Kindergarten is an exciting and challenging grade to teach. As a parent, you are already your child’s first teacher. As you expand your role into an academic one, keep in mind that kindergarten-age children need a lot of guidance and direction as they engage in learning. They also need flexibility and opportunities to be creative and express themselves through a variety of hands-on activities. Their love of learning and your love for them is sure to result in many fun learning experiences at home. These tips and ideas will help you create your own homeschool kindergarten curriculum and schedule as well as foster your child’s love of learning.
1. Establish a Daily Schedule
Timing and choice are important factors in establishing daily routines in which children can thrive. Kindergarten-age children need support as they engage in learning academic subjects. As you establish your role as teacher and facilitator of learning, consider giving your child some control over his or her daily schedule by working together to create one. Also consider the demands on your own time if you are working from home or have other children you are providing academic support for.
For a free kindergarten schedule and template from Evan-Moor click here.
The average attention span of a kindergartner is about 15 minutes, so every learning activity should be followed by a movement activity or break. Try to incorporate short, 15- to 20-minute learning sessions (recommend 3) throughout your school day interspersed with activity and other creative learning activities (see below).
2. What Kind of Learner Is Your Child?
Understanding how your child learns will help you create positive learning experiences for your child and foster a love of learning. Ask your child these questions to gain some insight. (If your child has not experienced any school activities yet, ask which types of activities he or she likes best.)
- What is your favorite thing to learn at school?
- What don’t you like to learn and why?
- Do you like art or outdoor activities?
If your child is extremely active or has a difficult time focusing, factor frequent movement breaks into your daily schedule.
3. How to Start the Day
Start the day with a morning mindfulness routine and transition into alphabet and number songs. The songs and chants provide a strong foundation for learning numbers and letters.
- Morning mindfulness routines should start out with positive statements, breathing, or movement. A few examples are:
- Taking three deep breaths
- Stretching arms to the sky and touching toes
- Choosing a theme statement every week and repeating it, such as: “Learning makes my brain grow.”
- Name each letter of the alphabet in order and say a word that has the same beginning sound. For example, “A is for apple. B is for bat.”
4. What to Teach?
Planning a kindergarten curriculum can seem overwhelming. Your reading readiness curriculum, alphabet letters, and beginning sounds is a great place to start. For your math curriculum, begin with counting and learning numbers 1–20. Plan to focus on a few letters and numbers each week and slowly build up to the entire alphabet and numbers 1–100. Incorporate one new subject area each week until you have introduced your full curriculum.
Sample Preschool Curriculum
- Evan-Moor’s Homeschool Curriculum Bundles Kindergarten
provides everything your child needs for practice of essential skills for preschool (ages 4–5 years). The fun illustrations, interesting themes, art projects, and hands-on and written activities will keep your child engaged in learning important PreK skills—and get ready for kindergarten! Each bundle includes:
- 11 colorful activity books and flashcards
- Activities that cover basic foundational skills for reading, writing, language, math, science, geography, and critical thinking.
- Downloadable Homeschool Teaching Guide with teaching tips and activity ideas.
Activity Books to Enhance Your Kindergarten At Home
Here are some quick links to the Evan-Moor early learning workbooks that we recommend:
Skill Sharpeners: Reading grade K provides practice in early literacy skills such as reading simple sentences, recognizing initial consonants, reading word families, phonics, categorizing, rhyming, demonstrating comprehension by drawing, understanding that pictures have meaning, understanding that words have meaning, and many more. Each unit focuses on one letter from the alphabet and begins with a simple story that features words that begin with the focus letter.
Skill Sharpeners: Math grade K provides practice in math skills and concepts such as counting, writing numbers, number order, patterning, beginning addition and subtraction, word problems, comparing sets, and many more. Each unit is based on a fun theme to engage your child as well as provide context for some math items.
Skill Sharpeners: Science grade K provides instruction and practice in the most important grade-level science in the areas of physical science, life science, and earth science. Each unit focuses on one science concept that is presented in short reading selections written to the tune of a chant or a rhyme.
Skill Sharpeners: Grammar and Punctuation grade K provides instruction and practice of foundational grammar and punctuations skills such as nouns, verbs, adjectives, pronouns, end punctuation, and capital letters. In addition, the activities in this book practice basic skills such as writing words, matching, understanding that pictures have meaning, reading simple sentences, and many more.
Additional Resources:
Smart Start: Read and Write grade K: Practice beginning reading and comprehension skills with colorful pictures and activities. Twenty easy-to-follow weekly lessons build alphabet awareness and develop reading readiness skills.
Smart Start: Sight Words grade K: Practice important high-frequency words and sight words for kindergarten. The ability to read sight words and high-frequency words is necessary for fluent reading and is one of the most important components of language learning! The stories and activities in this book help children read Dolch Sight Words and high-frequency words quickly and accurately.
Smart Start: STEM grade K: Teach your child to become a problem-solver with fun, hands-on STEM projects. Your child will practice reading and writing and learn the engineering design process.
5. Hands-on Learning
Hands-on learning activities are a great way to create fun learning experiences and take a break from written practice activities. Incorporate learning into creative outdoor games and activities. Check out these articles for tips and ideas:
5 activities to get active boys and girls ready for kindergarten
The ABCs of Kindergarten Success: Ways to Help Your Child Learn the Alphabet
6. 
Creative Time
Designate time for your child to express his or her creativity. Think about whether your child needs to be in a quiet space doing something calming such as coloring, painting, or working with playdough, or in an active space doing something like building with blocks or making homemade instruments. Here are a few ideas to consider:
- Alphabet Puppets: Create fun puppets for every new letter your child learns!
- Jumbo Fun with the Alphabet grades PreK–K: Introduce letters and sounds with fun activities and hands-on lessons.
- Literature Pockets: Folktales and Fairy Tales grades K–1: Get creative with classic stories like “The Three Little Pigs” with hands-on art and reading comprehension activities. Included in this title are seven hands-on study units to accompany seven different children’s stories.
- Paper Tube Zoo grades PreK–K: Create thematic learning lessons with fun animal themed art! Incorporate the art into a writing project or themed reading activity!
7. 
Exercise
Exercise is an essential part of your child’s day. Plan the best time to incorporate exercise into your daily schedule. Think about: Is this the time your child wants to be alone and just run around the backyard or jump on the trampoline? Or is this a social time when your child wants to engage with family members and exercise together? Finding out how to meet your child’s needs in this area will go a long way toward having a child who is ready to focus when it is time to sit down and work in a book.
Incorporate math and science into outdoor exercises. For example:
- Hopscotch and counting
- Throw a bean bag and using nonstandard measurement to see how far you found it.
- Count how many flowers, bushes, and trees, noticing their shape, colors, and textures.
- Notice wildlife such as birds and butterflies, obeserving their behaviors.
- Play Simon Says game with action verbs such as “jump, hop, skip.”
8. 
Social and Emotional Learning
Provide your child with a journal or notebook to draw pictures that show how he or she is feeling. Have your child go to a quiet space where he or she can reflect on his or her day and draw about it. This simple act can help your child manage stress and reduce anxiety.
9. Read, Read, and Read Aloud
Reading aloud on a daily basis is an important part of a kindergarten curriculum and builds foundational skills. Reading aloud introduces vocabulary; models fluent, expressive reading; and helps children develop a love of reading. A few favorite titles are: (include book title images: these are already in WP from another blog)
Chicka Chicka Boom Boom by Bill Martin, Jr., and John Archambault: Introduce young children to alphabet letters and sounds or give them practice saying and identifying each letter/sound combination with this beginning reading book.
Sheep in a Jeep by Nancy E. Shaw and Margot Apple: This funny, rhyming picture book tells the story of a flock of sheep who get stuck in the country.
If You Give a Mouse a Cookie by Laura Joffe Numeroff: This is a cute picture book with fun and colorful illustrations about a mouse.
Franklin and the Tooth Fairy by Paulette Bourgeois: Franklin is a popular children’s character who faces relatable issues for young children. In this story, he is frustrated because his friends are losing teeth and he is not.
My First Bob Books: Pre-Reading Skills by Lynn Maslen Kertell: Get young children interested in reading with this beginner reading series. No reading skills are necessary to start with these beginner books.
10. What Does My Child Need to Master?
Kindergarten is a year in which children learn how to be in an academic setting as they acquire basic skills. They also learn how to communicate and show what they know. These are important kindergarten benchmarks. State and national standards set academic benchmarks as well as social and emotional benchmarks. Find out which specific skills your child needs to master by looking up your state’s kindergarten standards. For example, a search for “California Kindergarten Standards” will bring you to a document that outlines the standards and expectations your child should demonstrate mastery of by the end of the school year. Don’t worry if your child is strong in some areas and still has some growing to do in others. That is normal and will help you create learning goals for your child as you move forward.
One example of a learning goal you may have as you begin your kindergarten homeschool is to plan which letters, sounds, and numbers you will practice each month and follow your child’s progress, noting when you need to slow down and review and when you are ready to move on. The beauty of homeschooling a kindergarten-age child is that it allows you to design your school day to meet your child’s specific learning needs.
Here are 10 skills to help guide your goals throughout your kinder year:
- Write uppercase and lowercase letters
- Sound out simple words
- Write your name
- Use invented spelling to write words
- Memorize Kindergarten Dolch Sight Words list (check out Smart Start: Sight Words grade K for list)
- Understand that numbers represent quantities
- Count and write numbers 1–20 (work toward counting to 100)
- Use counters to solve simple addition and subtraction numbers
- Recognize plus and minus signs
- Recognize and create patterns
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Heather Foudy is a certified elementary teacher with over 7 years’ experience as an educator and volunteer in the classroom. She enjoys creating lessons that are meaningful and creative for students. She is currently working for Evan-Moor’s marketing and communications team and enjoys building learning opportunities that are both meaningful and creative for students and teachers alike.