Kindergarten and Preschool Plans for 2026-2027

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Every year I try to share what we are planning for our curriculum in the upcoming year. Every year I also release this much later than I originally hoped. This year is no different, though it is more egregious than last year. This year I have a Kindergartener (WHAT!), a 3Ker, and a little one who turns 2 just before the semester starts. We will “start” our year the week after Labor Day. We will see if this blog post is out before then. We do semi-homeschool year-round, but we change things up, add some things, and go for more structure after the first day of school.

Kindergarten Curriculum Plans (and a big change)

My son is going to be in Kindergarten next year. I had always planned to homeschool throughout, at least until high school. However, this past year I grew increasingly concerned about my ability to offer the needed social activities as my oldest gets older. I struggle with saying this because I know “socialization” is a common critique in the homeschool world, and I think it is largely incredibly unfair. Many families offer social opportunities while homeschooling that far outpace public or private schools.

However, I found that incredibly difficult for me for a mix of reasons. I was aware of this going into the school year last year and viewed last year as a bit of a test year. As my son has gotten older, social opportunities have become more important. We tried multiple homeschool group-type things, but none worked out well for our family. One was wonderful, and I thought I figured it out. The day of the week suddenly changed to a day we couldn’t do. Overnight we lost that. We tried another popular program, and I was disheartened by the screen use (as a very screen-limited family, this was a no-go for me). We found another possible program for next year, but tuition was higher than some private schools for a schedule that we would find challenging. Overall, living in New York City, there absolutely are homeschool families, but not a ton of them, and the structured programs for his age group seemed very limited, at least in Manhattan. Most children here attend school from a very early age. To add to this, I am an introvert. While I do enjoy bringing my kids places and doing playdates, I just do not have the personality to network properly and make sure these playdates are regular enough for my son’s needs. My own friends mostly either don’t have children yet or have a child as old as my second or third, but not as old as my oldest. All that to say, the social aspects of homeschooling were absolutely my biggest stress last year.

As a result, we started exploring school options for my oldest this last year. The thought of that was incredibly bittersweet, as I love homeschooling. I LOVE the teaching aspects and, frankly, it is something I am really proud of in my parenting! There is plenty I am insecure about, but I believe I teach my children very effectively. We entered some lotteries for NYC Public Schools (and ended up hundreds down on the waitlists!) and applied to a couple of private schools. In the end, we found something that feels perfect. Since Kindergarten is not mandatory in New York, we are able to do a part-time program this next year. I am not going to go into any details about the school to protect safety, but it feels very aligned with my teaching methods, and being able to do a hybrid schedule feels like (hopefully!) the best of both worlds. It is actually significantly more affordable than the official homeschool program we had explored. Unfortunately, we can do the hybrid approach for only one year, as First Grade is mandatory, and New York laws would prevent us from using the school as a part-time co-op type thing. For now, though, I am trying to celebrate a year with a great program that should give me some clarity on what we want to do going forward. Will we go back to fully homeschooling in First Grade? Will we enroll in the school full-time? I truly have no clue.

If you were just here for what curriculum we are using next year and you’re still around to read this, thank you. I am going to get into that below. But that whole preface is to say I have chosen curricula for next year. We are going a bit lighter than we would have otherwise, and I am not completely sure we will use all of these if I feel these subjects are being fulfilled during his time at school.

First of all, Y will participate in our family style nature study which I will discuss below. He will listen to the picture books, will do the crafts with us, and will do his nature journal. We also do a daily nature poem and calendar time all together.

For math, we will continue with Beast Academy Level 2A. Regardless of what happens for math at his school, I know they are not using Beast Academy and it will be a fun supplement if not our full curriculum. He loves Beast Academy and absolutely wants to continue it. This summer we did Second Grade Math With Confidence as review before jumping back into Beast Academy. I loved it as well and in a dream world would incorporate both. I may do that by doing the next level of Math With Confidence over the summer again next year.

For a while my son has been in the reading to learn stage versus the learning to read stage. Over the summer we did a reading challenge by pairing books with movies. He read the book, wrote a short report, and we watched the movie together. I want to continue doing this next school year. Over the summer he read Charlotte’s Web, Stuart Little, The Mouse and the Motorcycle, Boxcar Children, Beezus and Ramona, and Paddington. In addition to reading good books we have been doing First Language Lessons. I really like First Language Lessons but we have been admittedly very inconsistent. I am going to decide on consistency next year depending on what he is doing grammar-wise at his hybrid school. It is incredibly gentle and just comes down to us deciding a time to make it a habit.

Writing has been a huge emphasis for us these past few months. My son suddenly became incredibly interested in learning cursive a couple of months ago. We started Cursive Kickoff and he is rocking it! We will continue on with Learning Without Tears’ next cursive book once he finishes this one. He also keeps a journal he writes in twice a week and does Building Writers. Once he finishes the Kindergarten level of Building Writers (he is almost done), he will continue on with the First Grade level.

For the beginning of the year I think that is what we will stick with. I am trying to get international dinner party nights going and if I manage to do that we will learn about a different country each time for that. If I don’t, I do hope to add some more geography/history in as we settle into the school year, but I have not decided on a curriculum there. I did find one curriculum that covers American history through picture books which I would love to start in November. It will all depend how the year looks, however!

3K Curriculum Plans

Next up I will share our plans for my daughter, who is 3 and a half. We will continue with All About Reading level 3. We have been taking it fairly slowly, doing one new teaching and one story a week (which leads to 2 lessons a week). She is highly motivated and loves reading. On days we don’t do a new story we usually play a game.

For math we have done Montessori math so far as well as everyday math, some of it inspired by Preschool Math at Home. This next year we will do Kindergarten Math With Confidence. I had so much fun doing Kindergarten Math With Confidence with my son two years ago and I decided to continue with it again for my daughter. I was tempted by All About Math level 1, but decided not to mess with something that worked. I am very excited to do that!

We started My First School Book from Handwriting Without Tears and she is so excited. I am not a big workbook person for young kids, but my kids have both really loved them. We use the workbook aspect as just a bonus she loves after doing Wet, Dry, Try and using the wooden pieces to build the letters. Those multisensory, hands-on aspects are more my emphasis for her.

I will use HOKA materials to go along with our nature study. These materials are Montessori-inspired and will be on our shelves for her to select. She is also doing a literacy co-op that we are very excited about! I am mostly excited for the social aspects there.

2 Year Old Curriculum Plans

Of course my 2-year-old (just turned 2-year-old) does not need a curriculum. Mostly my goal for him is to find a nice rhythm where he plays while my older kids have the one-on-one lessons with me. This itself is no easy feat. But, I also got Before Five in a Row which I will use mostly with him. My 3-year-old will also read the books with us, but I view this as more aimed at my 2-year-old. I was so curious to try Five in a Row, but I found my middle daughter to be somewhere between Before Five in a Row and Five in a Row. More Before Five in a Row may have been the right fit for her. However, with my oldest in part time school I decided to go with Before Five in a Row. When I actually flipped through it was clearly more for my 2-year-old’s stage. I felt this curriculum is very expensive for what it is, but I think we will enjoy it. Quick note: when linking, I found it is actually cheaper on Amazon than what I paid on a curriculum site or what it is on their official website. This usually isn’t the case, so I thought I would note it.

We also will do our ABC See Hear Do. I am trying to do this over breakfast regularly but we do forget a decent deal. When I do habit stack things like this I am very effective at making sure they happen, so this is just something I need to make a habit. My son loves this book and I credit it for how my daughter knew all her letter sounds with no real explicit instruction.

Family Nature Studies

Finally, as a family we do a few things together. We do morning time and in that morning time we are doing nature studies this year. Last year we did a New York City history study. For nature studies I purchased Picture Book Atlas. I feel this is very worth the money. While I could have curated these books myself, this saved me so much time. I am excited to discover new books and learn about each of the themes. We will do some but not all of the crafts. We will, however, do notebooking each week for our nature study topic. I find reading quality picture books to be a wonderful way to start our morning.

During morning time we also do calendar (with the days of the week and months of the year song) and a daily nature poem.

That’s it, that’s a look at our curriculum picks for 2026-2027 and the big changes in our family!