What is a good curriculum for a child with ADHD - Kindergarten ?

Question

What is a good curriculum for a child with ADHD - Kindergarten ?

Answer 1

"Curriculum" means the things you plan to teach, not the materials you buy to teach with.

Almost all of a kindergarten "plan of knowledge and skills" can be taught/learned by simply carrying on your daily schedule, with the exception of pre-writing and handwriting skills.  These can be done with any cheap workbook from Wal-Mart.

LANGUAGE ARTS:

Talk, talk, talk about everything you do.  And listen, listen, listen.  Read, read, read.  "Between the Lions" on PBS and "Sesame Street".  Read the labels on the groceries as you shop and as you put them away.  Pick out letters and words in the sale papers before shopping.  Canned goods are great, because there's a picture of the food with the word for it.  Read him a story, then have him draw a picture or pictures to retell it, and retell it in his own words.  Read poetry, and emphasize the rate, rhyme, and rhythm of the words.  Read "dramatically", do the voices, and vary your tone and speed according to the meaning.  It will engage him more than just "reading."  Dr. Seuss books are GREAT!

MATH

Doing laundry, you sort and match clothes by color, by size.  Measure the detergent.  Folding involves folding in half, in quarters, or thirds.  Talk about colors, pairs, sets, and sizes.

Cooking.  Talk about time, temperature, measuring.  You can also get science/social studies in there by talking about where this or that food came from (Italy for your spaghetti sauce recipe, for example.), or what animals eat (pigs, horses, cows, deer, raccoons all like to eat the same corn we do!), or how wheat is made into bread.  (Read "The Little Red Hen")

Counting:  setting the table, washing the dishes, how many chairs do we need?  If grandparents come to dinner, how many now? Picking up and putting away legos, little cars, blocks, etc.

Dates, time, calendar:  appointments, tv shows (comes on at what o'clock? lasts how long?), cooking times, birthdays and anniversaries, holidays.

Social studies:  neighborhood, community, community helpers/careers, make a simple map

Science:  nature walks observe and talk about and draw, plant seeds in paper cups, read about animals and their homes, animals and their babies, watch Animal Planet (NOT the ones where they show how animals have been mistreated and are rescued!)

Play with playdoh, legos, wooden blocks (they don't stick together, so building is practical experience in physics, including the noise they make when they fall!), play with water and sand or rice (fluids, flowing).  You can find tons of kindergarten crafts on the internet or look at the library for books.  There are also tons of free printouts on the internet for the occasional worksheet, and the very inexpensive comprehensive workbook of preK and K skills at Wal-Mart, for the one-page-at-a-time "table time".

If yours is like mine was, "sit and read" or "worksheet at the table" times are few, far between and very short!

Answer 2

Grace777

A good curriculum for a child with ADHD (Kindergarten or other age) really depends on the individual child.

What type of learner are they?  Visual?  Verbal?  Kinesthetic (Hands-On)

Find your child's strengths or activities that they are more involved in, and incorporate a curriculum around those strengths and that knowledge.

And yes - even at this age you can identify these subtle learning styles and preferences.

All the best,

Dr. Rory Stern

http://www.thetruthbehindadhd.com/tips.h...

Answer 3

HANDS-ON, and keep them moving, have several shorter recesses for the kids to burn of energy.

Answer 4

I would not do a formal curriculum.  I would be as active as possible.  Learning letters as sounds using sidewalk chalk or the blackboard.  Math using counters (though that is normal curriculum) or counting jumping jacks and then adding more jumping jacks to see how many all together.  Science when you take a walk and observe the seasons change, the insects in the yard, the birds building their nest, the cloud forms on stormy days vs nice days, etc.  Social studies by touring the local hospital, fire station, police station, museum.



You could also do a Montessori approach.  Check out her approach and then try to model off it.  It gives the child some freedom to follow their own interest, which can be good with an ADHD child.  

I think there is WAY too much pressure on kindergarteners these days.  Work as much as you can of normal activities into your school, but avoid the tv as it seems to make the ADD worse.

All the best.

Answer 5

Sonlight!  We just discovered Sonlight, and it is all about reading aloud to them.   And the books are awesome.  There are very little worksheets/workbooks involved.  

www.sonlight.com

Answer 6

NO formal curriculum is a good curriculum for such a child. Lots of movement activities--go nature hiking and bug hunting, do counting games on a hopscotch, learn sounds by hiding letters that have to be found, cook... The focus should be on activities that naturally calm the child, things s/he likes most (except tv and video games and all that).

Also, I'd recommend having a look at different diet ideas out there for ADHD. I know some parents who have made significant changes and it's made a world of difference. One mom's son can't handle any artifical colouring; another mom I know said that if her sons have wheat, they end up exhibiting ADHD symptoms; another family adopted the Feingold diet and it helped tremendously--yet another family I know tried it and there was no significant difference, yet doing something else (can't remember what) did help. Above all, ALL families have limited or banned screen viewing (tv, computer, etc.). Sometimes what appears to be ADHD is just a reaction to something else.

Answer 7

Basicly any curriculum will work.  The difference may be in the schedule of your day.  For instance you can work in 20 min intervals with a 5 min break for running and jumping.  That's what we do.  He is always ready to sit down and focus on his work.  Knowing that in 20 min he can run again. and run and run and run and run...............

http://homeschoolinghelp.bravehost.com/