and arithmetic are considered your skills-based subjects. 

Too, another identifying mark of the skills-based subjects is that they need to be presented in a sequential order.  Introducing a letter of the alphabet, with the sound it makes to stringing the letters together to form a word are the foundational skills to learning to read.

Math is similar.  We teach from basic operations to meaningful formulas.

Can you see that every other subject, other than the three Rs, is a content subject?

That slices your schedule to just about half the subjects that you may think your child needs to cover.

Now that I explained the difference, I don’t want you to think that the other subjects are not important or that you shouldn’t cover them at all.

However, I am here to tell you from experience now that Mr. Senior 2013 is pursuing courses on his own that covering less history, less science, and less art with him have not been hindrances at all.

Because of his love for reading and learning, he has continued to learn about subjects that he is interested in or that we may not have had as much time to cover.

It’s his job now to continue to self-educate, I just gave him the foundational tools and did not get sidetracked.

Understanding the difference between the two types of subjects does not mean that I would encourage you to spend the whole day on just those subjects.

The point of explaining this though is for you to try this before you give up or feel like a failure because you may not be the bomb mom.

Looking back at my example of the struggling homeschooler, look at how I sliced and diced her day:

Cover Each DayCover When Your Routine Returns Back to Normal from Insane
compositionsinging class
penmanshipgymnastics
phonicsscience
Bibleviolin practice
spellinglearning Spanish
history
co-op class

Sure, kids may be a bit disappointed if we have to cut back some of their activities.  However, helping them to learn the value of priorities and modesty, which means understanding limits, will be a valuable life skilled learned better earlier than as an adult.

When Homeschooling is Challenging

Too, help your kids to appreciate that circumstances are mostly temporarily and that you will try to return to the normal schedule soon.

After all, missing a dance class or piano lesson or two is a small price to pay when our homeschool foundation is threatened.

If you are thinking about returning your children to public school, please shoot me an email or post your concerns here if the reasons are not private. I am here to help you stay the course because homeschooling is a superior education in every way if you have the circumstances to do it.

In an upcoming blog post I want to expand more about when and how to fold in content subjects because the knowledge gained from those subjects make up the very necessary skills that our children need as adults.

Can you see where you may need to lighten your load for a while at least?

Grab some more tips here:

  • What Homeschool Subjects to Teach and When to Teach Them? Part 1 of 3 
  • Biggest Challenges to Homeschooling
  • Controlling the Time Spent on Homeschool Subjects or Running a Homeschooling Boot Camp

Hugs and love ya,

4 CommentsFiled Under: Homeschooling Tagged With: contentsubjects, fearless homeschooling, homeschool, homeschool challenges, homeschool grades, skillsubjects

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