Curriculum Choices for Jonathan

Jonathan has (once again) started Kindergarten. I have no regrets about waiting another year for him to mature. He is doing really well this year! He remembers all that we started last year and is going at a much faster rate with no difficulty whatsoever!
I have pieced together a curriculum to take Jonathan through this year that is super easy to implement and also easy for Rosalie to join with us too. (on some things)

I scheduled several books using a 4 day a week lesson plan.  These plans are not sophisticated by any means - they are just a straight forward scheduling of books to use and what pages to do or read. I don't have super fun hands-on projects for them to do like the HOD guides always provide. My plan is to have the two younger tag on with Aaron any time I have the paints, clay, or other type of activities out for him to do. And since I have been steeped in the Charlotte Mason method for the past 4 years, I am able to employ her methods without notes on how to do it and what to say. So, if you need those special notes and fun hands on projects ... my lesson plans won't help you! I use the Little Hearts for His Glory curriculum guide for the Kindergarten Math plans and the Rhymes in Motion plans as well as the handwriting, Do it Carefully, and Finding the Answers. I will use Little Hearts for His Glory in it's entirety with 1st grade options next year with Jonathan. 

I am using The Reading Lesson to teach Jonathan how to read. I love the ease that this curriculum brings to teaching a child to read. I have used a couple of other methods for teaching reading ... but this one tops them all. I will definitely use this again for Rosalie!

In the lesson plans that I provided above, it states that I am using A Reason for Handwriting K. I was definitely planning on using that curriculum with Jonathan and did use it last year (during our first attempt at K) for about 6 weeks. It is the curriculum I used for both Martin and Aaron - and loved! However, it was not working at all for Jonathan. Jonathan almost always shed tears over his handwriting, so I thought I would try Handwriting Without Tears (HWT)for Jonathan this year. We are doing about 1 page per day. This curriculum definitely is true to it's name for Jonathan. No More Tears! I am convinced that Jonathan had difficulty with visual processing with the other curriculum. Those issues have been resolved with the HWT curriculum. 

This is the Little Hearts For His Glory(LHFHG) curriculum guide that I am using for the Math plans, Do it Carefully, Finding the Answers, and Rhymes in Motion. It is an excellent complete curriculum that I plan on using as written for 1st grade.

I have scheduled Bible Stories to Read, Bible Pictures to Color, and Family-Time Bible for the history and Bible portion of our lessons.

I am using Our Father's World for Science. I also found free printables that go with many of the science lessons to supplement the readings. The reason I chose not to go through the selected Kindergarten Science text from Little Hearts is because I prefer the way the K Science book is scheduled in a way that makes each of the units more cohesive. So, even though Jonathan will be 1st grade next year, I plan on taking him through the K Science text next year.

We will use Do it Carefully and Finding the Answers to work on matching, cutting, pasting, following directions, tracing, neatness, circling, underlining, crossing out, rhyming, and basic grammar.

In the lesson plans provided above, I have the Earlybird Kindergarten Math 2A and 2B scheduled. (I use the math plans from the LHFHG curriculum guide.) This particular math curriculum is no longer available to purchase, however. Since I did about 6 weeks of these books last year, I am using Rod and Staff beginning arithmetic with Jonathan right now. I will switch back to Singapore once we get 6 weeks into our lesson plans - but I will continue using the Rod and Staff to supplement. It seems to be a really good match for Jonathan. He's doing really well with it!

I have selected several books for story time. The Story About Ping, Mike Mulligan and the Steam Shovel, Meet the Orchestra, Saint George and the Dragon, The Velveteen Rabbit, Tornado, and The Adventures of Bobby Racoon.  I will use those books to begin teaching oral narration.
One of the reasons that I prefer not to take a Kindergartener through LHFHG is because the read a-loud selections can be difficult for a 5 year old. I wanted to spend the K year easing into read a-louds and especially easing into oral narration. Last year, when I started the short stories and introduced oral narration to Jonathan ... he had trouble recalling anything that I read to him. This year he is retelling the story to me in great detail! All of my children love read a-louds! Rosalie always joins us for this portion of our school day as well!
It only takes us about 45 minutes each day to complete it and we are having so much fun with it this year.