Have you been researching about homeschool kindergarten and reading that it can take as little as 30 minutes? If you’re anything like me, this is possibly blowing your mind. What is homeschool kindergarten really like?
As a former classroom teacher, this was almost impossible for me to grasp. How could 30 minutes to an hour be enough to do all the things needed? I could not understand how it was accomplished.
Well, after a few years experience in our homeschool life, I can see how amazing kindergarten at home really is. This is my second kindergartener, and it is so neat to watch her grow. Every day is different and she does SO MUCH learning naturally through our conversations and her play. In this post, I want to explain how that happens.
Maybe you’re not new to homeschooling, but you’re wondering the question that pokes at a homeschool mom’s mind every so often —
“Am I doing enough?”
This question stopped me in my tracks today. It was 10:15 AM, and my kindergartener finished all of her school work. (See what we are using for kindergarten in this post.) We started at 9:20 and had a break or two in between! As I paused to warm my coffee up for the umpteenth time, I asked myself, “Am I doing enough?”
You see, what I failed to remember was how much learning takes place beyond our table of books.
The questions in the car, the imaginary play, the quiet time creativity, the chores, the cooking help….all of it is learning! And so much of it!
On this day, I decided to focus on all of the little teachable moments we had beyond our school books. It really made me grateful for all the time we have together to do this, but it also reassured me of how much learning takes place in our day.
I want to share with you what our homeschool looked like on this day that I began to question myself.
Keep in mind none of the discussions or activities that came up the rest of the day were planned! It can be terrifying to think that, but once you see how much can take place naturally, you will understand the beauty of it.
Think of this like a peek into the life of a kindergartener “after school”.
Once our school work is finished we head outside. I usually take care of the garden or anything in the yard that needs it. This time in the sun is so important for our day to go well. It’s important that I soak up the sun a bit too, so I decided to get a few things done while we were outside.
We added to our compost and talked about it’s purpose.
Why do we add this in here? What happens to it? How is it helpful for our home? These are all questions that came up. See the spontaneous science lesson taking place? Next, we mixed the compost around and observed what was inside. We gave examples of where we might use it in our yard.
Not long after that, we discussed our shadows.
My daughter started playing with a stick connected to a string and was waving it around, watching the shadow on the porch. So we went out into the yard and looked at our own shadows. We discussed how the sun has to be in a certain place for you to actually see your shadow. We turned around and saw that in action. My 3 year old even participated and loved making poses for her shadow play.
At this point, we’ve been outside for almost an hour.
All the kids were immediately drawn to the lesson Dad was about to lead.
Who knew a car jack could be so mesmerizing? We watched as he slowly lifted the truck off the ground. Next, we watched him check the wheels and listened as he told us what he thought was wrong. It was a total of about 10 minutes, but I’ll tell you this – we talked about car jacks and their job at least 5 more times throughout the day!
Moving to the next part of our day, my oldest daughter had riding lessons, so we headed to the stables to pick her up. As we waited, we observed the horses in the pasture and noticed that quite a few had blankets on.
This led to a discussion about weather and the needs of animals, specifically horses.
We watched as my oldest daughter helped remove all of the blankets, since the day was warming up. We don’t sit still for long…
A sensory bin from nature at your service!
A mixture of sand and rocks made for a good time while we waited. The rocks were all different and some even shined in the sun. They made sounds when we rubbed them together, and they were all different shapes and sizes.
Time for lunch!
Can you believe that? Scroll back up and adventure into the morning we just had. How cool to experience all of this. I’ll be honest, not every day is like this, but WOW this was just what I needed in the moment. Thank you, God for this wink of encouragement.
It was PBJ day, and I always let the girls make their own. This is an important skill and although her sandwich may not have been pretty, she continues to get better at it, and I have a free hand to help my little ones.
