Newbie questions

[Mom2Princesses]

[Lily]

[Ramona]

Honest to goodness, I base our K "curriculum" around the Little Golden Book We Like Kindergarten by Clara Cassidy.

We say hello and talk about the day. We take care of other people, animals or plants. We play with dough. We play instruments and sing. We paint and draw. We run and exercise. We have snacks and naps. Mommy reads aloud. We dance and display our work. We pretend a lot.

Ramona

[Mom2Princesses]

[WWMama]

Sounds good, and is a lot like what we do. What in the world else do young kids need to know? I think there are a lot of kids that are in public school that are so bogged down by being able to identify a certain shape or make their letter a certain way or identify a certain town on a map that they miss the stuff they really need to figure out...like taking care of their pet cat. I would say at this point, and what we have chosen to do, is let the kids be kids. There is so much to be learned in everyday life at this point without having to worry about curriculum!

Good luck and have fun!

[Theodore]

Nothing wrong with introducing letters and numbers in kindergarten. It's preparation for phonics and basic math instruction in first grade. Shapes? Circle, square, and triangle aren't difficult. Geography? That should definitely wait until a later time.

[WWMama]

I agree, I was just referring to the school district here that has kindegarteners "needing" to identify a rhombus, make their letters in a ridiculously perfect way, and other such things I thought were a little strict for a five year old. Didn't mean to imply that numbers, letters, and basic shapes weren't important.

[Ophelia]

[WWMama]