Piglet is my very last child to homeschool. *sniff* And I probably have enough homeschooling books, workbooks, toys, games, and printables to teach twelve more children after her. (I wish I was kidding.)
But last year, we decided to streamline our homeschooling materials and practice minimalist homeschooling. Which is using the least amount of materials necessary to teach our kids. Instead of feeling tied to using up everything for each grade level, we focused on what they needed to learn and let them explore the rest on their own. It was life-changing.
So when it was time to plan to move on to planning our homeschool kindergarten program for her, I decided to stick with the least amount of materials necessary to do it.
Which is why I was thrilled to have an opportunity to try ABCmouse – an online early learning academy for kids ages 2-8! With this program, we’ll be using a simple homeschool kindergarten curriculum that requires almost no prep at all from me. And I’ll need all the extra time I can find, since my oldest is starting seventh grade this year. *scream*
Read on to see how we’re using this program to get our kindergartner off to the right homeschooling start!
Disclosure: I received access to this program in exchange for this post. All opinions are my own and I was not required to write a positive review. This post contains affiliate links. For details, see our Disclosure Policy.
Simple Homeschool Kindergarten with ABC Mouse
ABCmouse is the most comprehensive digital early learning resource for kids in grades PreK through 2. The program covers over 8,500 different educational standards, so you can easily find out which ones your child knows and which ones he or she needs to master.
To get started, just go to ABCmouse.com
and sign up for the 30-day trial. You can set up your parent profile and then enroll up to three children. From there, your child can create an avatar (Piglet loved this) and then take an assessment to find out what lessons they should start with.
The assessment takes about 45 minutes from start to finish, but that’s 45 minutes straight, which my four-year-old couldn’t handle. We ended up breaking it into three separate sessions of about 15 minutes. That way, she didn’t get irritable from sitting too long.
Since she’s already been doing preschool work for the past nine months, we gave Piglet the Kindergarten Readiness Assessment, which tested her on 13 different skills, including shape recognition, picture recognition, early phonics, counting, and more.
Want to see the assessment in action? Take a look at this quick video!
The third time we had Piglet sit down to work on her assessment, we wised up and used the ABCmouse app on our tablet, which is super easy to navigate and follow. She could just select the answers with her little fingers and move along at her own pace.
By the way, when you sign up for ABCmouse, there are several apps you get access to that you can use without Wi-Fi, including ABCmouse Zoo, ABCmouse Music Videos, and ABCmouse Mastering Math. These apps are available in the Apple AppStore and in the Google Play Store. In fact, we used it with our Amazon Kindle Fire just fine.
And that’s just the tip of the iceberg with ABCmouse.com! There are so many lessons, games, and activities that make learning fun! In fact, we had to tell Piglet “That’s enough school for today. You can do more tomorrow.” Which is a pair of sentences I didn’t think I’d ever utter in my life.
Ready to get your early learner off to the races? Visit ABCmouse.com and sign up for a free 30-day trial to see how much fun your child can have learning!
Check out these other early learning resources!
Want more tips for homeschooling early grades? Follow my Learning for Little Ones board on Pinterest!
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