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There is a special joy found in homeschooling your 5-year-old. Spending time seeing the world through their eyes is a gift. Everything in the world is new, fresh, and something to explore.
Depending on their birth months, 5-year-olds are typically pre-K or Kindergarten students. This is a great time to introduce them to the joy of learning. The beauty of homeschooling a 5-year-old is that you can create a low-cost, engaged home education that will work with their boundless energy and curiosity instead of fighting it.
Many children at 5 are ready for kindergarten. Many are not. As the parent, you know your child best, and homeschooling is the perfect way to tailor an education that is the best fit for where your child is now. This is the time to lay a good foundation of learning as a lifestyle. You can incorporate homeschooling activities for your 5-year-old into everyday life, along with some structured schooling. At five, your child is ready for the journey toward foundational skills. This year, she can start (or build on) learning:
Check your state laws to ensure you follow all legal requirements. In 11 states, children must start school by age 5. In the other 39 states, children don’t have to start until age 6, but laws vary depending on your child’s birth month. Check the Homeschool Legal Defense Association website for the specifics in your state.
Please review the All About Reading Readiness Assessment to determine if your child is ready for a formal curriculum or if there are gaps that can be filled with our Pre-Reading program.
Decide on the best home education model for your unique child and your lifestyle. There are many options beyond traditional textbooks and workbooks. You can use All About Reading with any curriculum. For example, the classical approach to reading and spelling fits well with All About Learning materials. The classical method of homeschooling emphasizes mastery learning, which is knowing the facts and rules of each subject before applying those facts.
Set up a schedule. Make this a learning opportunity, too! Show your child how you will block out specific times each day on a written schedule for meals, daily activities, special events, and school lessons. Keep lesson times short. Ten minutes a day per activity is sufficient for a 5-year-old. Day-by-day consistency is more important than long lessons in setting a solid foundation for learning.
Start gradually. Ease into formal lessons. The first week, you could start with reading lessons. Then, add in a little writing practice. A couple of weeks later, you can start on math. Too many new expectations all at once can overwhelm a small child and create a negative association with learning. Adding subjects to your child’s daily routine slowly over time helps your child get familiar with the routines of formal education without stress.
Be ready to back up, pause, and start over. Your child’s development will not be linear. Children often seem to grasp a new concept, but then regress and forget things. This lapse is normal. You can let their delights and interests lead the way when their lessons stall. Creative or imaginative play is valuable learning time, so don’t be afraid to take play breaks. You can return to the challenging lessons in a couple of weeks.
Academically, most 5-year-olds are ready to start learning the 3 R’s: reading, writing, and arithmetic, plus some basic introduction to subjects such as science and art.
Reading – At five, reading is reinforced by listening to adults read aloud. Daily read-aloud time introduces your child to grammar and vocabulary beyond their age level and sets the stage for stronger reading skills later. Introduce your child to phonics if you haven’t already. A reading curriculum grounded in principles of mastery-learning and backed by solid research will give your child a strong start to reading. All About Reading was developed using the Orton-Gillingham approach to learning, which is proven successful for all learners, whether your child struggles with reading or not.
Spelling – Many 5-year-olds are not quite ready for spelling yet, and that’s okay! However, young students who are very interested in writing and spelling words correctly can start spelling sooner, if desired. Spelling reinforces reading. With the All About Spelling program, you will reinforce phonograms learned in reading by having your child spell words using the same letter sounds. As you read aloud, point out simple words to your child and show them how to spell and sound them out.
Writing – Your child can start building basic letter formation and fine motor skills. The focus for 5-year-olds is on letter shapes, so letting them trace over letters or get in the tub and draw them in sand or shaving cream is appealing and effective. Allowing them to play-write made-up characters is a fun way to build fine motor skills without tears. Let them see you using writing in everyday life, and let them contribute some words to a card for a loved one.
Arithmetic – A math curriculum is optional for five-year-olds. Using whatever objects you have, you can introduce counting, simple addition and subtraction, number formation, and the concepts of time and sequences. You can count the number of cars on the street or blocks on the table. Many five-year-olds have a collection of toy cars or stuffed animals that will work just fine. Here are some more homeschooling ideas for 5-year-olds.
As you teach numbers, point out the numbers on a clock. You can draw one if you don’t have an old analog clock. Introduce the concepts of longhand and shorthand. Talk about the passage of time or how many minutes before the next activity happens. Show them how your daily schedule follows the time on the clock.
Science – Introduce your 5-year-old to science by studying things familiar to them. Learn about the birds in the yard or the bugs in a puddle. Look at the stars and find library books about astronomy for children. Talk about how their body works and the need for healthy food. Again, no curriculum is needed! Follow and encourage your child’s interests. At this age, everything can be interesting.
Art and Pretend Play – Use whatever you have on hand in an art project or as a prop for creative play. Libraries are also a good source for hands-on games and craft supplies. Play is a critical part of learning. Through pretending, children work out their understanding of the world around them. Creative activities build actual physical connections between parts of the brain. Those connections are mental resources that are used later in more complex learning.
Social Skills – Children are never too young to learn how to get along with others, respect differences, and be a part of the family team. Let them share in chores and have their own responsibilities. Responsibilities like cleaning their room, loading the dishwasher, or feeding a pet help build self-confidence as they realize the adults trust them to meet those responsibilities.
Field Trips – All of life can be a field trip. Learning opportunities abound at the grocery store, when visiting friends, walking around a pond, or visiting the library. Make field trips part of each week; your child will never lack socialization.
With a bit of creativity, a few small curriculum purchases, and a library card, you can teach your 5-year-old at home with supplies you likely already have.
Hands-on Activities.: Practice number recognition and pre-writing by drawing in sand on a sheet pan or on the tub wall using shaving cream. Messy and unexpected, this activity will appeal to your fun-loving child. Try one of these 10 Salt Trays for Fun Writing Practice.
Counting silverware as you set the table together can introduce math painlessly.
Make simple meals like peanut butter toast, smoothies, or no-bake protein balls.
Reading together: Daily snuggles as you read aloud, along with short lessons in letter recognition and sounds using All About Reading.
Go to the library and pick out books. Take advantage of any other resources your library has. Some libraries loan out games, puzzles, and activity kits. Ask if your library has free or reduced-cost passes to local museums and parks.
Active Play: Creative and pretend play develops the mental muscles they will use later for higher-level learning and critical thinking.
Incorporate movement into learning. Dance along to the alphabet song. Write letters or numbers on individual sheets of paper and place them on the floor. Call out the name of a letter or number and let your child jump from one to the next.
Create a simple calendar and daily schedule together to help them learn about time, calendars, sequencing, and order.
Creating daily structures and consistent routines helps children gain confidence as they learn to predict and trust what comes next successfully.
Celebrate!: Catching a child doing well and celebrating it goes ten times further than correcting unwanted behaviors. The emotion created by a pleasant experience, such as an adult’s approval, creates powerful correlations in the brain with feelings of well-being and is more easily repeated.
Be on the lookout for even small wins you can acknowledge to help your child build confidence in their abilities.
Consistency and brief lessons are key. Ten minutes for any activity is enough for this age. If the child is engaged, you can go longer, but pushing a child beyond the limits of their ability to focus can make learning feel frustrating. Build a positive association with education by meeting children at their level, regardless of what their peers are doing. This will support a long-term love of learning.
Letter recognition, rhyming skills, letter sounds, and listening comprehension form the core of pre-k and kindergarten reading lessons. Helping children learn to process language into reading, writing, and spelling requires a sequential, mastery-based approach founded on long-term research. All About Reading follows the well-respected Orton-Gillingham method of teaching reading. Orton-Gillingham is a powerful teaching approach for reading and spelling that employs multisensory, sequential, phonics-based instruction. It is highly effective for students with dyslexia and other processing disorders and works for all students. You can read about the ease and effectiveness of Orton-Gillingham and get a free e-book, The Power of the Orton-Gillingham Approach, here.
A significant percentage of spelling struggles come from gaps in the curriculum. If each step is not covered or not mastered by the student, gaps create holes that keep children from building further skills. Imagine if you don’t add eggs to your cake recipe, the ingredients won’t bind together properly, and the cake crumbles and falls apart. Gaps in spelling skills mean the whole doesn’t hold together as your child tries to learn more complex words.
All About Spelling was carefully designed to include all the ingredients that your child needs to be a proficient speller every step of the way.
We encourage students to complete All About Reading Level 1 before starting spelling lessons. All About Learning Press levels do not correlate to grade levels, so a 5-year-old in kindergarten who has completed level 1 of All About Reading would move to level 2 while starting All About Spelling level 1.
All About Spelling placement test will help you confidently place your child in the proper level.
Homeschooling your 5-year-old is a privilege. You have the opportunity to lay a foundation of learning and character, which can set the tone for the rest of his educational years. By following the guidance above, you will be well on your way to creating an enjoyable learning experience for you and your child. To help you start this journey, two seasoned homeschool moms share their best tips on What I Wished I Knew Before Homeschooling.
Savannah
says:Can’t wait to start level 1 reading with my son!
Tonya
says:I wish I would have found this program earlier.
Robin E. Williams
says: Customer ServiceThank you, Tonya. However, many students have had great success with our materials even when they start them when they are older.