When my family first began homeschooling I thought that I needed a fancy-schmancy complete curriculum. I plunked down big bucks for an everything-included boxed curriculum for my 2nd grader and his preschool-kindergarten level younger brother.
About three weeks into our school year, I realized with dread and embarrassment that we hated the curriculum. I had just a couple of months earlier convinced my husband to give homeschooling a try, spent an ungodly amount of money on the venture and it was sucking the life out of us.
Now, I love being organized and part of the thrill of a pre-packaged curriculum was that it came with a schedule and lesson plans. I knew what needed to be covered every day well ahead of time and could prepare the supplies (not included) and gather the reading books (also not included) and other necessary materials (you guessed it . . . not included!)
I soon realized, however, that I simply don’t enjoy working by a schedule that is created for me. Sure, it sounds easy. You let someone else do all of the planning work and then you just follow their plans. But, for me, it was limiting and frustrating. (And expensive.) I am much happier being the one making the plans.
So, I decided to create my own curriculum (you can read about that here) and make my own course of study and lesson plans. It was not difficult, especially for K-3. I have continued to steer clear of boxed curriculum each year. .
Even though my homemade homeschool curriculum is inexpensive compared to boxed curricula, I know that homeschooling for free is possible, as well.
What Your Kindergartener Should Know
The first step to homeschooling your kindergartener for free is knowing what your child needs to learn in this stage of his or her education. Below are the basic concepts that should be taught. I will not include grade-level standards for history, science, health education, religious studies, foreign language or fine arts. In my own home, I am apt to teach these subjects in a more child-led, unschooling manner. I often include all three children together when doing lessons in social studies, science, arts, etc, regardless of grade level. My focus is making sure that my children are on target in the big three — reading, writing and arithmetic.
Reading and Reading Comprehension
- Recognition of Letters (both cases)
- Letter sounds (including the difference between short and long vowel sounds)
- Syllabication
- Blending short phonemes to create words (such as c+ at = cat)
- Grade-level appropriate dolch sight words
- Sequence
Writing
- How to spell his or her name (and be able to recognize it in writing)
- Be able to print all of the letters of the alphabet (both lower and upper case)
Math
- Classification of objects
- Patterns
- Less than, greater than and equal to with groups of objects (up to 10)
- Add and subtract numbers from 1-10
- Solve simple word problems
- Understand simple picture graphs
- Identify coins
- Compare measures of length, weight and capacity (such as longer than, shorter than, less full, more full, heavier than, lighter than, etc)
- Know the days of the week
- Tell time to the hour
- Recognize basic plane (2-dimensional) shapes
Sources: Home Learning Year By Year, What Your Kindergartener Needs to Know, Core Standards.Org, PBS.org, Reading Rockets. Org
How to Homeschool Your Kindergartener For Free
Fortunately for us homeschoolers, we live in the digital age. This means greater access to educational tools, both free and paid. Below I will list the free homeschooling resources for each of the three knowledge categories I listed above. (This is the part you’ve been waiting for!)
Reading
- Starfall.com
- Education.com
- Dolch Sight Words (I suggest making homemade flash cards with these.)
- PDF Printable of Dolch Sight Words
- ABCya
- Knowledge Adventure
- TLSBooks.com
- Jump Start
- Kidzone.com
- K12Reader.com
- KindergartenWorksheets.net
- Super Teacher Worksheets
Writing
Math
- Softschools.com
- Kidzone.ws
- K5Learning.com
- TLSbooks.com
- MathBlaster.com
- Education.com
- PBS.org
- TurtleDiary.com
- SheppardSoftware.com
- PrimaryGames.com
- LearningGamesforKids.com
- ixl.com
Other Subjects
As you probably noticed while clicking around the websites I listed, many of the websites have a variety of subjects to offer. Although I only focused on the specific subject listed, you should certainly take advantage of the science, social studies, art and other subjects to homeschool your kindergartener for free.
Other Resources
If you’re like me and enjoy the organization aspect of teaching your children, you’ll like this list of free homeschool planning printables I grouped here.
My homeschooling board on Pinterest is full of great homeschooling ideas, many of which are frugal or free! Go check it out and don’t forget to follow!
Follow Our Small Hours ‘s board Homeschooling {Collaborative} on Pinterest.
If you find that you have a little cash to spend on homeschooling your kindergartener, I highly recommend these resources that can be bought on Amazon for less than in bookstores. (Especially if you sign up for Prime!)
What your Kindergartener Needs to Know (Kindle Edition)
Spectrum Writing — Kindergarten
When you take on the job (and joy!) of homeschooling, you don’t have to break the bank. It’s so easy to homeschool your Kindergartener for free. You have so many resources at your fingertips. Combined with your public library and a local homeschooling co-op, you’ve got everything you need to be a frugal homeschooler while giving your children a quality education.
Image by David Castillo Dominici at FreeDigitalPhotos.net
Image by photostock at FreeDigitalPhotos.net
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