Paper-Based Kindergarten Curriculum & School Options

Not every family wants kindergarten to happen on a screen. Many homeschool programs use printed books, workbooks, teacher guides, manipulatives, literature, crafts, and hands-on activities as the primary method of instruction.

Understanding the Difference

Accredited Schools & Academies

The important distinction is that accreditation applies to the school or institution—not simply to a box of curriculum materials. Oak Meadow, for example, specifically explains that its school is accredited while its independently purchased curriculum is not itself “accredited.”

Independent Paper-Based Homeschool Curriculum

With independent curriculum, parents purchase the books, workbooks, teacher guides, or curriculum package and manage the homeschool themselves.

Families may mix and match programs or use one complete curriculum package.

Accredited Print-Based & Book-Based Kindergarten Programs

Seton Home Study School

Type: Accredited Catholic distance school
Format: Printed textbooks, workbooks, lesson plans, and parent instruction

Seton offers a complete kindergarten program with printed materials covering phonics and reading, handwriting, mathematics, science, religion, art, music, and other early learning areas. Enrollment includes detailed lesson plans, academic support, grading and recordkeeping. Seton is accredited through the Middle States Association of Colleges and Schools.

Website Button: Visit Seton Home Study School →

Kolbe Academy

Type: Accredited Catholic classical school
Format: Traditional homeschool with printed books and course plans

Kolbe's Traditional Homeschool option allows parents to teach primarily using books, assignments, assessments, and detailed course plans. Its kindergarten program includes English and phonics, mathematics and logic, science, history, art, literature, music, religion, and mapwork. Kolbe Academy is accredited by Cognia and offers both enrolled and curriculum-only options.

Website Button: Visit Kolbe Academy →

Mother of Divine Grace School

Type: Accredited Catholic classical school
Format: Printed books, paper syllabi, literature, and parent-led instruction

Mother of Divine Grace offers a classical kindergarten program with detailed daily lesson plans covering religion, mathematics, reading, writing, poetry, science, social studies, art, and music. Families can obtain paper copies of the kindergarten syllabus and use a collection of traditional books and workbooks. The school is accredited by WASC.

Website Button: Visit Mother of Divine Grace School →

Oak Meadow School

Type: Accredited distance-learning school
Format: Print-based, hands-on, Waldorf-inspired curriculum

Oak Meadow's kindergarten curriculum is intentionally print-based and emphasizes storytelling, literature, crafts, nature, music, movement, mathematics, science, art, and health. Families can either purchase the books independently or enroll in Oak Meadow's accredited distance-learning school, which begins in kindergarten.

Website Button: Visit Oak Meadow →

Bridgeway Academy

Type: Accredited personalized homeschool academy
Format: Textbook, online, live, or blended curriculum

Bridgeway serves kindergarten through Grade 12 and allows families to create customized programs that may include primarily textbook-based coursework. Enrolled families receive curriculum planning, academic advising, grading support, and accredited records.

Website Button: Visit Bridgeway Academy →

Griggs International Academy

Type: Accredited Christian distance school
Format: Elementary books with parent-guided learning and teacher support

Griggs offers an accredited kindergarten program through its Seventh-day Adventist educational system. Kindergarten includes Bible, reading, and activity-based instruction, and the school provides book lists for its elementary courses. Although much of the work is completed offline, required assignments are submitted electronically to the school.

Website Button: Visit Griggs International Academy →

Abeka Academy

Type: Accredited Christian academy
Format: Printed books combined with video instruction

Abeka Academy offers accredited K5 enrollment using Abeka's extensive printed books, workbooks, flashcards, visual aids, and lesson materials combined with its instructional video program.

This is better described as a print-heavy hybrid program rather than a completely screen-free curriculum. Abeka Academy's accredited K5–12 program is accredited through MSA-CESS and FACCS.

Website Button: Visit Abeka Academy →

Independent Paper-Based Kindergarten Curricula

These programs provide curriculum rather than enrollment in an accredited school. Parents generally remain responsible for teaching, assessment, recordkeeping, and compliance with their state's homeschool requirements.

Abeka Homeschool

Type: Christian traditional curriculum
Format: Printed textbooks, workbooks, flashcards, charts, and teacher lesson plans

Families can purchase Abeka K5 materials without enrolling in Abeka Academy. The complete parent kit includes phonics, reading, writing, mathematics, flashcards, learning games, social studies visuals, health and safety materials, and lesson plans.

This gives families the traditional Abeka approach while remaining independent homeschoolers.

Website Button: Visit Abeka Homeschool →

BJU Press Homeschool

Type: Christian traditional homeschool curriculum
Format: Printed textbooks and worktexts

BJU Press offers a complete K5 textbook kit for families who want to teach the material themselves without using the online video program. Kindergarten introduces phonics, reading, handwriting, mathematics, science, and social studies with hands-on activities and teacher materials.

Website Button: Visit BJU Press Homeschool →

Gather ’Round Homeschool

Type: Christian family-style unit-study curriculum
Format: Printed or digital teacher guides, leveled student notebooks, projects, and hands-on activities

Gather ’Round Homeschool is designed to allow multiple children to study the same central topic together while completing assignments at their individual learning levels.

The curriculum typically integrates areas such as:

Language Arts • Science • History • Geography • Bible • Writing • Research • Art

Families can choose printed materials or digital files to print at home. Mathematics is offered separately from the main unit-study curriculum.

Gather ’Round Homeschool is not an accredited school. Families who use the curriculum independently remain responsible for homeschool instruction, grading, and recordkeeping.

Website Button: Visit Gather ’Round Homeschool →

Sonlight

Type: Christian literature-based curriculum
Format: Books, teacher guides, workbooks, manipulatives, and hands-on learning

Sonlight's Kindergarten All-Subjects Package provides a complete year using real books and printed Instructor's Guides. Subjects include history, geography, Bible, literature, reading, language arts, handwriting, phonics, mathematics, and science.

Families can choose a four- or five-day schedule and customize portions of the package.

Website Button: Visit Sonlight →

BookShark

Type: Secular literature-based curriculum
Format: Printed books, Instructor's Guides, workbooks, and manipulatives

BookShark's Level A program is designed for approximately ages 5–7 and offers a complete all-subject package. It includes literature-based history, language arts, handwriting, science, and mathematics with a structured four-day schedule.

BookShark describes its curriculum as secular and offers extensive printed materials with optional digital support.

Website Button: Visit BookShark →

Oak Meadow Independent Curriculum

Type: Secular, Waldorf-inspired homeschool curriculum
Format: Print-based and hands-on

Families do not have to enroll in Oak Meadow School to use its kindergarten materials.

The independent kindergarten package includes a printed Coursebook and Resource Book with storytelling, letters, mathematics, crafts, nature study, science, art, music, movement, and health.

Website Button: Visit Oak Meadow Curriculum →

Memoria Press

Type: Classical Christian curriculum
Format: Printed workbooks, books, flashcards, and curriculum manuals

Memoria Press provides a complete kindergarten curriculum designed for reading-ready children. The program emphasizes phonics and reading, mathematics, penmanship, Christian studies, literature, enrichment, art, music, and memory work.

Its Curriculum Manual provides 34 weeks of planned lessons, making it a structured, open-and-go option.

Website Button: Visit Memoria Press →

Master Books

Type: Christian homeschool curriculum
Format: Full-color paperback textbooks and workbooks

Master Books offers a Kindergarten Basic 4 Subject Set covering mathematics, language arts, history, and science.

Its kindergarten resources include Simply K, a developmental, open-and-go course designed for ages approximately 4–6, along with subject-specific printed books.

Website Button: Visit Master Books →

My Father's World

Type: Christian unit-study curriculum
Format: Teacher guide, student sheets, literature, manipulatives, and hands-on activities

My Father's World's kindergarten program uses God's Creation from A to Z as a thematic foundation.

The program is designed for ages approximately 5–6 and integrates phonics and early reading, mathematics, science, Bible, literature, art, and character development through 26 creation-based units.

Website Button: Visit My Father's World →

Timberdoodle

Type: Customizable curriculum kit
Format: Books, workbooks, manipulatives, games, STEM materials, and hands-on resources

Timberdoodle offers comprehensive kindergarten curriculum kits for ages approximately 5–6. Families can choose between Classic and Nonreligious versions and select Basic, Complete, or Elite packages.

Depending on the package, subjects can include language arts, mathematics, science, history, geography, thinking skills, STEM, emotional intelligence, and art.

Website Button: Visit Timberdoodle →

Beyond the Page

Type: Secular literature- and project-based curriculum
Format: Parent manual, student activity book, literature, manipulatives, and projects

Beyond the Page offers an Age 4–5 full-year curriculum designed for children beginning formal education. The hard-copy package includes a Parent Manual, Student Activity Book, literature, and materials kit covering language arts, mathematics, science, and social studies.

The program emphasizes creative thinking and hands-on learning.

Website Button: Visit Beyond the Page →

The Good and the Beautiful

Type: Parent-led homeschool curriculum
Format: Printed course books and manipulatives

The Good and the Beautiful offers physical kindergarten-level curriculum, particularly Language Arts Level K and Math K. Math K includes a full-color course book, 120 parent-led lessons, and a manipulative box.

Rather than purchasing one single kindergarten box containing every subject, families generally build their program using individual courses and supplemental science, handwriting, literature, and other resources.

Website Button: Visit The Good and the Beautiful →

Christian Light

Type: Christian workbook curriculum
Format: Workbooks, activity books, and teacher guides

Christian Light offers Kindergarten 1 and Kindergarten 2, designed primarily to prepare young learners for its first-grade phonics program.

Kindergarten 1 emphasizes pre-reading readiness, while Kindergarten 2 introduces sounds and numbers through workbooks and activity books. It is a very paper-focused program, but families seeking a complete kindergarten curriculum may need to supplement other subjects.

Website Button: Visit Christian Light →

Five in a Row

Type: Literature-based unit-study curriculum
Format: Printed teacher manuals and children's books

Five in a Row uses high-quality children's literature as the starting point for lessons across multiple subjects.

Its preschool and kindergarten materials are flexible and parent-led, while its elementary volumes begin around age five. Because it is primarily literature- and unit-study-based, families often add a separate systematic phonics and mathematics program.

Website Button: Visit Five in a Row →Printable Paper-Based Option

Blossom and Root — Level 0

Type: Secular, nature- and literature-based curriculum
Format: Digital files designed to be printed by the family

Blossom and Root's Level 0 is its kindergarten program and includes language arts, nature study, science with integrated mathematics, art, and history.

The company does not sell bound physical curriculum. Materials are delivered as PDFs, but families are permitted to print their own copies at home or through a printing service, making it an option for families who want to teach primarily from paper after the initial download.

Website Button: Visit Blossom and Root →

Math with Confidence

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All About Reading

A Note for Parents

This is a guide, not a test.

Children develop at different rates. A child may be advanced in one area while still developing skills in another. Use this resource to guide instruction and observe growth rather than as a pass-or-fail assessment.

Illinois Learning Standards establish expectations for what students should know and be able to do at each grade level, but the standards themselves are not intended to prescribe one particular curriculum or teaching method.

Reading & Language Arts

By the end of kindergarten, a child should be developing the ability to:

• Recognize and name all uppercase and lowercase letters.

• Understand that print is read from left to right, top to bottom, and page by page.

• Understand that written words are made of letters and separated by spaces.

• Recognize and produce rhyming words.

• Count, blend, and separate syllables in spoken words.

• Identify beginning, middle vowel, and ending sounds in simple spoken words.

• Blend individual sounds to make simple one-syllable words.

• Add or change a sound in a simple word to make a new word.

• Produce common sounds for consonants and common vowel sounds.

• Read common high-frequency words by sight.

• Read simple, regularly spelled one-syllable words with developing independence.

• Ask and answer questions about important details in stories and informational texts.

• Retell a familiar story.

• Identify characters, settings, and major events.

• Identify the main topic and important details in simple informational text.

• Use illustrations and words together to understand a text.

• Participate in conversations by listening and taking turns.

• Continue a conversation through several exchanges.

• Ask questions to get help, information, or clarification.

• Describe familiar people, places, things, and events.

• Use drawing, dictating, and beginning writing to express an opinion.

• Use drawing, dictating, and beginning writing to explain information.

• Use drawing, dictating, and beginning writing to tell about an event in sequence.

• Write many letters independently.

• Use beginning phonetic spelling for simple words.

• Use basic capitalization.

• Recognize common ending punctuation.

Illinois kindergarten literacy standards specifically include print concepts, letter recognition, phonological awareness, phonics, word recognition, speaking, listening, and beginning writing.

Mathematics

By the end of kindergarten, a child should be developing the ability to:

• Count to 100 by ones.

• Count to 100 by tens.

• Begin counting from a number other than 1.

• Write numerals from 0 through 20.

• Count objects accurately.

• Understand that the final number said tells how many objects are in a group.

• Count out a requested number of objects up to 20.

• Compare groups using more, fewer, and equal.

• Compare two written numbers from 1 through 10.

• Understand addition as putting together or adding to.

• Understand subtraction as taking apart or taking from.

• Solve simple addition and subtraction problems within 10 using objects, drawings, fingers, or other strategies.

• Fluently add and subtract within 5.

• Break numbers through 10 into different combinations.

• Determine what number must be added to another number to make 10.

• Understand numbers 11–19 as one group of ten plus additional ones.

• Describe measurable features such as length, height, weight, and size.

• Compare two objects using a shared measurable characteristic.

• Sort and classify objects into categories.

• Count how many objects are in each category.

• Identify and describe common two-dimensional shapes.

• Identify and describe common three-dimensional shapes.

• Use positional language such as above, below, beside, in front of, and behind.

• Compare shapes.

• Create shapes.

• Combine simple shapes to form larger or more complex shapes.

Illinois kindergarten mathematics places particular emphasis on whole numbers and shapes and includes counting to 100, writing 0–20, addition and subtraction concepts, teen-number foundations, measurement, classification, and geometry.

Science

Kindergarten science should give children frequent opportunities to observe, ask questions, investigate, describe patterns, and communicate what they discover.

By the end of kindergarten, a child should be developing the ability to:

• Use observations and questions to investigate the world.

• Understand that pushes and pulls can change the movement of an object.

• Compare stronger and weaker pushes or pulls.

• Explore how the direction of a push or pull affects movement.

• Observe that sunlight warms Earth's surface.

• Explore ways people can create shade or otherwise reduce warming from sunlight.

• Identify basic things plants need to survive, including water and light.

• Identify basic things animals need to survive, including food and water.

• Understand that living things live in places that provide what they need.

• Observe and record local weather.

• Recognize simple weather patterns over time.

• Understand that weather forecasts help people prepare for severe weather.

• Recognize that plants and animals can change their environment.

• Understand that people also affect their environment.

• Recognize simple ways people can reduce harm to land, water, air, plants, and animals.

• Use drawings, models, observations, or simple data to explain a scientific idea.

• Participate in simple investigations and problem-solving activities.

Illinois kindergarten science includes forces and motion, sunlight and energy, plant and animal needs, weather, environmental relationships, human impacts, and early engineering practices.

Social Studies

The current Illinois kindergarten social science theme is “My Social World.” Kindergarten standards introduce children to civics, economics, geography, history, and basic inquiry skills.

By the end of kindergarten, a child should be developing the ability to:

• Ask simple questions about themselves, families, communities, and the world around them.

• Use parent- or teacher-selected resources to find information.

• Begin recognizing the difference between fact and opinion.

• Identify responsibilities of people within families and communities.

• Identify community helpers and leaders.

• Recognize that people in authority have responsibilities.

• Explain why rules are needed.

• Understand that rules create responsibilities in different settings.

• Understand that people must make choices because they cannot have everything they want.

• Recognize ways weather and the environment affect people's lives.

• Compare aspects of life today with life in the past.

• Recognize that people's experiences may be different.

• Identify the purpose of important U.S. holidays.

• Learn about achievements and contributions of diverse people associated with holidays and historical events.

• Share answers or conclusions using discussion, drawings, or simple writing.

Current Illinois kindergarten standards specifically address authority and responsibility, rules, scarcity and decision-making, human-environment relationships, and comparisons between past and present.

Fine Arts

Fine arts in kindergarten should give children opportunities to create, experiment, perform, observe, respond, and express ideas.

A kindergarten child may work toward skills such as:

• Create visual art using different materials and tools.

• Use art materials safely and responsibly.

• Experiment with color, line, shape, texture, and pattern.

• Make choices when creating artwork.

• Talk about their own artwork.

• Choose artwork they would like to save or display.

• Express a preference about a piece of art and explain why.

• Explore rhythm and musical patterns.

• Sing age-appropriate songs.

• Move in response to music.

• Explore simple musical instruments.

• Keep or respond to a steady beat.

• Participate in movement and dance.

• Participate in dramatic or imaginative play.

• Perform or share creative work with others.

• Connect art, music, movement, and performance with everyday experiences.

Illinois fine arts standards emphasize creating, performing or presenting, responding, and making connections through the arts. Kindergarten-specific standards include exploring musical ideas and making choices about art and presentation.

Physical Development & Health

Kindergarten physical development and health should help children develop movement skills while beginning to understand healthy habits and personal safety.

By the end of kindergarten, a child should be developing the ability to:

• Walk, run, jump, hop, and move with increasing control.

• Balance the body in different positions.

• Change direction while moving.

• Participate in active physical play.

• Throw an object with developing control.

• Catch age-appropriate objects.

• Kick, roll, or strike an object.

• Follow safety rules during physical activity.

• Understand personal space while moving around others.

• Practice regular handwashing.

• Cover coughs and sneezes appropriately.

• Recognize that healthy food, rest, cleanliness, and movement help care for the body.

• Recognize common safety risks.

• Follow age-appropriate safety practices at home and in the community.

• Understand that clothing and protection should match weather conditions.

• Identify trusted adults who can provide help.

• Communicate when help is needed.

Illinois requires homeschool instruction in physical development and health, and ISBE's standards include movement development, physical activity, healthy practices, illness prevention, and personal safety.

Remember: Kindergarten Is a Foundation

Kindergarten is not simply about how many words a child can read or how high they can count.

Children are also learning how to:

Listen • Communicate • Ask Questions • Solve Problems • Create • Explore • Move • Make Choices • Follow Routines • Work With Others • Become More Independent

The goal is to establish a strong foundation that prepares the child for increasingly complex learning in first grade and beyond.

The Illinois Learning Center does not endorse or guarantee any individual program listed. The directory is provided for educational and informational purposes to help families compare available options.