Kindergarten Home-school Day In the Life

I have posted lots of posts on our lesson plans, different “extra days” we have done, and our goals for the year so far. BUT I’ve never done a day in the life for our home school program. Today is a really laid back day, with a few fun things going on so I decided to do a home school day in the life post! Homeschooling takes a lot of work, I’ll admit that up front. I can see where it wouldn’t be for EVERYONE. But during these pandemic times, I think more people than you realize can make home school work. Maybe you are one of these people and you don’t even realize it! Homeschooling is also so rewarding because you get to see your child learn and grow every single day. Instead of having that parent teach conference where you get that update, you get that daily update. It is so hands on!

Abeka Program:

We use Abeka for many of our home school resources. We also suplement with lots of fun interactive programs and resources too! So, throughout our day in the life you will see some of all of it. If you are a first time home-schooler. I would recommend getting some kind of video home school curriculum program to start out with. Even if you end up veering off of it for some of the lessons it works as a good guide and spring board for what kids are supposed to be learning at the grade level your kids are at! It makes it much less overwhelming. One last tip before we dive into the day, is don’t be afraid to add in new stuff or change stuff up. I like to add in and change curriculum activities like games, extra video programs, free online/virtual classes etc every single week just about to keep the extra curricula rs interesting for kindergarten. Things like art, music, science, and even math you can add in fun games and things for and change things up. Just to keep kids motivated and interested. I love the flexibility of it all, and I love that not every day looks exactly the same.

Math Class:

Not every math class looks the same for us. And like I said not every day looks the same, but today we started out with math class and we unusually start school after lunch time. For math class today we did a simple worksheet that I created because we are over a month ahead on the abeka worksheets. The top bubbles are like a “bingo game” fashion where I call out a color and a number and she writes the number it that color bubble. Sometimes we do silly things like red pineapple, or yellow two, they aren’t on her page or they aren’t numbers etc. Just silly stuff like that to make the game more fun. The next portion of the page she writes the number in the box that comes after the number. So, after 15 is 17 etc. Then there are some random math problems for practice. We worked on coin Identification today pretty briefly by singing a fun coin song, then we worked with counting to 139 by ones. Then to 100 by 10’s 5’s and 2’s. Lastly we did some fun addition flash cards! My daughter really likes math class so we do quite a bit with it. But it is a lot of fun. We also had cookie and milk time during math, so even more fun right? YES!

Handwriting

The next thing we did today is handwriting practice. We usually do one to tow pages of handwriting practice a day. I’ll admit this is NOT my daughters favorite time. Shes not really big into the handwriting book practice. So this time is pretty short but it is daily because it is important. Her handwriting is legible. Probably more so than mine sometimes if we are being honest here. So, we call it a win! With the handwriting book I have her read me the words she is writing before she writes them for some extra reading practice. The writing book is from the Abeka program. It is very colorful and a really good writing practice book. It is designed for one page a day.

The Bible Project Videos

The next thing we did was the Bible Project Videos. We don’t do these every day, but they are an added bonus for our week! Sometimes I like to share with my daughter some of the things I have been reading in my bible. One way I have found that is great to do this is through The Bible Project YouTube videos. Since this was a Monday I had studies 2 John and James over the weekend. So, we watched these videos first and I had my bible out where I showed here some of the pages where I had bible journaled etc. My daughter LOVES the Bible project videos because the combine art and great story telling. They are fantastic. If you haven’t checked this channel you need to! It is a great free resource. They rapidly draw out the books of the bible while telling you the story. My daughter is always like, “wait wait wait! Pause it here. we have to look at this!” So we pause and go up to the big screen tv where I stream it and we talk about all the pictures that are drawn out and the parts and pick our favorites from the books of the bible. These are AMAZING resources! I love this time! We also watched through Jonah just for the fun of it and it is such a powerful little book and video.

Game time with Abeka: Opposites!

The next thing we did was an Abeka video activity where they had a game time activity. the teacher had the kiddos cut out a page from on e of their workbooks that had cards with opposite things on them. Then they got to play a matching game. But instead of matching the exact picture, you had to match the opposites. My daughter and I ended up playing this game together along with the video. It taught tons of opposites like full and empty, deep and shallow, stretch and bend, etc. It was a really fun little bonus activity!

Bible Time with Abeka: Thanksgiving Story

Abeka has been focusing on Thanksgiving themes in the bible time videos for the kids in the weeks building up to thanksgiving. So, how the Pilgrims left England and came to america so that they could have the freedom to worship God. How they celebrated the first thanksgiving. How we are called to be thankful in the bible etc. Just instilling really good values in the kids. We went through this video lesson next. These are half hour videos. In the begining of them we have SNACK TIME to go along with the video. Then, sometimes my daughter likes to play blocks or do some bible journaling/coloring in her bible journaling bible. I got this bible for her about a year ago from hobby lobby. I am so glad I did because we have gotten so much use out of it in the last few months! It has pictures to color along side scripture etc. There is also a place for notes. I sometimes write her little letters within the pages as well for her to read later on when she gets a little bigger. Just little truths and moments for her to remember.

A Virtual Trip to the Bahamas with Abeka!

As part of the social studies program, she took a virtual trip to the Bahamas to learn all about their culture, the islands, what grows their, the history of the islands, etc. They did a cute little maze at the end. This video was about 15 minutes so very kid friendly obviously on all of these topics, never going in too deep. Very fun activity! I really like the the social studies program through Abeka.

Homer Reading!

We do Homer Reading pretty much every single day! It is a great way to help kids with their reading and phonics in a fun, game style way. Today she went through 2 game activities: a story time and a J module. They really mix things up and it is great! She has worked on combined sounds such as ck in the past and ll. They do fun spelling words, draw pictures, and it is all in a game format. So, moving magnets around on a fridge, swinging monkey’s to vines, etc. Just a really fun way for kids to learn! If you want to read my full post on our homer reading experience you can check it out here!

Hands on Phonics!

I like to use some of the Abeka workbooks and some of the Abeka books to do some phonics review as well as some of our own small books to work on reading during this time. For today, my daughter read a few pages out of one of the K5 Abeka reading 1 book. These are small words that go along with their picture to help the kids catch onto the word more easily. Then we read a short story and she reads all the words she can, sounding them out. I help out with the rest. To finish it up I read some of the Charlotte’s Web book we have been working through.

Typing Practice!

We started typing practice back in September with the typing club program! It is a free resource for schools or homeschoolers to use, and it can be used for any school age. I did some research that said it is really good for kids to learn typing as they are learning how to read and learning hand writing. It all just blends together. You can check out the typing club for free here.

Abeka Phonics Video

We then completed the Abeka phonics video which gives a review of letters, vowels, sounds, and goes over a variety of words. We typically choose one of the video lessons because they are super informative, but only one because she tends to loose interest in them fast. It is why we do our own hands on phonics unit. With these videos we have another snack time to go along with them during the day!

School Store

The last thing we do to end our day is visit our home school store. For every activity we do during the day my daughter gets a little ticket to spend at the school store.

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Thanks for joining us for our school day today! Hope you enjoyed all of our fun activities. We do a variety of other extras on different days like art, science and music. Today’s extras were some extra bible stuff and Social studies.

Brie