How We Homeschool: 5 Years Old (Level K)

Luke is now 5 and we officially begin his formal homeschooling this year. By this, I mean that we will be enrolling with a homeschool provider and will be submitting all needed requirements.

But there is so much more to homeschooling than enrolling with a provider and following a curriculum. So aside from answering FAQ’s about those, let me also give you a glimpse of how homeschooling looks like for us this year.

Before We Begin:

Homeschooling looks different for us each year and I have written articles about how have done it in the past. Here are some of those that you may want to start with:

• How We Homeschool: 3 Years Old (Pre-K)
• How We Homeschool: 4 Years Old (Pre-K)

Please note that these are all my anecdotes for my first child, Luke. As with all firsts, he is my guinea pig (sorry, babe!) The way that I teach him has evolved over the years, as I also continue to learn myself.

By the time my second child, Dylan, starts to homeschool, I’m sure homeschooling will look a little different for him as compared to how I did it with Luke before. I’d like to think that this is because I will be more equipped and have learned from my previous mistakes (let’s hope, at least! Haha!)

Homeschool Provider:

As of the writing of this article (April 2020,) I have not yet enrolled with any provider because enrolment starts May for the June cycles.

Initially, I planned on enrolling for the March cycle of a well-known homeschool provider but then enhanced community quarantine happened and I decided to hold off with my application. I initially liked that provider for all the extra curricular activities and co-op opportunities they provided. But with the new situation because of the pandemic, those are now low on my priority list.

Also, I am currently looking for a provider with an open curriculum (where I can choose my own materials.)

I am now looking at another provider but because I have yet to virtually attend their online orientation and have not fully committed to them yet, I will defer from mentioning which one it is for now.

I will update this post once we make our decision.

(EDIT MAY 2020: We are officially enrolled with Living Learning Homeschool. I will hold off any reviews or comments for now since it will be our first time and we have yet to officially start the school year with them!)

Starting Officially

But just because we are not yet enrolled, doesn’t mean we can’t start homeschooling.

In fact, Luke and I were so excited to begin that we started this school year on January 2, 2020. This date was more of a marker for us but we tried our best to make it feel official by taking our start-of-the-year photo anyway. Haha. What this really just means is that we’ve started working on his Level K books already.

Kindergarten or Level K starts when the child is 5 years old and Luke is now 5.

Homeschool Method:

I have shared previously about how we incorporate Classical Education and Charlotte Mason’s method in our homeschool. You can read that article for a more in depth explanation of how we apply both, or you can check out this link which explains the different methods. Both are close, but not entirely similar. Also it is worth noting that Charlotte Mason understood Classical Education and applied components of it as well.

As a short summary, here are my favorite aspects of both:

Charlotte Mason:

• Using “living books” instead of dry textbooks and “twaddle”
• Presenting a “feast” for the child: emphasizes the importance of incorporating nature study, art, poetry, music and more and not just focusing on “core” subjects such as Math, Science and Language Arts
• Copywork using passages from great books and The Bible
• Enforcing good habits early on (especially the habits of full attention and doing one’s best)
• Narration (but only very simple because Luke is only 5)

Classical Education:

• Focuses on absorbing information during Grammar stage (6-10), practicing memorization (Bible verses, poems, songs, terminologies plus historical and scientific facts) The goal is not to store up knowledge for knowledge’s sake but for the child to be able to draw from that knowledge as he grows.
• In relation to the first point, the focus during the early years is NOT self expression or self discovery but on learning the facts.
• Studying the classics

Daily Schedule:

Related post: Daily Schedule at Home: Life as a Homeschooling, Work-at-Home Mom

Our daily schedule, or more like our daily rhythm, is pretty simple and straightforward:

• 8:30am: Breakfast + Morning Time (Bible, Devotional and Bible Verse Memorization)
• 10:00am: Start of official lessons
• 11:30am: End of official lessons
• 12:00nn: Lunch
• 1:00pm: Play / Arts & Crafts / Life Skill
• 4:00pm: Snack and Poetry / Read Aloud
• 4:30pm/5pm: Outdoor Time

We only do around 1.5 hours of official lessons. Sometimes, I can stretch it out to 2 hours if I see that he’s still up for it.

Lesson Loop:

During that 1.5 hours, we work on 1-2 main subjects. This is how it usually looks like:

• Prayer
• National Anthem
• Chinese (10 minutes)
• Filipino (10 minutes)
• Copywork (5 minutes)
• Main Subject 1: Math / Language Arts
• Main Subject 2: History / Science / Art Studies

His math and language arts curricula are more comprehensive so it usually takes us around 20-30 minutes to complete. So we do only either of the two per day (unless he’s feeling extra haha.)

Then, we’ll do a read-aloud for history, science or art. This is in relation to using Living Books for his lessons; he learns about history, science and art through stories and not as facts presented dryly on a textbook.

In the afternoon (not always though,) we would work on a craft related to what we are currently studying for either history, science or art. For example, if we studied about the Egyptians in the morning for history, we’ll work on creating our own mummy paper craft model in the afternoon.

More regularly, we’ll do our “snack and poetry” or “snack and read-aloud” around 4pm, as mentioned above.

All About Curricula and Materials:

The most commonly asked question is always about which curriculum and materials we use. Here’s a quick rundown of how I handle each subject for Luke right now at 5 years old, Kindergarten level.

• Math: We use The Good and the Beautiful Level K Math and this is Luke’s absolute favorite.
• Language Arts: We have been using All About Reading Level 1. We are now halfway done with the book and Luke has been enjoying it a lot. As for me though, I am not totally feeling the whole vibe of the material. No doubt he’s learning and he likes how easy and fun the lessons are but it just feels a little twaddle-y for me. I’ll try to write a more in depth review about it next time. With that said, I am currently eyeing another curriculum for our next use (Language Lessons for a Living Education) and I might get that once stocks are available. Note that I haven’t tried that yet so I’m not recommending it yet, okay? Hehe.
• History: The main material we use is Story of the World and I love this so much; it’s my personal favorite. I think I’m biased though because History is really my favorite subject to teach. Haha. It’s written by Susan Wise Bauer, an educator using the Classical Method and author of The Well Trained Mind. I also use Mystery of History as a supplement.
• Science: We currently use Abeka’s  “Discovering God’s World” for Grade 1 but I use it only as a spine on what topics to discuss. After we read about the topic (usually just a paragraph or two,) we’ll do read-alouds of Science books from our collection. I’m still undecided if I will continue with Abeka or use a different program after we finish this.
• Filipino: I started using the Pre-K workbook from Wika at Buhay but found that it was not effective with Luke. I feel like we need to build up his vocabulary first before we can successfully get through workbooks like these. So I’ve put our workbook on hold for now and have focused on reading him 1-2 storybooks in Filipino daily (list of Filipino living books here). You can check out more details about the different materials and ways I teach Filipino to Luke here in this article. We’ll probably go back with Wika at Buhay if our homeschool provider requires us to use a workbook for DepEd accreditation (will update you guys!)
• Chinese: I still just read him preschool level Chinese books, sing Chinese songs, work on writing Chinese characters and practice character recognition and mastery using flashcards I made myself, which I offer as printables here. This is the area I feel like I definitely need more help and normally, we have help (he has a tutor) But I have no choice for now because his Chinese tutor can no longer come due to the pandemic.

• Nature Study: Just explore, explore, explore! I let the kids explore. Sometimes I use my app “Seek” to help identify some plants and insects. And then we also collect leaves and Luke sticks them on his nature journal. Sometimes, we work on nature crafts as well.
• Writing: We no longer use Handwriting Without Tears regularly. I would occasionally give Luke a page or two if I feel like he needs practice with certain letters but nothing more. To practice his writing, we do copywork instead. I will write a Bible verse or a line from a poem on his notebook and he’ll copy. I also made my own handwriting sheets with Bible verses (you can download some of them for FREE here!)
• Art: Focusing on 1 artist per month, we study their life and 1-2 of their more prominent works. We do picture study and work on crafts related to the artist, painting or art style.

On Field Trips and Socialization (Pandemic Edition!)

As mentioned on my previous posts, homeschooling has given us so many opportunities to meet with other like-minded families and to socialize! It is NOT true at all that homeschoolers don’t get to go out with friends. Quite the opposite. Sometimes, our problem is that we have too many field trips and outings planned. Haha!

However, this COVID-19 Pandemic has really changed our lives. We are stuck at home, much like everyone else, and it looks like we won’t be out as much as we used to.

We miss visiting bee farms, going on museums, touring factories and going on bread-making, milk-tea making activities! We also miss our soccer class, swim lessons, guitar and Mandarin classes. We look forward to the day where we can meet with friends for Buwan ng Wika and Midautumn Festival games again.

This is not at all how we envisioned homeschooling to be BUT we have no complaints. Field trips, group lessons and real life socialization may be out of the picture for now but hopefully, it won’t be for long.

In the meantime, this is how life looks like for us. It’s not perfect, but we are enjoying and learning a lot, by God’s grace!

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And there you have it! This is how we do Homeschool at 5 years old, Level K. Let me know if you have questions by leaving a comment below.

Hope this has helped in some way and if you’re a homeschooling mom or thinking about homeschooling, I pray that God will continue to guide you and give you wisdom to do what is best for your beautiful kids! <3

“Train up a child in the way he should go; even when he is old he will not depart from it.” (Proverbs 22:6)

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RELATED POSTS:

• How We Homeschool: 3 Years Old (Pre-K Level)
• How We Homeschool: 4 Years Old (Pre-K Level)
• Daily Schedule at Home: Life as a Work-at-Home, Homeschooling Mom
• Homeschool Room: 2020 Update

FOR MORE HOMESCHOOLING ARTICLES, CHECK THIS OUT!