Our hyper-linked 4yo Kindergarten Curriculum

***more hyperlinks added 6 Dec 2007***

Literacy
We began 2007 with a program based around the letters of the alphabet. I introduced most of the letters with a Sesame Street colouring page, and a brainstorming session on words that started with or contained the most common phoneme for that letter. One thing I am already doing differently is that with Joshua I only showed him the capital letters, but with Anna I am introducing both the capital and lower case letters at the same time. I have now refined the colouring pages into my own alphabet penmanship pages, with the colouring picture at the top and lines for caps and lower case writing below, with manuscript, typewritten and cursive examples of the letter also included. We supplemented this with an ABC Sticker Book from Hinkler Books, which Joshua really enjoyed.

In the second half of this year, we have used Reading Reflex: The foolproof Phono-Graphix guide to teaching your child to read by Carmen and Geoffrey McGuinness as our primary resource. We worked through activites based on those explained in chapter 3, "Teaching the Basic Code". One major difference I made was to do "mapping" (that is, writing out of new words) as tracing on homemade lined paper, rather than on a small whiteboard as the book suggested, because Joshua was not already familiar with the formation of letters. We also added on extra reading and penmanship activities based on the very limited vocabulary, using three Penmanship Readers with colouring pictures which I made myself (using free online colouring pictures mostly from Karen's Whimsy and Clipart ETC).

Literature
In the first semester of 2007 we read a lot of picture books, which Joshua then narrated back for me. He also illustrated his own narrations, with great improvement in the recognisability of his drawings as a result. Our picture book read aloud list is below. Ttitles with an asterisk *, I hope to read aloud sometime next year, when Anna is doing 4yo K and Joshua is doing 5yo K - titles with a hash mark # are firm family favourites. I have hyperlinked the Australian titles and some that are less likely to be known:

A Hat for Minerva Louise - Janet Morgan Stoeke
*We’re Going on a Bear Hunt - Michael Rosen & Helen Oxenbury
Alexander’s Outing - Pamela Allen
#Shout, Daisy, Shout - Jane Simmons
*Angus Lost (and other Angus books) - Marjorie Flack
*Bears - Ruth Krauss
Harry the Dirty Dog - Gene Zion
#Hairy Maclary from Donaldson’s Dairy (and others) - Lynley Todd
#Fancy That! - Pamela Allen
Miffy's Garden - Dick Bruna
*The Potato People - Pamela Allen
*Corduroy - Don Freeman
*Gregory’s Shadow - Don Freeman
#Handa’s Surprise - Eileen Browne
#Where the Wild Things Are - Maurice Sendak
Who Sank the Boat? - Pamela Allen
Mr Archimede’s Bath - Pamela Allen
#One Horse Waiting for Me - Patricia Mullins
#Goodnight Moon - Margaret Wise Brown
#The Gruffalo - Julia Donaldson & Axel Scheffler
The Gruffalo’s Child - Julia Donaldson & Axel Scheffler
#Simpkin - Quentin Blake
The Story of Ferdinand - Munro Leaf
*Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See? - Bill Martin Jr
Each Peach Pear Plum - Janet & Allen Ahlberg
Madeline - Ludwig Bemelmans
*The Little Engine That Could - Watty Piper
*A Bear Called Paddington - Michael Bond
One Duck Stuck - Phyllis Root
One Woolly Wombat - Rod Tricia & Kerry Argent
*Pete the Sheep - Jackie French
*Diary of a Wombat - Jackie French
#Josephine Wants to Dance - Jackie French
*Cecily G and the 9 Monkeys - H A Rey
*Curious George - Margaret and H A Rey
*Flat Stanley - Jeff Brown
*Caps for Sale - Esphyr Slobodkina
Bedtime for Frances - Russell Hoban
*Bread and Jam for Frances - Russell Hoban
*Amelia Bedelia - Peggy Parish
*Floss - Kim Lewis
#He Came With the Couch - David Slonim
#An Anteater Named Arthur - Bernard Waber
#The Blue Balloon - Mick Inkpen
Possum Magic - Mem Fox
Where is the Green Sheep? - Mem Fox
#Blossom Possum: The Sky Is Falling Down-Under - Gina Newton
*A New Coat for Anna - Harriet Zeifert
*Story of Babar, the Little Elephant - Jean de Brunhoff
The Story About Ping - Marjorie Flack & Kurt Wiese
#Mike Mulligan and his Steam Shovel - Virginia Lee Burton
The Velveteen Rabbit - Margery Williams
#The Enormous Crocodile - Roald Dahl
#The Giraffe and the Pelly and Me - Roald Dahl
*Owls in the Family - Farley Mowat

Below is our list of episodic or chapter books, from our Kindergarten read aloud list. Of course, many of these we will read again over the years:

Thomas the Tank-Engine - Rev Wilbert Awdry
Adventures of the Wishing Chair - Enid Blyton
The Wishing Chair Again - Enid Blyton
The Complete Adventures of Peter Rabbit and Friends - Beatrix Potter
Winnie-The-Pooh - A A Milne
The House at Pooh Corner - A A Milne
The Enchanted Wood - Enid Blyton
The Magic Faraway Tree - Enid Blyton
Folk of the Faraway Tree - Enid Blyton
#Milly-Molly-Mandy - Joyce Lankester Brisley
Pollyanna - Eleanor H Porter
Tan a Wild Dog - Thomas C Hinkle
*Bambi - Felix Salten
*Pinocchio - Carlo Collodi
*Wind in the Willows - Kenneth Grahame
Peter Pan - J M Barrie
*Mary Poppins - P L Travers
*The Wonderful Wizard of Oz - Frank L Baum
(some of) Andersen’s Fairy Tales - Hans Christian Andersen
(some of) Grimm’s Fairy Tales - J L C and W C Grimm
*The Complete Fairy Tales of Charles Perrault - Charles Perrault

Bible and Belief
I attend a Day class of Bible Study Fellowship and the children are all enrolled in their Childrens' Program. We also read Bible stories and discuss them, pray together and learn some memory verses as a family. One thing Joshua and I have both enjoyed is to record his narrations of Bible stories and allow him to colour a related picture. The picture and narration are then put into a plastic sleeve in a folder so he can make his own Bible. If Joshua makes a 2D craft at Sunday Club related to the story of that week, we sometimes stick that in with his narration instead of a drawing. Joshua quite likes flicking through his home-made Bible. I am planning to do this a lot more consistently next year, using colouring pages from Calvary Chapel, as well as reproducible colouring pictures from Gospel Light and HeartShaper.

Mathematics, Science and History/Geography etc
Purely from life experiences, although we do make an effort to introduce learning opportunities frequently.