I spent hours looking through curriculum choices that are out there and I finally found Memoria Press and I have been THRILLED with it. My goals were to find something that would be challenging enough to put him ahead in first grade. First grade in a school setting is hard - its a long day - lots of work - lots of sitting and lots of writing. IF homeschooling is a disaster - and lets face it - it might be - I want him to go into a first grade classroom academically ahead so he can focus his energy on the physical demands of the day. My second goal was to find a curriculum that had enough to do during the day that we would not be done by 10:00. I want us to be able to stay busy with fun projects, lots of reading about a million different things - lots of learning about the world - lots of themes to build field trips around. One of the beautiful things about homeschooling is that you really can something for what your family needs. If you have a family of five and your youngest is in kindergarten - you need something that gets to the point - teaches math and phonics really well and then frees you up to work with your older kids. I didn't want something like this - I wanted the fluff - I wanted to enrichement projects, social studies projects and most of science experiments. Memoria Press was the best thing I could find by a long shot!
I bought the entire Kindergarten Curriculum package. It comes with lesson plans for the week that include the math and phonics minimums that he needs but also has a TON of activities, memory work, social studies, Bible, science (although not quite enough - I also bought the Harcourt first grade science book) as well as fine arts (classical music and art). It was like Christmas morning when the box arrived at the house.
Each week offers a book of the week, a poem of the week, a piece of art and a pice of music that all go together. There are several projects that work to tie all of this in together. There is copy work and memory work each week using Bible verses and stories. I dont' feel like this is enough religion so I have a book called The Big Book of Catholic Customs and Traditions that goes through each month and provides projects for all of the liturgical seasons, a saint of the Month, service projects, bible stories - it looks great. I think this will be good!
So that is what we are doing! I have schedule printed out for Monday - I was planning on posting the original versus what actually happened! I really want to journal through this year - I am nervous and excited all at the same time. Parker is ready to get back to science experiments. This will definitely be an experience and I am trusting that it will be challenging - but good challenging - and mostly beautiful. Pray for us as we get ready to do this Kindergarten thing!
