Home Educating Kindergarten

My husband and I first thought about home educating after watching the documentary IndoctriNation.  Both of my parents are retired school teachers and home educating as an option had never occurred to me, but I was alarmed at what I saw.  John Taylor Gatto, an expert from the film, had written some books (Dumbing us Down, Weapons of Mass Instruction) which I borrowed from my local library and read through with incredulity.

 

Fast forward 3 years, many other books, blogs, and conversations later and I have now started formal education at home.  My oldest son "Super Builder" is part way through his Kindergarten year using a Sonlight curriculum package. 

 There are endless options out there, but we finally decided upon Sonlight for this year for several reasons.  Being a beginner to this lifestyle I wanted to go easy on myself and make this year as simple, and therefore as likely to succeed, as possible.  My husband is often away from home and we do not live close to family who can support us, so I am largely doing this on my own.  Sonlight is faith based, pre-packaged curriculum that can be tailored to individual students and contains "cores" that can be used across ages spanning as much as 4 years!

The package shown here is their Pre-Kindergarten Full Grade Package.  As I would like to teach the same "core" to at least two of my children in the same year, I decided to start with this package.  For my kindergartener, I simply added handwriting, math and substituted in Kindergarten level language arts. Next year we will use Core A. My 4 year old will begin lessons in math, handwriting and the Developing the Early Learner series shown above, while my Grade 1 student works on math, handwriting, and spelling at his level.

I am loving the well laid out timeline and Instructor's Guide provided with the curriculum package, and although we are not as far into the curriculum as I had originally planned, I am learning that part of what makes home education so wonderful is the opportunity to go off track and pursue my child's interests in greater detail.  We have hit a comfortable stride and learned a lot about what works for us and what doesn't at this moment in our lives.  It is so rewarding to see the gains we have made in these few months!

What are your thoughts on public education?  Do you find yourself in a similar position wanting to educate your child at home?  Are you already teaching your children at home?  What programs are you using?  What is working for you?  What isn't?