Kindergarten and Preschool

2009-2010 School Year Books and Resources
Kindergarten for First Son, Preschool for First Daughter

School year "completed" on May 21, 2010

• Preschool Skills for First Daughter
• I created a lot of the activities in Teaching Montessori in the Home: Pre-School Years: The Pre-School Years, but we didn't formally use many of them at all. I expect to use more in the 2010-2011 school year.
  
• My First Book Of Tracing (Kumon Workbooks)
• Let's Cut Paper! (Kumon First Steps Workbooks)
• My First Book Of Cutting (Kumon Workbooks)
• Let's Fold! (Kumon First Steps Workbooks)
• Math
• Saxon Math K and the meeting book (copyright 2004)
• Math Play! (Williamson Little Hands Series). See my review of Saxon Math K here.
• June 2018 note - We now use Counting and Number Bonds and Addition and Subtraction from Let's Play Math paired with games from our own stock for pre-kindergarten, kindergarten, and first grade math. See my review of the games books here.
• Reading - First Son read books out loud to me. The first fifty books are listed here. He learned to read the previous year using Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons. (March 2017 note - We now use The Ordinary Parent's Guide to Teaching Reading. Read my review here.) 
• Handwriting (Starting with First Daughter in 2012-2013, we taught cursive in kindergarten instead of print writing using Cursive First. Read my review here.)
• Zaner-Bloser Handwriting K
• Handwriting: Learning to Write Manuscript Book 1
• Thank you notes and other handwritten letters to family or friends
• Copywork - writing out his memory verses once he memorized them.
• Faith
• Memory Verses - We read the current memory verse aloud together once a day (four days a week) and recited all of them once a week.
• Psalm 118:105
• Psalm 45:10
• Isaiah 40:31
• Jeremiah 31:25
• John 3:16
• I Thes 5:18
• Bead by Bead Rosary Prayer Book, Joyful Mysteries 
• Little Acts of Grace
• The Mass Book for Children
• Tomie DePaola's Book of Bible Stories
• Child's Guide to the Mass 
• St. Joseph picture books
• God the Father
• Mary, My Mother
• The Angels: God's Messengers and Our Helpers
• Saints of the Americas 
• Saint Francis of Assisi  
• The Promises of the Sacred Heart
• The Feasts of Jesus  
• Our Lady of Guadalupe
• Pope John Paul II  
• Celebrating Lent 
• The Way of the Cross for Children
• Our Lady of Lourdes
• St. Peter the Apostle 
• Catholic Mosaic: Living the Liturgical Year With Children
• Mother Teresa by Demi
• Peter Claver, Patron Saint of Slaves/Pedro Claver, Santo Patrono de los Esclavos
• The Tale of Three Trees: A Traditional Folktale
• The Caterpillar That Came to Church: A Story of the Eucharist (I didn't like this one very much and we won't be using it in future years.)
• St. Jerome and the Lion 
• Brother Francis and the Friendly Beasts
• Angel in the Waters
  
• Saint Francis and the Christmas Donkey 
• The Miracle of Saint Nicholas (Golden Key Books)
• The Legend of the Poinsettia
• The Lady of Guadalupe
• The Crippled Lamb
• Mary: The Mother of Jesus
• The Last Straw
• A Gift of Gracias: The Legend of Altagracia
• Brigid's Cloak: An Ancient Irish Story
• The Holy Twins
• Saint Valentine
• Patrick: Patron Saint of Ireland
• Song of the Swallows
• Petook: An Easter Story
• The Twelve Apostles
  
• Little Book of Saints, Volume 1
• Little Book of Saints, Vol. II
• New Picture Book of Saints: Illustrated Lives of the Saints for Young and Old, Saint Joseph Edition
• Our Lenten celebrations
• Marian Devotions in the Domestic Church
• The Huron Carol
• The Little Juggler
• Saint Patrick and the Peddler (Orchard Paperbacks)
  
• Family Read-Alouds - I tried to read through some longer books with the children, interspersed with books that I thought complimented other activities, field trips, art projects or science experiments. Of course, we read a great many other books, but these were read during our "official" lesson time.
• Aesop's Fables for Children: Includes a Read-and-Listen CD (Dover Pictorial Archives)
• Fables by Arnold Lobel
• Stuart Little 
• Beatrix Potter The Complete Tales
• The Salamander Room (Dragonfly Books)
• The War Between the Vowels and the Consonants
• A House Is a House for Me
• How Chipmunk Got His Stripes (Picture Puffins)
• The Year At Maple Hill Farm
• A Book About The Four Seasons (blr)
• Brother Juniper
• Why Do Leaves Change Color? (Let's-Read-and-Find-Out Science, Stage 2)
• An Egg Is Quiet
• Peter and the Wolf
• The Cloud Book
• Little Cloud (Picture Puffins)
• Chanticleer and the Fox
• If You Made a Million - First Son liked reading this one just before his allowance started on his sixth birthday (a glorious $1 a week).
• The Gifts
• Miss Rumphius
• The Wind in the Willows
• Animalia (Picture Puffins)
• The Big Snow
• The Willow Umbrella
  
• Audio Books - We listened to these books as a family while riding in the van.
• Magic Tree House Collection: Books 1-8
• The Chronicles of Narnia
• Little House In The Big Woods
• Little House On The Prairie
• The Cricket in Times Square
• Farmer Boy
• Poetry - We read selected poems together with no effort to memorize them.
• Tomie DePaola's Book of Poems
• Eric Carle's Animals Animals 
• A Child's Garden of Verses : A Classic Illustrated edition
  
• Where the Sidewalk Ends 30th Anniversary Edition: Poems and Drawings
• Flit, Flutter, Fly!
• There's a Zoo in Room 22
• Sing a Song of Popcorn : Every Child's Book of Poems
• Antarctic Antics: A Book of Penguin Poems
• Toad by the Road: A Year in the Life of These Amazing Amphibians
• What Time Is It, Mr. Crocodile?
• Beast Feast : Poems
• Tomie DePaola's Mother Goose
• History
• We read a bunch of picture books each month, focusing on a period of North American history. Here's a link to the final post for the year that includes links and topics for each month's books.
• We also created a Book of Centuries. (Well, I did.) March 2017 note - Here's a more recent post on our books of centuries.
  
• In 2012-2013, we read through American History again with First Daughter. Here's the last post in that series, which includes links to all the others.
• Music Appreciation - I requested CDs from the library each month for a single composer and we just listened to them as we played and often while we ate lunch.
• Science and Nature Study
• Nature Study Club - meeting once every other month with other homeschooling families. The kindergarten and preschool group usually read a book together, did a craft and took a little nature walk if the weather wasn't too terrible. Read about our first meeting here, in addition to our relaxed approach to nature in kindergarten.
• Bubbles, Rainbows and Worms - We averaged about two experiments a month from this little book. It was nice, but hard to coordinate with all my little ones and we didn't end up using it again with my younger children.
• The Magic School Bus on the Ocean Floor
• Atlantic
• Art - I tried to offer a lengthy art time once a week. We started with activities from books like these, but then usually presented some materials (like paints) and let them have fun.
• The Little Hands Art Book (Williamson Little Hands Series)
• Sea Life Art & Activities: Creative Learning Experiences for 3- To 7-Year-Olds (Williamson Little Hands Series)
• Now we use Artistic Pursuits, which you could start in kindergarten, but there's no rush. See my review here.
• Art Appreciation
• Come Look with Me: Enjoying Art with Children (Come Look with Me)
• A Child's Book of Prayer in Art
• Baby Einstein: The ABC's of Art

Links to Amazon above are affiliate links and I do receive a small commission if you make a purchase after following a link. I received no compensation for this list which is an honest record of the materials and resources we used in our homeschool.