Kindergarten, hurray!

Well, it's Monday and we've now been counting down for three days in anticipation of the "PS" man (as in UPS) bringing our books. Why I ever told this child that the "PS" man was bringing her school books, I have no idea. Three sleeps down, hopefully none to go.

Kindergarten is exciting, especially when you've never been to any school. I can appreciate her excitement. She is my only child that did not attend preschool and my only child to homechool kindergarten. (I've never shared our "why I homeschool" story, but some day I will.) All of them attended some school, if just preschool and K, except this last one. She's completely mine, which is a little bit scary. Ya know, no one else to blame. She's sunny and enthusiastic, but she's also a girl. My boys have never given me a moment of frustrated fury. This one, however, I call the Pink Tornado. When she gets started, take cover.

The other day, in anticipation of her books arriving, she got out some old preschool workbooks. She wanted to work on her alphabet. Well, starting with lower case "a" she began tracing and copying. She got to "b." I showed her where to start her pencil. She didn't like that. She scribbled on the page. I told her that if she continued to do that I would put the book away. She tried a "b" -- sort of. I showed her again where to put the pencil on the paper. She said, "Fine, I'm not doing school." The end. Urg! We may have some fun days ahead. Before she was born, I believe I was heard saying, on more than one occasion, that girls and boys are practically the same until they get older. I'm not sure what I meant by "older," but, it wasn't age five. I don't know what I was thinking.

Aaannnnyway, this is my post on preschool and kindergarten web resources. Since I didn't use a formal preschool program, I have accumulated a lot of good resources on the web. And most of them have been pretty helpful. If I wasn't in a fairly homeschool restrictive state, I would not enroll in Seton's K program and just use web resources, writing paper, math manipulatives, and readers. But, it makes my life easier to send in a report card, so we will. But, I will continue to supplement with many of these resources.

Online Fun
This resource is a compilation of many online games. They cover topics such as shapes, colors, sorting, counting, numerals, patterns, time, letters, and phonics. While we use a limited number of online games (because I don't particularly like supervising online games) these can be helpful for covering specific topics, or supplementing a book. And for a child who is having difficulty mastering a skill, switching to another medium, like the computer, can be helpful.

This resource is sponsored by the same group and covers computer mouse skills, body parts, animal, spacial relationships, and many of the same topics as above, except specifically for pre-K.

This resource is great for pre-readers, beginning readers, and readers. Peach uses it for the alphabet recognition, but I'm certain we will use it a lot more this year. She also enjoys playing the snowman and jack-o-lantern games. It's fairly easy for her to navigate by herself -- always a bonus.

This resource is a collection of online activities to help with art/colors, counting, spatial concepts, puzzles, writing, observation and discussion, small motor skills, and matching. They are simple and profession, but most need an adult to accomplish the goal.

Curricula
This resource is a fabulous curriculum for learning letters by the week. The author offers suggestions for each letter of the alphabet such as theme words, stories, poetry, snacks, field trips, songs, bible stories, math, science, and much more -- all teaching one letter per week. You could easily use this program alone for beginning reading. The author says it's for age 3, but I see no reason why this can't be used for K if a child has not already learned the alphabet. She also offers Sound of the Week and Story of the Week, for learning sight words. For kindergarten she offers suggestions for Science books and a spelling program. Unbelievably, it's all free.

This resource is another curriculum that is so complete that you could use it alone. And while it apparently designed for a preschooler, it definitely has value for kindergartners, especially for homeschoolers. Organized by themes, it offers worksheets and learning suggestions for the alphabet, animals, crafts, holidays. We used this quite a bit in preschool, but by no means exhausted the possibilities.

Worksheets
This resource offers a huge array of printable worksheets, from the alphabet and numbers (Zaner-Bloser, D'Nealian, and cursive), calendar, money, senses, time, measure, to science math and English. You need to be a member to access all of the worksheets, but it's free! And the worksheets are very professional. For moms with older kids, worksheets are available for up to third grade.

Religion
This resource offers coloring pages of the saints. Since this web resource first started, they have added quite a few saints to their roster, organizing them by feast day and alphabetically. Also offered are coloring pages for all of the Mysteries of the Rosary. This Catholic resource is definitely one to keep an eye on. I have a feeling it will improve more every time I visit.

This resource also offers coloring pages of some of the saints and the sacraments.

This resource is another group of religious coloring pages.

Crafts
This resource is a super collection of coloring pages, worksheets and craft ideas. If you're trying to find a craft activity to fit in with a subject you're working on -- look here first; they likely have it. Their collection gets bigger every time I check in. And be sure to go to the bottom of the page and create a calendar -- make one for every month.

This resource is a coloring search engine. I've had good luck finding some odd stuff.

All categories
This resource is a big mix of all of the above categories. It has learn-to-read information, activity worksheets, online learning games, and coloring pages, including Bible sheets. Click on site map to see everything they cover.

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I fear I could go on and on, since I have quite a few resources bookmarked, but for now this is it. Some of these resources are really comprehensive, so they are good starting points. I'm going to spend this week putting some packets together to start with. I fear if I start using more resources, that I will become overwhelmed and not use any of them to the degree that they are able to be used. A few good resources are worth one hundred no-so-good ones.

As I get into the school year, I'll go through my subject specific resources and post them also. If you're looking for something in particular, leave me a comment and I'll see what's stored away.

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Ha, ha! As I just published this post the doorbell rang and, you guessed it, the "PS" man, in all his glory, with two boxes of books. If you could have seen her face and heard her giggles, and "oh, man," and "this is so cool." If only they could stay this giddy about schooling their entire lives.

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