Why We're Starting Kindergarten at 3.5: Our Homeschool Journey
Have you ever looked at your child and just been stunned speechless? Yeah, that was me this evening. As I've stated previously, I am a product of the public school system who is now learning the ropes of homeschooling as I dive into it with my daughter, Maureen. Over the past year, I've been working pretty steadily with Maureen on preschool level school work and have noticed an increasing disinterest in Maureen. Not that she doesn't want to learn; just that the school work we were doing wasn't challenging her, nor holding her focus for very long. I was puzzled because while I had an inkling that Maureen is advanced, I guess I didn't realize exactly how advanced. Tonight, I discovered just how much Maureen is ahead of her peers... I was shocked!
It started with the arrival of the Christianbook.com Homeschool catalog in the mail. I love getting this catalog in the mail! Going through all of the curriculum and seeing what options there are for my kids... Ugh, it's seriously the best feeling in the world for me. 😃Anyway, per usual, I started flipping through the catalog, looking specifically for kindergarten level curriculum that I might look at using in the next year or two with Maureen. I already had a curriculum picked out for the fall of 2026 through The Good and The Beautiful, but being an education enthusiast, I can't resist looking at other options. Well, my browsing quickly turned into a curiosity... Is Maureen ready for kindergarten?
Turns out, The Good and The Beautiful offers placement tests as well as a Kindergarten Readiness checklist, which allowed me to find out exactly where Maureen fell in her learning. And the results are... drum roll ... Maureen is kindergarten ready. To say I was shocked is a bit of an understatement. Now, to be fair, there are definitely areas where Maureen is still a little behind the mark for kindergarten readiness, and I'm quickly discovering the beauty of homeschool in all of this: I am able to modify my daughter's learning experience to match her needs right where she's at! It's exciting and empowering to realize that I have the ability to adjust Maureen's education to meet her where she's at. That is definitely not an experience I had in the public school system! So, I thought I'd share with you all what my plans are for Maureen's education in 2026.
For starters, let me just make it clear that I intend to do all of this at Maureen's pace and in her timing. She's 3, not 5 and while her intelligence may indicate she's ready for kindergarten, she's still only 3 years old and needs grace, room to wiggle, and space & time to play as she continues to grow. That being said, my plans for 2026 are flexible, given that we will also be adjusting to life as a family of 4. My hope though is that I'll be able to find pockets of time during our days when I'm able to sit down with Maureen and work on developing her skills and abilities in the following areas:
- learning to read
- recognizing #s 11-20
- correctly counting a group of 5 or more objects
- simple addition & subtraction
- growing independence in tasks such as going potty and getting dressed
- recognition and understanding of the different seasons
- scissor skills + pre-writing work + proper grip of writing utensils
- continued learning about stars, constellations, and outer space in general – This is an area of high interest for Maureen, so I'm excited to explore this topic with her in an age-appropriate way.
- growth in her understanding of our Christian faith & the Bible
- continued social/emotional development
After doing some research, and having a flop with Gather Round's preschool curriculum this past year, I decided to try The Good & The Beautiful for a kindergarten curriculum. As other homeschool parents likely know, The Good & the Beautiful provides open & go curriculum, so after adding in a science choice - stars & outer space, obviously - and swapping out the kindergarten handwriting workbooks for the preschool level pre-writing workbooks, I went ahead and purchased the curriculum. I also went on Christianbook.com and found a kindergarten level Bible curriculum for Maureen that will hopefully help her start to understand the why of our faith - side note: Teaching my kids Apologetics has recently become important to me. More on this in a future post. - on an age-appropriate level.
My intent is to spend as long as is necessary to go through these curriculum choices with Maureen at her pace with the goal being to make school something she wants to do each day. I still want to have weekly excursions to places like the library and our local nature & science center, as well as places like the science museum and Greater Cleveland Aquarium... Maureen adores the aquarium! I'm optimistic that given the challenge of a kindergarten curriculum combined with the flexibility of learning at her pace and the excitement of going on "adventures" each week, Maureen will begin to thrive and excel in her learning. We're only at the beginning though, so stay tuned because I intend to give y'all updates as we go. 😄
Thanks for reading, and see you soon!!
Links: January Homeschool Happenings, 2025 End of Year Life Update, Mom-It Monday posts, Interview with Homeschool Student, Adrian Martinez