Homeschooling Kindergarten with Five in a Row

It’s hard to believe, but I have started homeschooling Kindergarten with my five-year-old son!  (Let’s call him D).  

People have been asking him all summer if he’s excited to start school.  That’s all good and fine, because he is, but they usually ask something along the lines of: “Are you excited to ride the bus?” or “Are you ready to be in a classroom?” or “Can you walk to your school from home?” And then he just stares at them, confused.  

Or they ask me: "Aren't you excited to have him out of the house!?" I tell them I'm homeschooling and quite a few stare at me wide-eyed like I'm nuts (I've had multiple people tell me the best day of parenting was when their kids started Kindergarten and were out of the house) and are embarrassed that they asked me the question.

After the first few encounters with kind strangers at the grocery store, we realized we need to prep D for talking to people about homeschooling. Now he knows he can answer “I do school at home” or “I will start Kindergarten in the fall” to the question “are you going to Kindergarten soon?”

It’s funny because I never thought that strangers would be so interested in talking to my kids about school, so I hadn’t realized I would need to teach him that most people will assume he is going to the elementary school down the street.  We’ve had a few conversations recently about how kids ride the bus, go to classrooms, eat lunch in a cafeteria, have teachers, then get picked up by their parents in the afternoon.  D furrows his eyebrows and looks at me like that is the most ridiculous thing he’s ever heard.

Since becoming a parent I’ve kept my eyes on education news and writing.  The burden and privilege of educating a child is massive and I've wanted to feel knowledgeable and prepared to make choices for my kids.   

Education and parental influence are the primary factors in shaping a child’s basic worldview.  That seems like a heavy burden.  It is.  There are few things as important, in my opinion, as the way we educate our children and the world view we give them, because it has everything to do with shaping how they think about the world, themselves, morality, and God.  

My primary goal: To frame my children’s education in a way that focuses on God as Creator, and instills (and models) godly character, with the goal of glorifying God in their education and my work as parent and educator.  Secondarily I want my children to have open, curious minds, and love learning and reading. 

As I’ve sifted through homeschool books, magazines, and websites I found that there are a number of philosophies of homeschooling (many of which overlap with other models of education).  As I was reading I could pretty easily tell which ones fit my personality and my goals for my children (whether they will equally fit my children’s style of learning remains to be seen over the years).  Other styles of schooling were intriguing, and I will probably use some of their models in our homeschool, if not following them exactly. 

  

While I’ve done a lot of reading, thinking, and praying about school, and think my husband and I have made a wise choice, I am glad to know that I can always change my mind!  You don’t sign up for a philosophy when your child is five and commit to be faithful to it for the next thirteen years.  You have the freedom to evolve and change and tweak and pick and chose from curriculum and schools of thought.  Chances are, you won’t fit perfectly into one philosophy anyway - I don't- so don’t stress it.

I really appreciate Charlotte Mason’s vision for educating children.  She emphasizes encouraging children to learn through meaningful interactions with the world, excellent children’s literature, and lots of free play and exploration.  She is sensitive to the developmental needs of growing children (which is especially important for boys!) and assures parents that children do not need to sit at desk for hours in order to learn what they should in the younger years.  A 5-8 year old child can learn most of what they need to know through life experience with intentional parents.  Flashcards and copy work not necessary.

While I see a place for establishing disciplined habits in young children, I lean toward Mason’s understanding of child development. Their ability to act like sponges and absorb knowledge and skills without being taught in a classroom setting is evident in daily life.  D is constantly learning.  As a family we try to provide an atmosphere in which he can learn, touch, smell, play, explore, climb, move, help, ask questions, participate in adult activities (like cooking, cleaning, organizing, shopping), and try new things.  

Many recent publications on education (and why American public schools are failing children) reiterate this point. Parents seem to have known for centuries that children learn best through enriched environments and ample play time, but education policy-makers seem to be denying this, pushing for earlier and earlier structured school.  The new push for mandatory preschool demonstrates this mindset. As parents we can reject the notion that our young children should be in preschool learning phonics instead of home developing normal social skills and connecting meaningfully with their families.  But I digress... 

  

For this year we decided to use “Five in a Row,” a literature-based curriculum that sets the foundation for children to love learning and reading.  That is the most important aspect of our homeschool this year and into the future.  I don’t just want my kids to memorize stuff.  I don’t just want them to churn out worksheets and color by number and have neat binders full of checkmarks.

I want to engage and encourage their natural curiosity about the world.  I want to show them that the world opens up to them through good books.  I want them to be amazed by God’s creation and explore it through every portal – from nature walks to mathematics.  If I can instill a love for learning in my children, I will consider their education a success no matter how they score on tests.

“Five in a Row” is based on reading the same book Mon-Fri (five days in a row!) and focusing on different aspects of the book each day. 

You can cover geography, learning about the setting of the book.  As you do this you can also talk about the country where the story takes place.

You study art, looking at the different techniques used in the illustrations and discussing the use of shading, shadows, perspective, etc. 

You do social studies by talking about the relationships in the book, whether between characters or between people groups, between children and parents, governments and the people and so on.

Cultural studies is an important part of “Five in a Row.”  The curriculum purposefully covers books that take place in all different areas of the world.  The most in depth study you do each week will probably be on the culture and time period of the story.

 You talk about literature itself, by explaining the different parts of a story, talking about why the book is good storytelling, and having children identify the important moments in the narrative. 

Each book has one or several science experiments that could accompany its reading.  For “The Story About Ping” we did an experiment where we observed how oil helps water roll off a bird’s feathers.  (D enjoyed this so much I let him play with oil and water in several different containers for about an hour!)
  

Each book also includes several “unit studies.”  When we read “Ping,” for instance, we studied ducks for a day.  When we study “Papa Piccolo” we will learn about cats.   

The idea is to get children thinking about their world and asking questions.  Where is China?  Why is the Yangtze called the “Yellow River?”  Why can ducks float?  What do ducks eat?  Chinese people eat ducks?!  What are they wearing?  How could they live on boats?  Why is their hair like that?

Then you help provide the answers!  

I’m going to blog about some of our studies, since I found so much help planning my curriculum for each book on homeschooling blogs!    I’ll share what we did, how we tweaked the suggestions in the curriculum book to fit our preferences, and show pictures of some of our projects, especially the ones that were a big hit! 

Soli Deo Gloria in homeschooling,

Lauren