K4 Curricula
Jan. 28, 2007

Once you have made the leap to homeschool, it can be very intimidating when you look around and see the plethora of materials available. For an instant stress reliever, I highly recommend reading Unlocking the Doors: The Preschool Years.  

Our family begins K4 very slowly. Our first few weeks of K4 consist only of Bible, Phonics, and piano lessons. We do Bible together as a family. We read one lesson from Leading Little Ones to God by Marion Schoolland or The Child’s Story Bible by Catherine F. Vos, and also practice our catechism question for the week. This takes about 15 minutes. 

For Phonics, we use Phonics Pathways.

Phonics Pathways is no nonsense, and if you want my honest opinion, it is somewhat boring. But, the lessons are *very* short (maybe 5-10 minutes a day) and it gets your child reading within a few weeks of consistent use.  We found these teaching tips helpful. I highly recommend buying the first three levels of Bob Books -- Set 1-Beginning Readers, Set 2-Advancing Beginners, and Set 3- Word Families.

There is nothing like the satisfaction your child gets from being able to read their first book *all by themselves*! They sell higher levels of the Bob Books, but I found that after getting through the first three levels, our boys could transition smoothly into the more interesting "early readers" at the library.

For piano lessons, we have a wonderful teacher, Miss Patti, who comes to our house once a week. At age four, our children start with the Music for Little Mozarts piano series. The actual lessons are about 15 minutes a week, with daily practice taking about 5-10 minutes a day.

 After a few weeks, we add in math and handwriting.

We use Saxon 1 for math in K4. The accompanying Manipulative Kit is a *must* buy. It is rather expensive, but considering you will use it almost daily for two years (three years, if you use Saxon K for pre-school, like we do) it is not that bad. 

 Math is our longest subject and takes about 30 minutes to do from start to finish.

For handwriting, we use Zaner-Bloser Handwriting K and the corresponding Grade K handwriting paper.

It is *super* simple to use. Do *not* waste your money buying the teacher’s manual!!! If you are nervous at all about teaching handwriting, buy the Self-Instruction Book for Grades 7 & 8 . Handwriting takes about 5 minutes per day.

Here is my daily/weekly planner from one week of Noah's K4 year:

Click on picture for larger view or click here to view in Excel.

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