Hello Reluctant homeschoolers! You may find yourself feeling virtual kindergarten is just not working for you. So I have laid out some of the main guidelines I use. I have been a teacher in Primary and Kindergarten since 2013. These plans are my regular Full Day Kindergarten plans modified for home and what I am using with my own children.
One of the most important pieces of this, that you need to really do for yourself is goal setting. When we plan a program, we centre it around long and short term goals that are tied to the curriculum (you can see my previous article that contains the curriculum document and a video explaining how to interpret it.) Because you are only teaching your own children, the goals you set can and should be individual to your children and their needs. Where are they at right now, and what is the next step?
Does your child recognize letters? If so then you can move forward with decoding words, recognizing sight words, etc. If your child has no interest in books and doesn’t know which way it should open or that text directionality is left to right, then your goals are going to be much more simple. Just reading together and beginning letter recognition.
When you set goals they should be achievable, specific, realistic, and within the range of proximal development. So they should be challenging but not impossible. You need to spend time really assessing what your child can do. Then plan from there.
Once you know where you are at, you need to pick some long range goals (a few months) and more short term goals (for the month, or week.) You don’t need to do a ton of fancy activities, but what you focus on when reading, writing, and discussing should all tie back to those long term goals.
With that being said here is our basic schedule.
Literacy circle Details, I do not do different activities for literacy every day. The books change but the format does not. I do sometimes do a specific and preplanned craft or activity in the afternoon (math, science, art) but not every day.
There is a lot of overlap in the different sorts of play. Some children have preference for one or two over others and those choices should be respected. But occasionally we encourage them to branch out!
Read With River 