Hi, everyone! Our family is so excited about finding TOG! We really resonate with the 4-year cycles of chronological history, the classical approach, etc. My question is one that I'm sure many "newbies" have: what to do for Kindergarten?

Our oldest child, Brendan, is 4, then we have twin 2-year-olds, Caden and Sydney. Brendan is attending preschool two mornings a week this year, mostly to let me focus on the little ones. My hope is that when the twins are 3 next fall, I'll be able to get my act together enough to begin Kindergarten at home with Brendan.

Brendan can already sound-out words, as he knows all his letters and their basic sounds. He often surprises me by reading sight words I didn't even know he had (e.g., friend, their). Even though he can read fairly well, he often would rather guess at a word than take the time to sound it out. (That's his 4-year-old attention span at work, I suppose.) Many K curricula seem to focus on teaching the letters and sounds, which I'm afraid would be boring review all year for him. Handwriting is very difficult for him, so we definitely need to work on that. He is a lefty, which is intimidating to me.

I read a previous post that suggested really focusing in on Bible, reading, writing and math in Kindergarten. What curricula have people found that seems to prepare students well for TOG year1?

Thanks for any guidance you can provide!

Hi Carissa,
This is not an "official" TOG answer mind you. ...it's just my opinion...

Bible: I'd suggest getting a good set of Bible story books and read a section every day. I really love Southwestern's Family Bible series. (You can buy these from the college kids that come to your door every summer...you may have to ask about this series because they don't always make it their focus....or probably used online. They are well worth the money! I've kept them for my future grandkids.)

Reading: read aloud, read aloud, read aloud. Add in Explode the Code workbooks at the place that he needs to jump in. You have two options, in my opinion: 1. Do it all orally. 2. Have him write in it and that be his writing also.

Writing: If you don't like the above option, just find a book at Wal-Mart or a similar store.

Math: If he likes hands-on, Math-U-See is a good way to go. If you think he'd like a workbook type approach, try Singapore Math.

I'm sure that others will have more ideas for you!

Blessings,

Carissa

My oldest started TOG year 1 last year at just barely 5 years old. She would've been in Kindergarten if I sent her to public. We went ahead and used year one anyway, I just did what I felt she could handle. She handled more than I expected.
Before we started TOG, for Pre-K, I read aloud to her as much as I could, and had her read to me & siblings or help me read a few words here and there while I read. We had trouble with the guessing words for a bit, too, but I would just say "No, let's not guess. Please read it." She got through it pretty quick. I think she felt like she could finish a book quicker if she didn't take the time to really read each word. So when she realized it took longer, she quit doing it so much. I gave her a basic math start with printing off addition and subtraction worksheets I found online-easy to find. We used her crayon box a lot. I would get out two crayons, then another three crayons, then push them together and recount for 2+3=5. We read from our kid's bible for a lot of our reading. And something that helped me squeeze in extra handwriting time was to get a dry erase handwriting board (just from Wal-mart) and let her do that on her own. I also have two other little ones to attend to (now 4 and 1). If she was sloppy, it just wipes off. I also used one of those thick Basic Kindergarten workbooks from Wal-mart.

Last year we did TOG year 1 as first grade. Even though she was only 5 she did great. We did drop a couple books over difficulty level, and I did some paraphrasing. We drew a lot of pictures about the stories and kept them in a binder. She did summaries well- short ones. I ignored the spelling lists in TOG that year as they were too difficult, and I just made my own list of common words such as should, again, happily, etc... that were in her books she read. We did 5/week. I didn't do a separate bible curriculum because year one is pretty full of bible stories, but we did stop to do the little life apps in her bible as we went. I really enjoyed singapore math. If she struggled at all I just got the crayon box out and showed her. That worked for us. We used 1A & 1B while technically K age. They do have K math at singapore, but I didn't bother with it. We did well enough without it, but if he struggles w/math it might be a good idea. I also didn't bother with Science until we were in year one also. I used alpha omega life pacs.
Cana really enjoys it and flies through the work books.

I hope you can find something from this that you can use. Good luck and have fun!