Friends, my A-Man is starting kindergarten. My baby boy. Of course, all of you moms know that it’s equally exciting and heartbreaking that our kids grow up so fast.
As a homeschool mom? We can also add terrifying to this list. Kindergarten marks when “real school” starts, and for me and A-Man? That makes me nervous. We haven’t done any formal schooling at all with him this far, so it’s a bit nerve wracking.
Add in that he’s so hands on while Mr. C only needed to read things to understand them? Plus I’m not an activity mama at all..
Thankfully, I was able to find an integrated Christian curriculum for Kindergarten that helped me put the pieces together!
Kindergarten Christian Integrated Curriculum
(I received one unit of Kindergarten Stepping Stones to review and I was compensated for my time. I was not required to give a positive review, and all thoughts and opinions are my own! You can see my full disclosure here)
Kindergarten Stepping Stones By Kendal Hunt RPD
I had the opportunity to try out Kindergarten Stepping Stones from Kendal Hunt RPD for A-Man, and I’m so thankful this is how we started our “formal school” journey with A-Man!
Integrated Curriculum
Okay, so what does it mean to be an integrated homeschooling curriculum?
First, this curriculum is all inclusive and covers many subjects.
- Reading
- Science
- Writing
- Math
- Bible
- and More!
Beyond that, it combines the subjects so that they all work together. Many homeschoolers do this with unit studies, but this curriculum takes the planning work out of the equation! In just one of the activities we did my kids worked on listening, fine motor skills, science, art and sequencing.
Kindergarten Activities
Our Favorite Activity
Our favorite activity from our unit was creating trees for each season. It was so easy to set up, and the boys all had a blast! I also loved that I could adapt the project for all three boys to meet them at their own skill level.
Also, fun fact, this project taught us that Baby M really wants to lick glue. I’ve got that kid.
Why We Love Kindergarten Stepping Stones Activities
The first thing that I absolutely love about the kindergarten activities that are included in Kindergarten Stepping Stones is how unbelievably low prep they are.
For the summer and fall trees activity I just had to print out the blank tree pictures and tear up a bit of paper. For extra easy points, I had the kids help tear up the paper which added more fine motor practice to the whole thing!
We also loved that they can be so easily adapted to fit a child where they are.
For reference, I did this activity with A-Man who is about to start kindergarten and has various special needs, Baby M who is 2.5 years old and is just barely starting to participate in preschool activities, and Mr. C who is “supposed” to be going into first grade but does mainly third grade curriculum.
All three had a blast with this project and did it at their own level.
Then finally, as I mentioned before, it integrated so many different subjects.
- I read the story as the boys colored, so they had to work on listening and multi-tasking.
- They tore up the paper and pasted it onto their trees which worked fine motor skills.
- We talked about the seasons changing and it’s effect on the trees for science.
- And of course, they made beautiful pictures, so we had art included.
Comprehensive Teacher Guide
The teachers guide in Kindergarten Stepping Stones is intense, friends.
It was designed for a teacher of a classroom, but I learned a lot about how to more effectively teach my kiddos from the information in the book!
It included comprehensive guides on how to evaluate children and what could be expected developmentally at what ages. That was really helpful to me because my children are all over the neurodiversity spectrum, so I have no reference for “normal”.
It also includes ideas for learning centers, transition activities, and the importance of different types of play.
Kindergarten Stepping Stones also came with a daily lesson guide book that includes all of the projects and activities for the unit and it includes what developmental skill that activity works towards! I love having it all written out for me!
Living Literature Based
If you haven’t been around here long, let me tell you, we love books in this house. We read often, and we always try to find curriculum that supports a love of reading in kids, especially during early elementary years.
That’s why I was so excited that Kindergarten Stepping Stones is literature based!
Our unit, Wonderfully Made, included three fantastic picture books that we’ve read together dozens of times.
The books all had beautiful images, and they were full of learning opportunities. The unit activities were broken up in the lesson guide based on which book they were based on, so we re-read the stories during many of the activites. This really helped A-Man connect the learning together.
Faith Based Curriculum
Finally, I love that Kindergarten Stepping Stones is a faith-based curriculum. I think that it’s really important, especially with young kids, to help them make connections between their learning and their faith easily.
In our unit, we learned about growing, the body, and how to keep our body healthy, and all of it connected back to how we were all wonderfully made by God.
It helped to start some really interesting conversations in our family about how we need to make healthy choices and how every one of God’s creations needs certain things in order to grow up and stay healthy.
Getting Kindergarten Stepping Stones
You can get Kindergarten Stepping Stones for your family from Kendal Hunt RPD. I highly recommend it for any mom starting to homeschool kindergarten who wants a Christian integrated curriculum that is simple to use and fun for kids!
You can also connect with Kendal Hunt RPD on Facebook or Twitter to stay informed about any news from them!
