2020 has a lot of new homeschooling mamas, am I right?! I always wanted to homeschool Kenna, but the madness of this year definitely solidified that decision. Lucky for me, Kindergarten is pretty easy and mostly fun! Kennedy is a very hands-on type of learner, so we are schooling around her interests and fun topics.
For fall, we chose an apple unit. We did her math, art, language arts, history, science, and life skills around apples this month! I've had a lot of discussions with other mamas lately and I think we are all just trying to figure out the best way to help and teach our sweet babies. I thought I'd share some of our curriculum in hopes it'll help another overwhelmed mama. I'll try to break it down by subject, but a lot of these are intertwined! Let me know if this is helpful for you!
Science:
For science we briefly discussed the life cycle of an apple using THIS worksheet, then we explored different apples using our senses! We sliced up 4 different types of apples, then talked about how they looked, tasted, smelled, and felt. I made this very basic chart to practice some writing and early graphing/ranking skills with our taste test data. While we were at it, we did a little dissection to talk about the different parts of the apple.
Art:
Since our apple was all sliced and dissected, we took the opportunity to do a watercolor painting of the anatomy of an apple. We practiced with our paints and then labeled the stem, core, seeds, skin, and flesh. More great writing practice!
Math:
Classic story problems! Before we sliced everything up, we practiced addition and subtraction with the apples. The ranking of the tastes is a great pre-math skill, too. This was also a great worksheet! There are 2 options- one to help with reading and one with numbers! Here is one more worksheet we loved!
Language Arts:
There is a lot of chances for reading, writing, and dictating in the other activities, so we didn't do any specifically for LA in this unit; however, we do use The Good and The Beautiful Level K Primer everyday, as well as Learning Dynamics to help her with phonics and reading. I've been super impressed with both of those curriculums! I was skeptical about Learning Dynamics, but just like they promised, she's starting to read on her own!!!!!
History:
For this unit, we mostly read the books and also watched this short youtube video about Johnny Appleseed. This is also a great little coloring page of Johnny Appleseed with some facts about him.
Life Skills:
It's my belief that life skills are best learned in the kitchen! We washed, peeled, cored, and sliced apples to make some apple crisp for our end of unit party! We learned about knife safety and practiced our baking skills. Kenna cleaned up after herself and helped with the dishes. We practiced patience while it baked, then learned about managing disappointment when it turned out terribly haha.
This would be a great time to learn about canning applesauce or to make a yummy treat with allll those apples we sliced! There were several recipes in the back of 3/4 books I listed above, so may we will try one of those next time:)
Field Trip:
Apple Picking at Gigi's house! You could also go to a farmers market or even just to the grocery store and pick a few new varieties!
Book Recommendations:
10 Apples Up on Top by Dr. Seuss
Apple Farmer Annie by Monica Wellington
How to Make an Apple Pie and See the World by Marjorie Priceman
The Apple Pie Tree by Zoe Hall
The Seasons of Arnold's Apple Tree by Gail Gibbons
Go To Resources:
Nearly every link is to teacherspayteachers.com! I absolutely love this site. I've been using it since I taught preschool way back when. It is a fantastic resource for any+all subjects, grade levels, and themes. I love being able to support hard working teachers by buying their lesson plans, but there are also thousands of free downloads for just about every topic. It's saving my bum!
The Good and the Beautiful is also a great curriculum! We are mostly using it for LA right now, but they have beautiful, incredible open and go curriculums. I also have their meteorology, space science, arthropods, and marine biology units that we plan to work with throughout the year. TGATB also has some free resources and units, including marine biology, to take advantage of!
Learning Dynamics is changing our life! Kennedy loves hands on- she had the hardest time time with numbers until I started baking with her more. Then the numbers meant something to her and she knows all about basic fractions! I couldn't figure out how to be more hands on with letters, but Learning Dynamics is taking the cake! She loves earning a letter card when she masters each new letter, and she is over the moon when she gets to earn a new book! Highly recommend if you're teaching a child how to read!!!
Don't forget about your local library! Librarians are beautiful gems of wisdom and ideas!
Okay, did I miss anything? Probably! But that's an overview of our apple unit! This unit lasted about a week for us, but we definitely could've made it shorter or longer. I typically base things off of Kennedy's interest level and 1 week was perfect for this one! I hope this was helpful! Let me know if it is, I'm happy to share more:)
One last thought: you've got this mama. You're exactly the one your babies need. There are a lot of different ways to homeschool, so keep trying until you find the path that feels best for you!