Our Home-From-School Homeschool Routine: Kindergarten.

Winter break, illnesses, COVID surges and a variety of other reasons have led Javi to be home more than in school the last 6 weeks. Some days, we cozy up on the couch and relax watching movies. Other days, we homeschool – pretty loosely – but I do try to make sure he does a little math, language, reading and writing each day. Here are some of the things he’s working on at home.

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Stamp Game: a box filled with color-coded stamps that represent units, tens, hundreds and thousands.

It’s a balance to keep Javi going at home while keeping in mind what he’s learning in his public school. Much of his math at school is counting up to 10 (sometimes 20) and simple addition facts. So I’m hesitant to go further than the Stamp Game. This material reinforces the four math operations so with it, a child can do 4-digit static and dynamic addition, multiplication, subtraction and division. Since he started using this last winter and has used it off and on since, I find it’s a really great (and contained) material to help him practice these concepts so that he doesn’t lose the knowledge. Plus, it’s really fun! He’ll usually do two problems a day.

Movable Alphabet: a box containing 26 letters; vowels are blue and consonants are red.

I lose my patience pretty quickly when I’m asked “how do you spell _____?” over and over again — so the Movable Alphabet helps with this! Sometimes I give him a prompt or ask him a question and sometimes I just ask him to write a sentence about… anything! He uses the letters in the box to phonetically spell out words and occasionally, writes using conventional spelling if it’s a word he’s seen in a book. He usually writes at least one sentence a day and then after we go over the words together before he writes the sentence in his notebook. Right now, he’s working on sight words and words that contain a silent e, so those words we fix together and the other words like stuft stay put for now. 🙂

Handwriting: we use Handwriting Without Tears.

I can’t even believe there was a time that I worried about Javi’s handwriting. All those Practical Life and fine motor activities, really paid off! He has beautiful writing (seriously, it’s better than mine!) He’s still practicing forming letters correctly (top to bottom, for example) and there’s some evidence that suggests children who practice handwriting do better with reading and spelling work. So we haven’t given up on handwriting and writing one sentence from his Movable Alphabet work isn’t enough! He does a few pages in this workbook every day.

Reading: we’re trying to read 1000 books in 2022!

At this point, Javi can pick up any book and read it. During a homeschool day, he reads at least two books (Elephant and Piggie books are his favorites.) But he also reads to his sisters, sits with us when I read to them and at bedtime he picks three books: one for him to read to me, one for me to read to him, and one that we split — he reads one page and I read the next. So, there’s no shortage of reading around here.

STEM: we love our KiwiCo boxes.

I always seem to have some kit stashed away and a random day at home is the perfect time to dig one out! These boxes are self-contained and self-directed so they’re a perfect way to get his fix of an “experiment” without needing me right next to him or giving him step by step instructions. That’s super helpful since I have Lola and Eva as well! He loves anything science and engineering-based and these kits are right up his alley.

Art: here are our favorite art supplies.

Javi likes to make sure to do some type of art every day — even on non-homeschool days! His favorites have to do with painting and drawing. He’s become very detailed and precise and takes his time with each and every project. Sometimes, art takes the whole afternoon.

Outdoor Time: we follow Exploring Nature with Children.

We try to get outside every day and I’m a little better at it on warmer days (we average about 3 hours a day.) I honestly don’t see a difference in the girls after time outside, but with Javi — there’s a huge difference in his attention, his energy level and his spirit after time outside! So, whenever he’s home we make sure to get out. He loves nature walks and sometimes that means exploring nature and most times it means exploring our backyard.

And that’s a typical home-from-school-homeschool-day!