Here you’ll find a sample homeschool schedules for kindergarten that you can use to create your own template and routine for your kindergarten homeschool.
Don’t stress out over creating a school day for a full day kindergarten! There is so much time during the school hours to create a structure of free play, mini lessons, reading groups, and more. When the kids are young, even a half day of word work or learning is going to be great. Early learning is key, but don’t forget the importance of movement time in kindergarten children, too.
Having them sit for long periods of time or do book work for the whole time isn’t always a great idea. They need rest time, math time, and a brain break here or there as well!
The daily routine below is what we do during our homeschool days, but this type of structure can be modified for kids of multiple ages in a homeschool setting as well. It can also work for groups of students in homeschool elementary schools co-ops as well, in my opinion.
When our oldest were kindergarten age, we decided we weren’t going to enroll them in the local public school. We wanted to homeschool them for kindergarten for a variety of reasons.
But, it wasn’t a super easy decision, nor was it super easy to actually homeschool for kindergarten.
The big reason why it was so hard to homeschool for kindergarten was because I had twin kindergartners, a 2.5 year old toddler boy, and a brand new baby girl.
Oh, and I worked from home running this website.
Related: How to Successfully Homeschool and Work-from-Home
I couldn’t just devote hours of my time, and undivided attention to my precious twin girls, despite how I yearned to.
Life was kinda a mess as I adjusted to life with four kids at three different ages, with a husband who was a full-time grad student, gone for long hours.
But, I really wanted my kids to be kids, have fun learning, and not have so much pressure to excel academically at such a young age. In many ways, it’s just developmentally inappropriate how kindergartners across the US are operating.
But, I am not an early childhood education major, or certified teacher (though my husband has an education degree).
Why Homeschool Kindergarten is Easier Than You Think
The beautiful thing though about homeschool kindergarten? In most states in the US, formal education is not technically required until age 6 or even 7, or a child is in 1st or even 2nd grade!
Related: Sample First Grade Homeschool Schedule
Related: Example Second Grade homeschool Schedule
Plus, consider that the true average age a child learns to read is age 6 or 7.
Let that sink in and let that give you room to relax as you start homeschooling for kindergarten!!
In many ways, there isn’t a wrong way to homeschool for kindergarten. Just expose your young little sponge to as much as you can. Have fun exploring phonics, letters, writing, history, science, numbers, counting, math and more.
Homeschool Kindergarten Curriculum
In my opinion, when it comes to the curriculum for homeschool kindergarten, less is more, and you don’t really need a formal curriculum in order to do a fine job. I personally recommend not doing a more formal homeschool curriculum until 1st or even 2nd grade.
Kindergartners still have very short attention spans and can be easily overwhelmed. The point of keeping your child home is so they don’t feel pressured to learn and be smarter and more advanced than they really are!
You can really DIY your child’s kindergarten plan of study, using cheap workbooks from Five Below or Target or Sam’s Club or Amazon, free printable worksheets from any number of blogs and websites, Youtube videos and library books on topics of interest to your child, flashcards, easy reader books, and more.
Related: How My Homeschool Twins Really Learned How to Read
Make sure to read a lot, visiting the library, listening to family audiobooks, and so on.
Kindergarten Books
For Kindergarten, I do recommend the following simple books or programs that are not very formal nor are they expensive or time-consuming:
- Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons
- What Your Kindergartner Needs to Know
- Five in a Row
- ABCMouse.com
- Leap Frog Videos
- Bob Books
I also recommend using fun things like monthly subscription boxes for supplementing and teaching science, music, art, and other fun extra topics.
You can check out my lists of some of the best options in different learning areas:
- Best Book Boxes for Kids
- Best Educational Boxes for Kids
- Best Arts & Crafts Subscription Boxes for Kids
- Best Subscription Boxes for Preschool (many would work for K as well)
You can also hook up with local homeschoolers for co-ops, park playdates, field trips, and other fun social and learning things!
The important thing, again, is to have FUN with your child! It’s also super important to help your child develop life and social skills, participate in household chores, and get used to routines.
Homeschool Schedules for Kindergarten
Okay, now that I have all of that out of the way, to hopefully bolster your confidence in your ability to do this, let’s talk about kindergarten homeschool schedules.
I did not have a formal homeschool kindergarten schedule for my twins. Or… if I did, it quickly died. Nor did I have a rigid one for my son when he entered kindergarten.
Like I said at the beginning of this post though, when my oldest entered kindergarten, I was dealing with a rowdy toddler and a brand new baby. I was exhausted! I would take naps on the couch some days as the kids played around me.
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Sometimes I would sleep in, as much as possible, so our days didn’t always start at the same time.
Look, honestly, I was kinda a hot mess for that year, especially as time wore on, and my desire to be “perfect scheduled homeschool mom” waned as real life smacked me in the face, as well as my own personal bad habits, work demands, and not wanting to sit down and do school with the kids.
Again, this is why it’s best, in my un-professional opinion, to choose a laid-back kindergarten curriculum and teaching materials!! Make it super easy for you and for your kids to learn and succeed.
You can always bump up the formal teaching load as the years pass on. They WILL catch up when they are ready and willing to learn. I promise!
So, what mostly worked for us was less of a daily homeschool schedule for kindergarten that was based on the time on the clock, but a daily homeschool routine that involved doing things we needed to do that day in a specific order.
In our home our daily homeschool kindergarten routine looked something like this:
- Wakeup (usually between 6:30-7:30am)
- Get breakfast
- Clean up after breakfast, unload dishwasher (kids), start laundry or another household chore
- Start school routine: Prayer, Pledge of Allegiance, read book together, do learning activity, do a page or two in a workbook, or reading lesson.
- Go to the gym with the kids (put them in childwatch)
- Have lunch
- Put babies/toddlers down for nap
- Clean up after lunch
- Put on an educational show or let kindergartners play an educational game on iPad for 30-60 minutes while I work
- Independent playtime, quiet time
- When kids wake up, go outside and play
- Clean up time, laundry time
- Dinner Prep and Dinner
- Family time
- Bedtime routine (cleanup, pajamas, brush teeth, bath, scripture, prayer)
- Bedtime by 7:30pm for all kids
Some days we’d have other things on the schedule. Instead of going to the gym, we may have playgroup with friends from church, or grocery shopping, or visit the library, or go on a field trip.
Some days, the mornings are chaotic, and we might go to the gym first, or do school during nap time in the afternoon instead, for example.
Sometimes I would have a lot of work to do, so the kids would run and play around the house while I frantically completed a sponsored blog post first thing in the morning, and we’d skip doing much of any school that day.
Other times, the toddler refused a nap, or the baby was super clingy, so schoolwork didn’t happen as planned.
Here’s a closer look at the homeschooling part of the day:
- Prayer
- Pledge of Allegiance
- Scripture Memorization (if we have one)
- Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons Book – one to two lessons a day
- Read the book recommended by Five in a Row again
- Do a project or learning objective listed in Five in a Row for the story
- Do a math worksheet or count objects
- Color or draw or craft as desired
In the afternoons, maybe they’ll play a learning game or watch a Leap Frog video (again), or some other Youtube or another streaming service educational program.
And that’s it.
It’s short. It’s easy. It’s simple. Just as it should be.
Add more as you feel your child is ready and interested. Scale back if they feel overwhelmed or are struggling a lot.
Focus on life skills, too, as that totally counts as homeschooling for kindergarten! Teach them how to clean, how to fold clothes, how to tie shoes, put things away, how to help measure ingredients, wash their hands, respond in a fire, what to do if they get lost, how to share with other kids, how to respectfully make their requests, and so on.
Related: Life Skills Every Preschooler Should Know
I hope this helps you as your approach homeschooling your kindergartner this year! If you have the desire, God will provide the way!
It may not go as planned, and you may change curriculum or objectives as time goes on, and that’s totally okay too and one of the truly amazing benefits of homeschooling! You can adapt anything as needed to better fit your child, yourself, and your home.
And remember, the more consistent you can be in any aspect, the better it will all go.
Remember that at the end of the day, any amount of time that the kids have spent learning and being creative is a great day! Some days may be a little time, while others may be a lot more. I like to always fall back on reading time and independent writing time as well as morning work as those tend to be very good and a productive time of the day.
You can also switch days and schedule times for the best practices that work for you and the kids.
You’ve got this!
Good luck!
For more homeschooling posts, check out the following:
Melinda J Mitchell says
Well, since the Corona virus, now we are apparently homeschooling!! First week, we are on Spring Break, nothing formal. Next week, I’ll start doing some things. Already doing a few crafts. The girls, (3,6) are emptying the dryer, and switching load from washer as we speak. Thank God for little helpers!