A-Man has officially started homeschooling this year, and it has already been quite a journey. He needs really hands-on lessons to keep him involved and engaged in his learning, so I was on the hunt for some autism-friendly curriculum for autistic kindergarteners to help him develop a love of learning!

Autism-Friendly Curriculum for Autistic Kindergarteners

Autism-Friendly Curriculum for Autistic Kindergarteners

All About Reading

We decided on All About Reading for A-Man because it’s a really hands-on and sensory-friendly reading curriculum. The activities really help kids develop their reading skills at their own pace. I won’t say that A-Man doesn’t fight reading at all with this curriculum, but he cooperates a lot more than he would have!

We also really like that All About Reading covers the basics of reading thoroughly. A-Man has several splinter skills and a wicked eye for memorizing. All About Reading helps him to generalize his letters. See, A-Man might understand that a red A with an apple next to it is an A, but he may not understand that a black A with an alligator next to it is also an A.

Homeschooling an autistic child can be intimidating, so here are our choices for autism friendly kindergarten curriculum!

Saxon Math (K)

I know that at A-Man’s level he doesn’t really need a “curriculum”, but it helps me feel a lot better about homeschooling to have some sort of guide. I really liked the Saxon math curriculum for kindergarten because there was no workbook! A-Man is absolutely not a workbook kid, so I knew that it would be the best fit.

Even without the workbook, though, we have to change up the curriculum quite a bit to meet A-Man where he’s at. Really, our favorite part about Saxon is all of the manipulatives that came with it! We use the bear counters to practice sorting by color and counting and the pattern blocks to practice matching designs and patterns.

Autism-Friendly Curriculum for Autistic Kindergarteners

Fundanoodle I Can Pound Kit

Now, don’t think that we’re going crazy with the curriculum here. We probably use the standard curriculum once or twice a week. During the rest of the week we use supplemental learning products and we do a ton of play-based learning!

One of our favorite learning products that we have, and the it’s our first choice whenever A-Man doesn’t want to do his All About Reading letter activities is the Fundanoodle I Can Pound Kit! A-Man loves to pound out the letter sheets that come included. We even have him trace the dot-to-dots, color the picture (if there is one), and then pound out the sheets. The best part? He can do this totally independently!

Homeschooling an autistic child can be intimidating, so here are our choices for autism friendly kindergarten curriculum!

Fundanoodle Muscle Mover Cards

We also like to use the Muscle Mover cards to practice our letters! Right now we’re working on uppercase, but we’ll move onto lowercase soon. The muscle mover cards have a letter on one side, with a corresponding animal movement on the back. The cards are dry erase, so kids can trace the letter and then immediately take a brain break by doing the animal movement!

Beyond that, we’ve used the cards for letter recognition, and you can also build the letters with wikki stix or play doh!

Homeschooling an autistic child can be intimidating, so here are our choices for autism friendly kindergarten curriculum!

So those are the basic curriculum choices that we have made for A-Man this year. We’re bouncing between preschool and kindergarten levels, and we’re incorporating a ton of his therapy activities into our days as well. Plus, of course, we’re just doing a lot of life learning. Exploring our world and reading tons of really fun books together!

If you loved this post, you might also enjoy…

Boys Can Really Write When They Have the Right Tools!

5 Crazy Secrets That They Don't Tell You About Autism