Disclaimer: I received a FREE copy of this product through the HOMESCHOOL REVIEW CREW in
exchange for my honest review. I was not required to write a positive review nor was I
compensated in any other way.

 

Kindergarten Curriculum

Homeschool Review Crew

BJU Press Homeschool 

 

I have taught several children to read over the years and used a lot of kindergarten curriculum, but I haven’t found one that I know is the best and I’ll use it with all of the children to follow.  Recently, we were offered the chance to review a kindergarten curriculum from BJU Press Homeschool.  Our review product BJU Press Focus on Fives is for kindergarten for five-year-olds and is a complete curriculum.

 

 

About the Program

BJU Press Focus on Fives is a complete and comprehensive kindergarten curriculum.  It is geared towards children who are five years old.  Obviously, your child does not have to be five to use it though. 

We received two boxes of books and materials to go with this curriculum.  It is to be a full years worth of curriculum.  Coming in the future it will also have the distance learning component that BJU is known for.  If you’d like to view that and see a sample video of what the distance learning lessons will be like you can click HERE. 

This program will teach seven units to your child.  Those units are:

1.  All Around Town
2.  Bookshelf Friends
3.  Ants to Elephants
4.  Mountains High to Oceans Deep
5.  Blue Skies and Gray 
6.  Garden Paths and Wandering Trails 
7.  Review Lessons

BJU Press Homeschool offers Biblical based lessons for all ages from preschool up to 12th grade. These are offered through distance learning (DVD curriculum or online curriculum) as well as book lessons that can be taught through the distance learning or by the parent.  Here in our homeschool, we value a curriculum that teaches the Word and reinforces what we believe.  So, for us, this is a good choice of curriculum to use. 

Items Included

Within our two boxes of curriculum, we received all of the following.  Honestly, I was a bit overwhelmed with the amount of curriculum when I opened the boxes.  It’s a lot!  But then I reminded myself that it’s a full years worth of books and such and it was less overwhelming.  

Teacher’s Books 

 

 

There are a total of six teachers books.  These are not just thin little paperbacks.  The teachers books are solid hardback thick with pages type of books.  It might seem like a lot, but this is literally telling you everything to do for the whole year.  There is no guesswork in this curriculum.  Everything is laid out by day and tells you where the information is located and what to do with it.  If you want an open and go type curriculum, this is going to be the best thing for you!

 

 

There are a total of 180 lessons to teach your child.  Everything that you need to know to teach those lessons is within the teacher’s books.  Within the teacher’s books you will find objectives, snack suggestions to go with the lessons, arts and crafts suggestions, suggestions for field trips, how to incorporate motor skills, Science activities, Bible incorporation, and suggestions for learning centres.  

Spiral Bound Visuals Flip Chart

 

 

This is really neat.  It shows you pictures of things you’re going to be studying so that you can use them to help cement the lessons into your child’s mind.  Information is also given on the back of the visual side about the item being taught. 

These are eye-catching and not too cluttered.  I know I enjoyed them as well as my child.  My three year old could often be found listening and watching during this session because he liked the pictures too. 

Misc materials

 

 

This section is all the extra manipulatives.  These are things like handwriting charts, phonics cards, word family cards, spelling cards, high-frequency word cards, and alphabet cards. 

 

 

I have to say that these feel the most overwhelming to me.  Not because they’re hard but because I’m afraid we’re going to ruin or lose them!  To combat this I am laminating them and going to put them on a large ring.  I ordered the ring off amazon but it’s still not here.  With the current health crisis, things just aren’t shipping quickly.  Until it arrives we have a pencil box that these are staying in so that hopefully I don’t end up misplacing them. 

 

 

Student Worktext

 

 

This is the student workbook.  Within this book are the activities and pages that your child is going to work through as they learn and go through the year.  I loved how the book is bound. 

 

 

The pages come out easily and you can then save them in a binder or folder or do whatever you want with them.  So far we’ve not been tearing the pages out unless we need to for cutting purposes. 

 

 

Student Phonics Workbook

 

 

This is exactly what it sounds like.  Get ready to learn phonics in this book.  It’s a nice workbook format and will pair nicely with the phonics cards that are below.  This workbook is bound like the worktext and we really liked that about it. 

 

 

It moves steadily forward but also doesn’t move so fast as to confuse or not allow enough time to learn and focus.  You are building on what you learn to read more and more.

34 Student Reading Books

 

 

The reading books are used in conjunction with the curriculum, roughly one book will be read a week.  My daughter has loved having her own books to read. 

 

 

I do wish they were a little tougher as they are really just paper books with no true cover.  I’d love to see a better cover in the future or to have them in a book where you can tear out the pages so I could laminate and bind them. With a large family, it seems we’re extra hard on things and I’m worried about them ripping. 

Write Now! book

 

 

Handwriting time.  This is the BJU Press handwriting series starting off for this age.  I have not used their handwriting before but it seems to be working along like most handwriting curriculum.  My daughter is enjoying using it and that works for me. 

 

 

I do find that it is helpful to look over what she is going to be writing next and to make sure I actually do make my letters how they say so I’m showing her correctly.  

Phonics and Review Cards

 

 

They come in a plastic covering but are loose.  Again I ordered a ring to put them on so that we don’t have such a high chance of losing them.  These are for going over and refreshing memory so that they can be memorized.  

 

 

Everything in this curriculum is full-colour and bright/eye-catching, except for the handwriting workbook.  That is in black and white.  I personally enjoyed that the teachers book also has such nice color used in it. 

Our Thoughts

Okay, off to our thoughts!  I mentioned above somethings about laminating and loose cards so I won’t’ really touch on them here.  We love that this is colorful and easy to use.  For me, that is really almost a deal-breaker these days with having 11 kids spanning from high school down to infant.  I don’t want to have to find and use 50 different library books and 20 different printables to teach my lessons.  With this, we have a small crate that all the books go in except for the teacher books we’re not using.  Then we grab the crate and go sit down to work through her lessons.  When we’re done everything goes back in the crate which goes under our school bookshelves.  

My daughter is six years old and does have some basic phonics knowledge so we’re doubling up on lessons where it’s easy.  This means most weeks we’ve done two lessons a day.  While doing this I have done a lesson in the morning, we then take a break, and in the afternoon when she’s ready we do another lesson.  I have to say that normally I don’t do any “formal” schooling with my children until they are 7 years old as that is when by my state laws we have to start keeping records.  

 

 

Loving it! 

My daughter is loving this and will often beg to do a third lesson.  We’ve done lessons on Saturdays before as well.  She’s really eager to learn and wants to read so we’re gung-ho over here!

I give this curriculum a 4.5 out of 5 stars.  The only downsides to me are that there are lots of pieces that I would like to see bound together or connected for less chance of losing and that the reading books don’t look like they’ll stand up for years.  One of the things I look for in a curriculum is if I can reuse most of it for later children.  With this curriculum, I would need to buy a new set of workbooks for each child but I could use all of the teacher’s books and flipbooks/cards again as well as the reading books. 

We are recommending this as a great curriculum and think that you’ll love it with your five-year-olds for kindergarten. 

Learn More

You can learn more about the Focus on Fives kindergarten curriculum by reading all of the reviews linked up to the Main Blog Post on the Homeschool Review Crew blog.  BJU Press Homeschool can also be found on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest, and YouTube.