Our Kindergarten Loop Schedule

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Using a loop schedule has probably been my number one stress reducer when it comes to planning our school year.

When I first set out to prepare for Squeaks’ Kindergarten year, I lost sight of last year’s looping revelation, and ordered a full-blown homeschool planner. It was beautiful and deliciously organized, but completely unnecessary. I had it in my head that Kindergarten was a bigger undertaking that required more than a simple loop schedule.

Well, I got three weeks into filling out my beautiful new planner before coming to my senses and realizing I was completely over complicating things. This isn’t high school! It’s Kindergarten and play will still rule the majority of our day.

So let’s get into our Kindergarten loop schedule!

To start with I created a main loop. Basically a list of the smaller loops, each one with one thing I wanted to accomplish each day. We pick one item from each smaller loop to make up this main loop. For example, if you look at the graphic I made below (that you can purchase an editable version of here), on Monday we might do Catechism + Hymn, read aloud, one OPG lesson (Ordinary Parents Guide To Reading), math, and science. Then on Tuesday we’ll move to the next thing in each loop. Have I said “loop” enough yet? Loop, loop, loop.

Click here to see a full list and video of the curriculum I chose for this year.

Daily Kindergarten Loop Schedule:

• Morning Basket Loop
• Read-aloud
• Language Arts Loop
• Math
• Weekly Loop

Morning Basket Loop:

I started by making a list of things I wanted to include with our morning basket (check out our preschool morning basket). This year I wanted to focus on Bible time. As much as I love my calendar activities, and had them included in my original plan, I’ve decided to put them on hold until I feel like my kiddos have a firmer grasp of time in general. So our morning loop is made up of our Bible activities all by themselves. I found so many amazing kids Bible curricula, devotionals, and story Bibles it was quite the task to narrow it down. I ended up with three items in the loop (originally four, but The Ology has been turned into our pre-bedtime devotional instead), meaning we rotate through the Morning Basket Loop every three days. This loop includes:

• The New City Catechism (a few questions at a time so we can memorize them slowly) + one Hymn.
• The Jesus Storybook Bible– Just one story per day.
• The Children’s Book of Virtues (trying to memorize each poem) + Big Words of the Bible flashcards. I know the Book of Virtues isn’t Bible, but the characteristics are complimentary.

I created a little video of our morning Bible resources too!

In addition to the above resources, I will add in an activity from my Bible Busy Binder (seen in the video) if it’s relevant to the days reading. This is the only part of the loop that all three kids participate in, other than read-aloud (sometimes. I”ll cover that more in a minute). The rest of the loops are built for my Kindergartner only. I spend a maximum of ten minutes of structured school time with my Pre-K guy, Little Dude, so no loop necessary. The rest of his “school day” is filled with learning through play and reading books together.

Read Aloud Time:

This has become one of my favorite parts of the day. It’s the first time I’m incorporating chapter books and I’m loving it. We started the year reading Charlotte’s Web and thoroughly enjoyed it (even did a fun invitation to play based on the book), so we’ve moved on to another E.B. White classic, Stuart Little.

It’s been so fun to see Squeaks react to these books. She is a very content listener and often curls up under my chair as I read at the dining table each morning. Her brothers are a little more hit and miss. It’s to be expected though. Little Dude is newly four years old and Flash is just about two and a half. The attention span isn’t there yet. I still encourage them to at least be in the room while I’m reading though. They play with cars, Legos, Magnatiles, something quiet to keep their hands busy. (See my post on ways to keep your toddler busy during school time.)

Some days it just doesn’t work out, so I have them play in another room, or I put on an educational show (last resort) while Squeaks and I finish reading. I don’t want to force it, and on the days when they are able to play quietly near by I’m confident they’re still absorbing a great deal of new vocabulary. It’s all about those tiny seeds planted over time.

Language Arts Loop:

• OPG lesson- Ordinary Parents Guide To Reading. This is going super well for Squeaks, and it’s so easy for me it’s almost ridiculous. I highly recommend this book to anyone who has a child that shows a strong desire to learn to read. It’s very straight forward, simple, and pure phonics. I briefly thought I could use this style of learning with Little Dude, but it’s just not time yet.
• Review and build- I pick a few words from our OPG lesson and have her review them and build them using magnet letters and a white board or my sight word builder game.
• Penmanship- Originally I thought I would create tracing pages with her Awana Bible verse each week, but that hasn’t panned out too often. Penmanship is still a struggle. Squeaks loves to read, but writing still isn’t her cup of tea. I have found small ways to work it in with free worksheets I found on Pinterest, but I’m not going to push it too hard.
• BOB books– These continue to be a huge hit!

 

Weekly Loop:

• Science- God’s Design: Life For Beginners. I started Squeaks at the back of the book in the animal section. This book lends itself well to flexibility and choosing topics of interest to your child. We’re loving it.
• History- Bede’s History of Me. This book is on the fence for me. Squeaks is enjoying it, so we will continue on, but I’ve already had to adapt a few lessons to fit us better as they were oddly written and planned out. It’s still worth it in my opinion. Update- This book didn’t last long. In the end, I found it disjoined and a waist of time.
• Nature Study- An extension of science. Just a topic Squeaks may be showing interest in. For example while we were reading Charlotte’s Web, we read more about spiders. Nature Anatomy is a good reference and it’s so pretty!
• The Life of Fred– We’re using this as a supplement to the math curriculum I chose for Squeaks. It’s super silly and fun, and we are loving it. I highly recommend these books.
• Drawing- As simple as it sounds. I’ll find a YouTube video with drawing instructions or we’ll use one of our Usborne drawing books. Multiple times a week Squeaks does this without prompting, so this loop item almost doesn’t even need to be written down.

Get your EDITABLE Loop Schedule – Subject Format here!

You’ll need an up to date version of Adobe Reader to be able to customize it to your needs. You can get Adobe Reader DC for free here.

Our Kindergarten loop schedule is working so well for us. I love that I’m never technically behind and the rhythm of the activities is very comfortable. There’s room to tweak things as we move through the year to add or remove something that we need or may not be working. You can’t beat the flexibility. I’m a looper for life.

Have you tried a loop schedule? How’d you like it?