Scope and Sequence

Excerpted from the World Book site, Kindergarten Curriculum. Bolded items are things we have not yet covered. Colwyn is solid on everything left un-bolded.

* Meanings of holidays, traditions, and customs
* Understanding and appreciating other cultures
* Individual's role in family, home, school, and community
* Relationship of the individual to the group
* Work and jobs
* Safety rules and symbols
* Basic human needs
* Self-respect and self-awareness
* Awareness of others
* Location of home and school
* Diagram of home and school

Science

* Observation of everyday, familiar things
* Common animals and plants
* Interrelationships of animals and plants
* Classification of living things
* Farm animals
* Care of pets
* Like and unlike plants
* Indoor plants
* The sun: our principal source of energy
* Weather and seasons
* Temperature
* Light
* Colors
* Senses
* Earth, moon, stars, planets
* Simple measurement
* Beginning experimentation

Language Arts

* Phonics
* Choral reading
* Listening to literature, music, poetry
* Nursery rhymes, fairy tales, fables
* Social listening
* Constructing visual images while listening
* Oral communication skills
* Role play
* Following and giving directions
* Paraphrasing and summarizing
* Organizing ideas
* Experience stories
* Relating events and experiences using complete sentences
* Listening for correct speech habits and word usage
* Beginning writing process
* Manuscript handwriting

Health and Safety

* Personal hygiene
* Good eating habits
* Good grooming
* Care of teeth
* Major body parts
* Physical fitness
* Safety to and from school

Mathematics

* Simple counting to 20
* One-to-one relationship
* Concepts of more, less than, same
* Sequence of events
* Correspondence of quantities
* Ordinal-cardinal relationship
* Number-numeral relationship
* Recognition of basic sets
* Meaning of addition and subtraction
* Introduction to number line
* Estimation
* Elementary geometry (shapes)
* Calendar and clock
* Denominations of money
* Basic problem-solving strategies
* Basic chart and graph concepts

So, two and a half months into the 'school year' and Colwyn's doing quite well. Not to mention that we've covered quite a lot that's not even on this list. Just out of curiosity, here's the first grade curriculum:

* Holidays, traditions, and customs
* Our American Heritage
* Different cultures at different times
* Family, school, neighborhood, community
* Farm and zoo
* Neighborhood helpers
* Jobs and careers
* Social skills and responsibilities
* Basic geography terms
* Making and reading a simple neighborhood map

Science

* Grouping and classification
* Living and nonliving things
* Animals
* Pets
* Farm animals
* Zoo and circus animals
* Woodland animals
* Common birds
* Plant and animal habitats
* Seeds, bulbs, plants, flowers
* Weather and seasons
* Day and night
* Solids, liquids, gases
* Air and water
* Magnets
* Fire and temperature
* Sun, moon, stars, planets
* Simple machines
* Beginning experimentation
* Scientific method and scientific inquiry

Language Arts

* Reading
- Phonetic analysis
- Structural analysis
- Establishing sight vocabulary
* Reading informally: names, labels, signs
* Simple pantomimes and dramatic play
* Creating stories and poems
* Telling favorite stories
* Organizing ideas and impressions
* Enunciation and pronunciation
* Presenting information orally, in sequence and with clarity
* Book reports and critiques
* Discussion skills: taking part in group discussion
* Beginning dictionary skills: alphabetizing
* Beginning spelling
* Beginning grammar: nouns, verbs, adjectives
* Introduction to punctuation and capitalization
* Manuscript handwriting
* Handling books
* Using table of contents
* Development of a class newspaper

Health and Safety

* Personal hygiene
* Dental health
* Good eating habits
* Exercise and rest
* Diseases
* Common cold
* Dressing for weather and activity
* Safety rules to and from school

Mathematics

* Counting and writing to 100
* Counting by 2's to 40
* Simple number patterns
* Beginning ordinal numbers
* Using 10 as a basic unit
* Simple properties of zero
* Simple properties of sets
* Beginning addition and subtraction facts
* Number-line use
* Place value and numeration
* Concepts of quantity and size
* Concepts of equality and inequality
* Concepts of ordinal and cardinal numbers
* Using 1/2 and 1/4 appropriately
* Estimation
* Geometric patterns and figures
* Basic customary and metric measurement
* Recognizing time: clock and calendar
* Value of penny, nickel, dime, quarter
* Solving simple word problems
* Basic probability and chance
* Basic chart and graph concepts

Not bad, I think.

Month(!) in Review

Yikes, I really dropped the ball on posting. October was a very busy month for us, so I'll blame it on that. We've done all our usual work - Colwyn has about 8 pages left in his Singapore 2A workbook, so that'll get done this week, then we can start on the second half of his kindergarten math. He's pretty much done with Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons
, so we're moving on to using easy readers for his reading lessons (which we try to do for at least 10-20 minutes a day, in addition to our regular read-alouds).

We've been working a lot on science/history. We covered (the basics of) the formation of the Earth, composition of the Earth, plate tectonics, the start of life, early life, and evolution. Most of that was through the The Usborne Internet-Linked Encyclopedia of World History
. We used some websites for the composition of the Earth. Plate tectonics was covered in the Usborne book as well as through some Science Day hands-on activities with our homeschool group. To complement the Usborne book on evolution, we also read How Whales Walked into the Sea by Faith McNulty.

For Earth Scouts, we read When The Root Children Wake Up
by Audrey Wood. Then we brainstormed some ideas on how to take care of the Earth and used those to play "Mother Earth, May I?" It's pretty much just like "Mother, May I?" except the kids say, "Mother Earth, may I compost our kitchen scraps?" and then the kid playing Mother Earth tells them how many steps to take. They seemed to enjoy it, I think. We were supposed to go on a walk to look for creatures outside, but it was rainy, so I assigned that as homework. The week before, we had done a Recycled Art Day (which Dani planned and hosted), so the kids who participated in that got a Recycling Badge.

For book club, we read The Wind in the Willows
by Kenneth Grahame. We only read the first three chapters or so, but Colwyn (surprisingly) really liked it. I think a lot of it went over his head (due to the language), but it was so enjoyable to read aloud. Both boys participated really well during the book club activities and enjoyed playing outside with the other kids afterwards.

We also went on a field trip to the Aquarium, which was quite a lot of fun. The boys spent a lot of time exploring with Alex and Mila, which was nice. We toured the Beverly Fire Department last Tuesday and will do an encore tour of the Danvers Fire Department this Tuesday. That obviously led to many discussions on fire safety, but I think the boys were most excited about climbing in the fire truck.

Our homeschool group's Halloween Party was a big success, as well. We rented a room at Endicott Park and the kids played that "Guess the Body Part" game with cold spaghetti, a peeled tomato, hot dogs, lunch meat, etc. One of the dads entertained the kids with some acoustic guitar music, which was super nice of him. They played Red Rover and Duck, Duck, Goose - both big hits.

So, all in all, a pretty busy month. We also had various park days, playdates, and who-knows-what-else going on. I'm going to make a concerted effort to stay on top of the journaling, since it's a pain the butt to try to remember what happened over the course of a whole month. :)