On Kindergarten, Little L Style

I sometimes wonder what other Kindergarten kids are doing; I occasionally read about what another Kindie is learning, and I think maybe I'm totally off-track. While Little L is not a typical kid, so I don't think that we are learning what is "typical" for kids her age, I still want to be developmentally-appropriate, and I also want to make sure learning is a fun experience. We have been adapting both the curriculum and materials to fit my kid's abilities and her challenges.

An example of this is Little L's reading abilities; she decodes (and comprehends) at a second-third grade level (possibly higher, but we haven't formally assessed this yet). However, she is still just-turned-6, so her ability to do written inference questions or respond in complete sentences is pretty non-existent. We often have to scribe her responses, since there's no way my kid is going to write even half of what she might say!

But here is where we are right now, as we approach the halfway mark on Kindergarten:

LA: Reading 
We honestly haven't been focusing on this at all, since Little L seems to be reading and understanding above grade level. We have done a few reading comprehension worksheets with her, where she has had to find and label the parts of the passage that contain the answers to the questions being asked. In addition, we have focused on parts of speech (adjectives/verbs/nouns), facts vs. opinions, and poetry. We have also learned about rhyming words, syllables, and homonyms.

I'm about to start doing some assessments with her using Guided Reading materials I downloaded for free on Teachers Pay Teachers, to determine where her reading really is at; this will help inform my choices on curriculum going forward. I know she loves the Phoebe and Her Unicorn serial comic collections, which are at about a level Q, and the Dory Fantasmagory books, which are at a level O . However, she also loves her Scholastic My First Word Book, so interest and ability really aren't working in sync all of the time.

LA: Writing
Handwriting Without Tears. Seriously, my kid forms letters in the most bizarre and creative ways, but her Type A mom really wants her to print properly. The HWT materials have been super helpful, and she hasn't complained about them. Of course, it helps that I invent an annoying little song using a familiar kiddie-song melody, for *every* letter she has to print. I even annoy myself when I sing it, but she eats it up. Pairing the instructions with music make it less threatening to do, apparently.

Math
We are *loving* the Math-U-See materials. Little L likes to play with the manipulatives and dunk them in her Kidfetti, but she also likes to use them for counting, adding, and skip-counting. We are working on number concepts and simple one-digit addition, but I think we need to fast forward a little, because Little L has been asking more and more about skip-counting, and the concepts of "half" and prime numbers lately. She can skip-count by 2's and 5's and 10's with proficiency, but is showing an interest in 3's and 4's and 6's. My focus with Little L is on mastery, though, and confidence; it isn't about challenging her where she is at necessarily, but about instilling in her a growth mindset and a sense of accomplishment when working with numbers.

Science
Habitats. Animals and adaptations. Also - a bit of molecular theory (the simple stuff like states of matter) thrown in. That has been our focus thus far. We have done a few fun hands-on experiments as well. We will be starting on energy and forces of motion and light in the next couple of months, although we did have a really awesome chat today when she told me that gravity was the reason why walking up a hill is so much more difficult than walking down the hill.

Socials
This is the bane of my existence; I hate having to forage for materials, and I have never been particularly creative when it comes to teaching this subject; it's no coincidence that this was also my least favourite academic subject in grade school. In my heavily TpT-influenced sourcing of worksheets and teaching resources, we have learned about communities, community helpers, family structures, Hallowe'en and Christmas traditions around the world, Canada, map-reading, and now (coming up) Chinese New Year origins and traditions. We have also just wrapped a short unit on roles, rights and responsibilities (based on the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child), and will likely look a bit more at history and First Nations cultures in the spring. Political appropriateness is going to be a theme, because my kid has been exposed to the "Ten Little Indians" song and currently thinks it refers to people from India.

Arts
Little L has, until about a month ago, found fine motor skills to be her nemesis. For the earlier part of the term, then, we focused mostly on feelings evoked in art, and on doing expressive process art. We also did a few specific art pieces to explore different kinds of media (watercolour, pastel, tempera, acrylic, ink, clay, glitter...)

Then, last month, Little L suddenly developed an interest in step-by-step drawing. Specifically, any kind of instructional drawing book that didn't involve erasing lines. We scored a few of those books off Amazon and now drawing seems to be her favourite thing to do for visual art. She also discovered a love for Mr. Sketch and Crayola smelly markers, so those have been her favourite drawing tools, besides her little pencils.

We also had Little L in a music class for Term 1; during that time, she explored feelings and expression in music, different styles of music, and also had a chance to handle a whole bunch of instruments, including drum kits, triangles, wooden frogs, accordions, nut shell shakers, xylophones, and other esoteric instruments that I had never heard of or tried before. Little L's favourite was the kazoo, but now she has also branched out into harmonica :) Recently she also learned how to play Hot Cross Buns on our digital piano, and now she is interested in learning more songs, so I think piano lessons await us in the future.


Little L also started ballet (as I mentioned in the last post), and this has been her all-time super-favourite thing in the world. She has even learned all the various positions, and their proper names, because she wants to read about ballet and dance ballet and play ballet and watch videos about ballet. All. The. Time. So we're continuing with this for the foreseeable future.

PE
My kid loves her scooter, so that is her preferred method of exercising, ballet notwithstanding. Next at the top of her list is swimming, and we have been doing private 1:1 lessons every week since November. While Little L isn't exactly a fish in the water yet, she has made some huge strides towards independence and competence in the water. It has also done wonders for her core muscles. We also plan to continue with weekly lessons for a long time to come. We also love going to the trampoline park, although a recently fatality has us rethinking our visits there.

And that is about it. We learn Bible concepts and stories throughout the day, since it is woven into nearly everything that I teach. She will be starting typing games/lessons once our desktop is set up (we got her a new iMac), and she is already doing a social play group every week in Term 2 (and hopefully Term 3).

Each day, we do try to hit all of these subjects, although there are days when we alternate Science and Socials. We haven't added a second language yet, either, but I'm hoping that this is something we can pursue in the fall, since my kid is pretty adept with language tasks.

Are we doing too much? Too little? How does this compare with what your Kindies are doing? Please let me know; I'm trying not to over-tax my kid, but as a big fan of academic learning, I find myself gravitating towards doing more, versus less, during our school days. Am I totally off-track?