 So at this point, I definitely will say it is definitely not the curriculum. It's me. Like I'm the problem. I am the issue. Hey guys, my name is Brittany and welcome back to my YouTube channel. You guys, I am back. I went on a little hiatus for the month of September, really just to avoid myself from burning out here on this platform. I love, absolutely love making videos for you guys, but I really just had to take a step back and re-center and focus on my family in the month of September. A lot has happened. You guys, when I say a lot, I mean absolutely a lot has happened in our homeschool and I really want to recap you guys on the month of September. I just want to forewarn you this will be a long update because I haven't made a video for you guys in three weeks. So I really have to get you guys up to speed and just let you know, everything that we've been up to and, you know, just all of the like the nitty gritty. So if any of you guys are new here to my channel, hi, I am Brittany. I'm a homeschooling mom to three. I am in my fourth year homeschool. I have a sixth grader, a kindergarten and a preschooler this homeschooling year. So you guys, let's go ahead and get on into this update. Um, first and foremost, you guys, life update, the flu hit our home in early September and it was no fun. You guys, um, I am grateful and blessed that everyone in our household didn't get the flu. It was only me and my middle daughter Leia who had the flu. Um, if you guys have bigger like homes, you definitely know like the domino effect when like one kid gets sick, you're just like praying and hoping that not everyone in your house gets sick. So we truly was blessed and it was just me and Leia who were sick. Um, but we did get sick like at the start of our homeschooling week. And you guys, like I was like, so nervous. I was like, are we going to be off track? Are we going to be off schedule? But at the time I was really just focusing on getting better, making sure me and Leia was feeling better. But I definitely will say you guys, I definitely got an opportunity to really test out my curricula choices for my sixth grader and my last update. I don't know if you guys remember, but I was really talking about me like really taking a step back and allowing my daughter to be independent. Well, I didn't have a choice and I was completely off the picture, but I definitely will say she rose to the challenge and she was able to successfully complete out her homeschooling week independently. It was only one subject that she was unable to do. And I am going to be reevaluating that subject. And once I get into like my curriculum update portion of this video, we'll talk about that in further detail. But I will say, Brielle, all she did was take my planner, you guys, and she wrote down in her planner what she had to do. And she was able to like complete out the rest of her homeschool. I definitely will say this homeschooling year, I really feel like I have done really well at like really planning out our weeks, laying them out. And I really think I'm doing a good job enough for my oldest daughter to be able to take my agenda and follow it through. She did say that week when we were sick, she did feel lonely. She didn't feel like, I guess, like the whole camaraderie of everyone being there and being like an active part of her homeschool. She did say that she had to really work on her time management skills because she was finding that it was taking her longer to do subjects when I wasn't around because she didn't have anyone to like, I guess have held her accountable and like for her to have like that accountability. But overall, she did an awesome job and I'm so proud of my sixth grader. So that was like our big thing that happened earlier in the month. Everyone right now, we're on the men's. Everyone is back to being healthy. Hopefully we can stay that way. And, um, yeah. So, um, the next thing I want to go ahead and talk about you guys, and I forgot to talk about this in my last update is that we have been going to some homeschool hangouts that is in our local libraries. A lot of the local libraries around me has started doing like homeschool hangouts and they have been so much fun this homeschooling year. So between the three libraries close to me, we pick one event to go to each week and my daughter, you guys, I'm so proud of her. Like she is really putting herself out there. She is talking to other people and you guys, um, if you know my daughter, she is an introvert. Like that is not in her character, but she is definitely like starting to break out of her shell. She's meeting new people and I have been meeting a lot of mom, friends and things like that. And I definitely will say you guys, I actually have met three subscribers at these homeschool events and, um, it's so crazy how, you know, right now I'm talking to a camera and, you know, I really forget that these are actual people that I'm talking to. If that makes any sense. Um, so it's, it was just so crazy to see like a person in real life and it really encouraged me to keep on going with my channel and to know that, you know, even though I feel like I'm just a teeny person on this huge platform, some of my videos really have helped you guys in your homeschool and it really, I guess it felt my heart and it felt my spirit and I'm so happy to have met, you know, those subscribers and, um, yeah. So this month, you guys, the kiddos and the STEM events that they did, um, we went to a countries and cultures event and my daughter learned about Puerto Rico. They had like all these different stations. She learned about some native animals in Puerto Rico. They made peanut coladas at the homeschool hangout. Another homeschool hangout that we recently went to, uh, they learned all about volcanoes and the kiddos got an opportunity to make like little volcanoes and they watch them explode and, um, they had like a presentation and it's really, really been fun. I definitely will say these like homeschool events, they're really focused on a lot of like, um, countries and cultures and science and, um, I'm really starting to feel good being able to allow my kiddos, especially my younger ones to be exposed to like all of these different things that I can't do consistently in my homeschool for them. So the hangouts have been gold and you guys, they're free. It's like no commitment. And, um, I'm not really ready to join like a co-op here in my homeschool just yet. I'm not in a season to have like that strict type of schedule. So these homeschool hangouts at my library is like perfect for us. So you guys, um, let's go ahead and get straight on into the book highlights and all the books that we read this month. So our read alouds this month was the wild robot and the wild robot escapes. I checked those out from our library and we listened to them on Audible and they were amazing. I see why so many of you guys have raved about the wild robot. I think the wild robot just released their third book and we're not going to read the third book just yet. I think we're going to save that for one of our summer fun reads, but we thoroughly enjoyed the wild robot and the wild robot escapes. Great stories. The audible, you guys had like music and suspense. And I know not everyone is into like listening to the audible, but for that particular book in the series, it was really, really good. Now, as far as Brielle, one of her favorite independent, like fun readers that she read this month was alone. I actually checked out alone from my library because I watched more Morgan's video from Life of the Tailman when she bought on her daughter and shared some of her fun favorite reads. And I was like, let me just check out alone and see if Brielle would love it. And you guys, she absolutely loved that book. It is really about a young girl pretty much during like a huge evacuation. She is left all alone and she has to figure out how to survive. And it's really like a modern day take on, on the story. It's written in free verse and at first Brielle started to listen to it on audible, but then she just got into it. She just kept on reading page after page after page and she thoroughly enjoyed that book. I think I'm going to go back and read it myself because I listened to a little bit of it with her and it was really, really good. So if you have a middle grade read that you want your kiddos to read alone is a good one. So that's like kind of like our book highlights for this month. I'm going to go ahead and break down each of the kiddos. And I'm going to give you guys a quick curriculum update and recap. I really wish that I could like talk about every single piece of curriculum and like everything that we did, but I really had to like narrow down like what I'm going to talk to you guys about. So I'm going to first start off with my sixth grader and then we're going to end off with my Kenny Gardner and my pre-care. So for my sixth grader, first things first, you guys, I'm so proud of her. We are at the halfway point of Matthew C Zeta and you guys like I am so happy. I have finally found a math curriculum in my home school that has stuck past one level. So we are halfway through Matthew C Zeta and she is getting this math. It is like clicking and I'm just so happy, you guys. I don't really know what else to say about it, but I'm so happy. But I am in like a little dilemma because Matthew C Zeta is the last level before we get into like pre-algebra algebra. I really have to like make a decision if I want to go ahead in January because she's going to be finished with this in December. I really need to make the decision if in January I'm going to go ahead and let her progress on to pre-algebra or if I'm going to wait until we start our seventh grade year and kind of like figure out what to do and maybe stretch out some of our supplemental maps that we're using until we get to seventh grade to start pre-algebra. But for right now, I am thinking I want to go ahead and start pre-algebra with my daughter. If we have any hiccups, we just have a lot longer to get through pre-algebra. And that's like my thinking right now with Matthew C. So I definitely will update you guys as we are like in a process of completing this book what my final decision is. But for right now, I'm thinking that I just want to go ahead and start pre-algebra in January and just take our time. We have enough time. She's only in the sixth grade and I think most eighth graders are doing pre-algebra. So if we're doing pre-algebra for two years, that is perfectly fine. I definitely want to keep math slow and simple for my daughter. Math is not her favorite subject. And honestly, it's really not her strongest subject compared to the others. So I'm definitely going to go at her pace, her speed. And Matthew C. has been like chef's kiss for her. So I'm happy with that. So you guys, next thing I'm going to go ahead and talk about all of the, I guess the areas that we covered in our ancient civilizations curriculum from Oak Meadow. So this month we went over ancient Persia, ancient India. And right now we are talking about ancient China. So Brielle's first independent reader that she finished this month was once there was, twice there was. And this is just a book of Turkish folktales. And she really, really enjoyed reading all of these like folktales. I really think this was a good light read, especially coming out of reading like Maru of the Winter Caves and the Golden Bulls. Those are really some, I guess, deeper storylines where Brielle was really seeing the hardships that these early people had to go through. So I'm definitely happy Oak Meadow kind of broke up that with like a fun, lighthearted folktales and folk lords. So in her Oak Meadows English, after she completed this book, they had her doing an illustration of one of her favorite like folktales. And the illustration she did was on the well of wisdom. And this is her illustration that she made to go along with her folktale or her folk lord. And the well of wisdom was pretty much a folktale about a young man learning how to steward his finance as well. And I'm just so surprised she decided to pick that folktale. And I really love how at the end of each of the books that the kiddos read in Oak Meadow, they have them doing something a little bit different. Not all the time will we have like discussion questions about the book. Sometimes they will pull out things like this for her to do. And this is where like that added fun creative art comes in with the curricula that I really am enjoying. So that is what Brielle did when we went over like ancient India, ancient Persia and things like that. So right now, since we are in ancient China, the new independent assignment reader she is reading is the Rainbow People. She actually just started this last week because last week was our first week in doing ancient China. And it's been so well. So at the end of our first week of doing ancient China, Brielle also did like this watercolor bamboo art. And she really, really enjoyed learning this technique. We found a YouTube tutorial and she really, really enjoyed doing her bamboo art. Now, one thing I will say, you guys, I have been thoroughly enjoying the ancient civilizations, the questions that they have been asking Brielle after she does like her independent reading. This week they had four questions after she did her independent reading for her to really write some brief paragraphs on. And this is her assignment right here, where she has all of the paragraphs of the questions that they posed for her. And I'm just going to read off one of the questions, you guys. One of the questions was how do you feel about the attitude of the ancient Chinese towards girls and women? Explain your thoughts and compare the traditional ways with modern opportunities for females. You guys, that was just one of the questions. I just want to let you know this curriculum is really allowing for me to see what my daughter thinks, how she feels. It is really allowing her to critically think about the passages that she's reading and learning and really to put her own voice and opinions in her writing. And you guys, I am blown away by what my daughter thinks about these ideals and all of these different things she's being introduced to. Because Oak Metal has a way of really wanting to see what the kids perspective is, especially in any type of writing. They want to hear their voice, their opinions. And it's really bringing something out in my daughter. And I'm just shocked. All I have to say is when my husband read her answers to some of these questions that they posed in Oak Metal, we were just like rolling on the floor because Brielle has a voice and I cannot wait for the world to hear it. Because this girl, she got something to say. So I definitely will say that has been my favorite part of this curriculum, has been all of the questions and the critical thinking and the writing and her expressing her thoughts and her views on these countries and cultures that we have been going through. And especially in a respectful way. So I really have been enjoying this right here. So that is like a brief recap on like our ancient civilizations because that definitely has been our highlight. We have been thoroughly enjoying it. Now the English, since it does go along with the ancient civilizations, what Brielle has been doing this month in English, she has done poetry. So we worked on a lot like poetry and free verse. And it was really, really cool because when she was reading her book alone, that was when we were doing the section on poetry. And it was really, really cool because she kind of was reading a fun reader and it really made everything correlate together. She wrote two poems. They were absolutely great. I really, really enjoyed them. So that was what we did in English. In English also, she is right now working on a brief short story. They gave her two weeks to work on it and she's really, really having fun doing short stories. I definitely will say this curriculum is perfect for my daughter who loves writing. She is really getting a kick out of it. So that is like my brief recap on our ancient civilizations and our Oak Meadows English. Now you guys, for the piece of curriculum that I am struggling with. And you guys, if you're not new here, you already know what this girl is struggling with. I am still struggling with science. Now I will say this, I have tried so many different sciences, you guys. I have tried the good and the beautiful master books. I've done book shark and I have tried core knowledge. So at this point, I definitely will say it is definitely not the curriculum. It's me. Like I'm the problem. I am the issue. And I really have to figure out how I am going to be consistent in this struggle subject that I'm having. So I will say I am proud of myself because I really, you know, I dug in deep this quarter and we have completed the first unit of our Oak Meadows science. It was challenging. I had to dig deep, but I did it. I will say out of all of the sciences that I have tried, the ones that I just listed to you guys, I believe Oak Meadow and core knowledge has been the most rigorous sciences. And I really appreciate that you guys is nothing wrong with that. It's definitely not a pretty coloring sheet that she's just coloring. She's writing lab reports. We're using the microscope. It is really, really putting us outside of the box. So for last week, we talked about cells and they had her diagram, her own animal and plant cells. So here is some of the pictures. This one right here is her plant cell that she diagram and labeled. And this is her animal cell anatomy that she diagram and labeled. And you guys, I definitely will say this science is really challenging. It's pushing me out the box. And I think I really need to come in at this science and knowing that I may not be able to do all of the science experiments. And I really need to make this work for me and me not work for this science curriculum. So I think that I'm going to do some reevaluating. I'm going to come in here and figure out which units I absolutely want to do. And I'm going to really come up with some realistic goals for myself in my homeschool when it comes to science. So I can still feel accomplished in this subject and I can still feel like we are making progress. I think that that's like the number one important thing I'm taking away from this homeschool year is as long as I'm making progress, I, you know, I need to be happy with what we are doing and just know that it's not going to be picture perfect. And that's perfectly fine. So that is my goal when it comes to science. I'm not quitting. I am just knowing that this is an area I'm going to have to dig in deeper and work a little bit harder in. So that is like one of my struggle subjects. Now, as far as everything else would be, it's really been going well. I really can't complain. We are going to be starting IEW structure and style next week for her. She's really, really excited. And if you guys see my last update for IEW, we're going to be doing two weeks of this every month. So when she's not writing like a research paper or a short story, we're going to be working in IEW. So since next week, she doesn't have any like big writing projects in Oak Meadow, we're going to be starting this. And then we're going to kind of like alternate between each of the programs. So each week, she's going to be giving me some type of structured paper. I really think that this particular child, she needs this challenge because other than that, she's twiddling her thumbs in our home school because a lot of their writing assignments, you guys, she really can just write them in one day. So she needs this challenge when it comes to this area of her strength. So that's really my update for my sixth grader. Now let's go ahead and get into my kindergarten and what she's been up to. So in my last kindergarten update, you guys know that we were kind of like having some bumpy roads when it has come to like our reading and reading instruction with Leia. But I definitely will say, you guys, I have seen tremendous progress and growth. Leia is really working hard and I'm so proud of this girl. We have kickback started like speech therapy. We've been doing that once a week. And I have noticed just since we've been consistent in speech, her reading instruction has been going so well. So we have read the second story in this All About Reading Runbug Runbook. And it has been so much fun, you guys, seeing her progress. Like I said before, you guys, All About Reading, even when it comes to them reading inside of these little readers, they are not leaving any crumbs on the ground, you guys. At this age, they are already getting the kiddos introduced to like reading comprehension, understanding what they're reading. And you guys, it like blew my mind like seeing All About Reading in the way that they are going about these little readers. So I have been so excited about that. But one thing I will say is since she's only reading like one story, every other lesson or so, I do want her to get like some like more reading practice in. So I went ahead, you guys, and I pulled out my Bob books. And she absolutely loves these little Bob books. I think we are on our third Bob book right now. And it's so cool being able to see her progress in reading. So I definitely will say that the Bob books pair very well with the All About Reading program. So I went ahead and I actually bought the second set of the Bob books for her. Since she's kind of going through these a little bit faster than the All About Reading. So she can kind of have like her assigned reader with her curriculum and then some fun readers we can read on Friday. So that is Leia. She's doing great. I'm so proud of her. And you guys, I'm just going to continuously like come in reading instruction with a positive attitude and really just show up for this kiddo. She loves the letter towels app instead of the actual physical towels. And that definitely was a hit in our homeschool as well. So that's Leia. She's doing well. And I'm so proud of her. Now for Alana, my three year old, you guys, we have been working and Get Ready for the Code. And she actually finished Book A and we are starting Book B of Get Ready for the Code. You guys, Alana, to really be honest, my three year old, she's actually practicing CVC words as well. I just use these big CVC words that I got from JDA's Teachers Pay Teachers. And on the back, it has like the picture of each of the words that she's reading. So if she's reading this word cat, she sees the picture of cat afterwards. And she really gets like a good kick out of it. So Alana is actually working on CVC words as well. So her lineup is Preschool Math at Home, Get Ready for the Code. And CVC practice is like her daily time that she spends with me. Now for the two younger ones, you guys, in our like fun school for them, we are doing play in preschool and we wrapped up our community helpers unit. And I just grabbed a couple of pieces of their artwork that they did. This is their excavator and their little handprint of all of the community helpers that we went over. And they had so much fun doing our community helpers unit. And I had so much fun too doing it. Now for play in preschool, I really only do it two to three times out today, really Friday being our main day. I really want them to get like that messy art, that fun art. And it really ensures me getting in more real out time because with play in preschool, you have like a big stack of books that you pick for each of the units. And the kids really, really enjoyed all of the books. One of their favorite ones was whose hat is this? And they also love the book helpers in my community. Those are ones that I kept on reading over and over again because they really, really enjoyed those too. But it was so cute seeing how now they can identify, you know, like firefighters, police officers, farmers and doctors. And, you know, now they're really aware of the people in our community. That was so much fun. So for my next month or for this month of October, we are going to do like a mixture of on the farm. And I'm going to go ahead and combine in some fall books with them as well. So I have a little stack of books I'm going to share with you guys as far as the books we're going to be using for them. So I have farm animals. I have red, big red barn. I have farming. And then I also picked up this little book. It's like an encyclopedia about all around the farm. And hopefully they enjoy this one. I have acoustics rooster. I have, what's this one? Mrs. Wishy Washi's Farm. I have Good Night Little Blue Truck. And then from my bookshelf, I went ahead and picked up some like fall type of books that still can kind of go with this theme. I picked up the Scarecrow from my shelf. And then I also have Omaris Farm. Okay, you guys, now for I guess my goals and all the things that I want to get up to for the month of October. My number one goal for October, you guys, is I definitely want to be consistent in science. Science is my weak area. We are, like I said, we wrapped up our first four lessons of science. And I definitely want to make sure I remain consistent and plan ahead in this particular subject. I really don't want it to fall below the wayside. So that's my goal is to be consistent in that subject. I definitely want to remain consistent and positive with my daughter's reading instruction because I did see a difference when I came to the sessions with, I guess, a more upbeat and positive attitude. I really seen, I guess, her feeding off of my attitude. I really don't want to come in reading instruction with anxieties and fears and things like that. I really want to keep it upbeat and positive for her. So that's one of my goals is to remain, I guess, positive in that area. My next goal for October is really I want to figure out what my, like, holiday plan and schedule is going to be for our homeschool. I really didn't account for that in my yearly plan. And so I really need to figure out, like, if I want to do all of our pieces of curriculum during holiday time, what pieces of curriculum do I want to stop? What is going to be my halfway point when it comes to all the kiddos and my plan of attack? And I know we're just in October, but I really like to figure out what I'm going to be doing for November and December by the end of October. So I can really go into the holiday season, it's not really feeling stressed out, like, oh, we're not where I want to be yet and things like that. So I definitely want to go ahead and, I guess, make a plan for that since I didn't do that in July. And to really be honest, you guys, I really just want to remain consistent and remain focused. I want to continue to keep my head down and focus on me and my home school that really has been helping me be successful. I really have been limited amount of time that I'm on social media and while I love watching all of you guys's videos and catching up with you guys on various platforms, I really have been taking a big step back so I can focus and pour in into my household and into my kiddos. And that really has been helping me and I want to remain consistent in that area as well. So you guys, this was my September update. I really hope you enjoy like catching up with everything with me and really just chatting with me. You guys, let me know how was your September? Are you guys finally getting into your home school groove? Are you still kind of having some wobbly and shakily pieces? Trust me, I understand this has been my first year, you guys, that things has been like smooth sailing because I have had some shaky years. You can watch my older videos, but I hope all of you guys are doing well. I'm so happy to see all of you guys again in today's video. And as always, you guys, I look forward to seeing everybody in my next one. Bye.