Kindergarten Benchmarks to Consider

I am gearing up for the homeschool conference at then end of the month and panic has started to set in. I STILL don't know WHAT to buy! Then I had an idea! I need to know exactly what kids completeing kindergarten know. And here is a list I found:

By the end of kindergarten, you can expect your child to:

• Follow class rules
• Separate from a parent or caregiver with ease  this ain't happening! haha
• Take turns
• Cut along a line with scissors
• Establish left- or right-hand dominance
• Understand time concepts like yesterday, today, and tomorrow (almost there)
• Stand quietly in a line um, probably won't be working on this either.
• Follow directions agreeably and easily (most of the time)
• Pay attention for 15 to 20 minutes
• Hold a crayon and pencil correctly
• Share materials such as crayons and blocks
• Know the eight basic colors: red, yellow, blue, green, orange, black, white, and pink
• Recognize and write the letters of the alphabet in upper- and lowercase forms
• Know the relationship between letters and the sounds they make (90% of the time)
• Recognize sight words such as the and read simple sentences
• Spell his first and last name
• Write consonant-vowel-consonant words such as bat and fan
• Retell a story that has been read aloud
• Identify numbers up to 20
• Count by ones, fives, and tens to 100
• Know basic shapes such as a square, triangle, rectangle, and circle
• Know her address and phone number
• I, Connie, am adding the Pledge of Allegiance 

Source:  http://www.greatschools.org/

All the highlighted items are skills that James can do right now so now I know what we will need to focus on in the Fall. We will still work on all of the listed items but this lets me know where to focus our energies. I can already tell that handwriting will be a task. Fine motor skills work will be a very important part of our lessons next year. And I really want to get him on the road to reading. Thank goodness for the homeschooling email groups I subscribe to. Another mother just sent out an email requesting  curriculum recommendations for teaching kindergarten next year. I now have some curriculum choices to research before the conference.

As a reminder to myself, kindergarten is a "child's garden". I am not trying to surpass the objectives given in a public classroom setting. My goal is to create an environment that will instill a love of learning and give James the opportunity to accelerate in areas where he can and give him extra focus in areas where he will need it. One of the beauties of homeschooling is that the freedom to focus on the individual child is a given, not the exception. As a former public-school-teacher-turned-homeschooler once told me, "90% of teaching is knowing the child".