 Hi you guys, my name is Brittany and welcome back to my YouTube channel. You guys in today's video I'm going to share with you my March homeschooling update so go ahead and stay tuned for today's video. So you guys, I don't have a script for this video, normally I like come up with a script I know exactly what I'm going to say but I'm just going to go ahead and speak this homeschooling update really just from my heart. So if any of you guys are new here to my channel, again I'm Brittany, I have a 10, 3 soon to be 4 year old, my middle daughter, she's going to be 4 on the 28th of March and then I have a 2 year old. So I'm in my second year of homeschooling you guys, we're wrapping this baby up with a little bow because this mama you guys, I am, I'm exhausted like I really feel like I'm at the point of like burn out and the only reason why we are still like trucking along is because my daughter, she has the stamina, she is excited, she is ready to go. It's really just me and I really feel bad to like stop us while we're on such a good momentum to just take a break really just because of me because my daughter, Brielle, she is just like ready to go but I'm making this update video right now because this right here is going to be our last week that we are going to be doing and then as you guys are seeing this video, we are on our spring break because I just had to put, I had to bump up our spring break a week earlier just because I really do need this mental break just for us to just finish off this homeschooling year really really strong. So you guys, like I always do in these videos, I'm gonna go ahead and start talking about the books and what we've read so far this month. So you guys, my daughter, we were reading Gone Crazy in Alabama and my daughter, she just wanted to get back to the little house series. So I was like, you know what, Brielle, we stopped that book midway. We were only like in the first four chapters. It was really really good but my daughter, she just was like, mommy, can we go back to the little house series and I say, you know what, that's fine. So we are back to on the banks of Plum Creek and probably by the time you guys see this video, we would have finished this book. My daughter, she really really loves this series and I'm not gonna lie, this one right here you guys is really really good. So far out of the little house on the Prairie series, my daughter's favorite book has been Farmer Boy and she said that this one is her second favorite that we've read so far. So we are on what the fourth book out of this series. So I don't anticipate her wanting to read any other read aloud but this until we finish the series and you guys, I just have to just swallow that pill. It's okay. I'm just happy she is enjoying like our read aloud time. So yeah. So you guys, we are like wrapping up our amazing Africa unit from the Heritage Mom blog. We have really been enjoying this. I think we only have like three more weeks left. So we will be finished with this like what the almost the last week of April will be finished with our amazing Africa and it's just been, it's been amazing. We've really been enjoying it. So here go some of the picture books that we've read with the study this week. We've read Beatrice Goat. This one was a really cute story. This one actually is based off of a true story. We also read My Rose and Pals of Coins. This one was a really cute story. So I really like that one. We also read Bringing Rain to Coppity Plain. And this book right here, you guys, it was so cute because it had like this rhyme and repetition to it. And it was a really beautifully told story. So I really, really loved this one. My daughter did too. She was just smiling the whole time we was reading this read aloud. So yes, definitely a favorite. We've also read Masa and I. Masa and I. I'm pronouncing that right. But this one was a really beautiful book that we read with our Heritage Pack. And I really loved the, I guess the way that this story was told. It was told kind of like in a third person point of view. And my daughter really had to think when she was reading this picture book. It was a really, a really beautifully told story. And yeah, I really love this one. Pretty much this story was about a young girl who lived in East Africa and she was learning about the Masa tribe within her school. And she was just imagining what her life would be like if she was a part of that tribe. And I just love the depiction, the pictures. This was a really good one. And then of course, this one is a classic. We've read, we all went on a safari when we went through our Tanzania or the country of Tanzania with an Africa. And this was another just classic good picture book that I'm happy that I have this one on my shelf as well. So you guys, those are like all of like the reading that we got up to for this month. I really feel like we did a pretty good job as far as like our reading goes. Now some things that I'm adding on into our morning basket because we are entering Easter. So when we come back from our spring break, we're going to add these ones back into our morning basket. Kind of like to switch things up. I'm putting back in a hundred favorite Bible stories back into our morning basket. This one right here goes along with masterbooks that we did last year. And we just continue on with these Bible stories. And what I'm going to do is I'm going to go ahead and read a lot of the stories from the New Testament leading up until crisis death as we are going into Easter and Passover, Palm Sunday, all the things. And this is how I'm going to incorporate that like Easter study in our morning basket. I also pull back out the garden, the curtain and the cross. You guys, this is just such a beautiful picture book that I definitely recommend anyone add into their library. I really enjoyed this one and we're going to read this one this month. And then for my two little toddler babies, my mom, she purchased this book for me. She went to Ollie's and this book is just Easter stories and prayers for the young ones. And we've read a few of them so far and they're so cute. So yeah, this is for the youngins. And also that added into my morning basket. You guys master books was having like a flash sale on their books. And when I seen the email popped up, I was like, Oh my gosh, I have to get these. These are the marvels of creation series and each of these books was only $3. And I was like, I have to get them. So this one is marvels of creation. The mammals, this goes over the birds and this goes over like the sea animals. So this is just a sneaky way that I'm adding in science into our morning basket. Sometimes you know, I just really know that I want to continue to beef up our science in our home school. And this is just the easy way for us to do it. And it's so cute because even when I show the kids, the animals, my younger two, we were reading about the panda bear. And I was showing them the picture and they said panda. And even though my younger ones, I mean, they're two and almost four, they still kind of like listen along when I'm reading these in the morning time. So I'm happy that I'm adding these for like a little bit of extra science in like our morning basket. Okay, so like as far as curriculum goes, you guys, we are doing so good with our timeline. You guys, just because I'm like exhausted, I printed off or I made a copy from my school nest binder of our curriculum progress just so we can kind of like shade it in as we are reaching like the end of our quarters. I think we only have like 33 more language arts lessons. We have like 30 more math lessons till we reach our goal. So we are like really like right at that ending point and I'm really proud of my daughter and this is just a good way for me to have her like shade in so she can see like our progress where we're at where we need to be at. I think this little chart that I copied from my school nest planner, my daughter is just really excited seeing as we're getting closer towards the end. Now you guys, for language arts this month, I kind of took a break from our rod and staff. I love rod and staff, but I was kind of getting tired last week. So what I went ahead and I did was I added in go ahead, go with Poppy. Let me finish. Okay, you guys, my husband, he has the kids now. Why I finished this up. So like I was saying before, we actually took a week break from rod and staff. Our last week before our spring break, just because you guys, I was kind of getting a little bit tired. Rod and staff, it is a really short and great program, but it was just allowing me to have to think and I was just like, you know what, let me just go ahead and pull back out Fixit Grammar for this week. I love Fixit Grammar as well. Fixit Grammar is a really great grammar program where your kid, they are just going to be editing a one sentence a day and they have to find the nouns, pronouns, the who, which clause, adjectives. It just depends on whatever part of speech that you are going over that week. So I just pulled this out as a review for Brielle of everything we've already went over so far like with in rod and staff and she really enjoyed it too. And she said she really liked that. We kind of pulled this out to break up that, I guess, monotony of doing the same curriculum over and over again. And I'm finding sometimes too that instead of just taking a break, sometimes we can just change it up and pull out some of our like supplemental materials. And it's really just like pushed us along. So Fixit Grammar was just a way for me to lighten up our load for us to just make it through to spring break. So I love Fixit Grammar, you guys. It's so simple and it is very thorough for you to just be editing one sentence. I mean, for the kids to be able to look at those words and see what the parts of speech are and be able to know it right away. It's a skill that I feel like all kids should be mastering. So Fixit Grammar definitely a win in my books. So yeah, now as far as my toddler schools, you guys, like I absolutely love playing preschool and we will continue playing preschool. But my middle daughter, Leia, she just was not feeling it. Like every time like I was saying, come on, Leia, let's do preschool. She was just telling me no preschool really like this whole month. And you know what? She is three. She will be four, like I say, on the 28th. And I was like, you know what? I think I need to really take a step back when it comes to Leia. And you guys, I'm going to have like a heart to heart with you guys. Like I really feel like in a way I have been pushing Leia a little bit more than I possibly should be pushing her at the age of three really because like Leia, she has a speech delay and I really feel like I was getting to a point where I was scared that because she has a speech delay and she's not speaking the way that a lot of other kids her age are speaking, I think I was worried that she wasn't going to learn and she was going to be behind and I feel like I was just kind of pushing preschool on her maybe a little bit too soon as far as like a formal curriculum. We've always done like play-based learning and things like that. But I really feel like I needed to take a step back this month just for that. And I really need to have confidence in myself and know that, yes, this is a speech delay she has, but that doesn't inhibit her from learning because it is she is very, very advanced in some areas. But then in others like her speech, she's not so much. She actually had her speech evaluation and when her evaluation came back and I was able to see her progress from her doing speech therapy for the past two years, it just like blew me out the water just to see that progress. And I just need to really take things at the pace that Leia is at. And I think that that's just something that I need to work on within myself. And I just need to know that, you know, she will learn. It may not be on everyone else's timeline, but she's going to learn. She's going to retain. She's going to speak and she's going to get to that other side of the mountain and this mama bear, I just need to really be patient. And I just need to be confident in myself that I can do this. I set out this homeschooling journey and I know that I'm going to have to learn different learning styles. I'm going to have to meet each of my children where there are. And hopefully by me, like putting playing preschool down because I know she loves it because she had so much fun with like the colors unit, just putting it down until August. I think that is the best thing. And what I'm going to do is just pull back out some of those like play-based learning things that she loves. So like some of the things that she's been enjoying, you guys is so crazy. But this like simple Melissa and Doug activity pad. She actually finished all of these. I mean, these little sheets, they're so cute. All she does is I don't have any left, but she just puts the sticker on the little sheets and she gets the color and she's been having so much fun with this little activity pad. I don't even bring it out if she pulls it off of her little cart, her little area, I'll do it with her if she didn't, I didn't. But this was something she's really been enjoying. Something else that has been enjoying is as she's been watching Brielle like do her handwriting skills in the morning. She wants to do something too. So I pulled this back out of my shelf. I've had this for a while. This is actually my second book I purchased for her just because she completed it the first time and she loved it so much. I just got it again and it's just these big letters. She just gets to trace with Brielle and she's just enjoying like that morning time tracing and she feels like she's a big girl doing like her penmanship. So this is something else she's been enjoying this month. Something that's really crazy that Lea has been enjoying is she has been like really enjoying math, not so much like the other things, but I have been really having fun doing preschool math at home with her as like hands on activity play base as well. And then something else that I recently pulled back out that I used with her when she was like earlier at the beginning of August, I used this with her which is like her learning binder. I pulled this baby back out and she is just having fun with this. And again, I just leave like all of these things like on our little cart for her, her preschool cart. So she can just pull these out. So she's been really enjoying doing these. I actually recently like separated the binders and I put some like age appropriate stuff for my youngest daughter, Alana. And I just have some things that Alana likes to do as well just so they can have their own book because you guys like these toddlers, like they fight over everything. So they both have their own like a learning folder and I just pulled out just some different like interactive things that they can do if they want to do them. And I think that that is what I'm going to do for now. Like I have cut out like our calendar time and like all the things that I was doing with them. The only thing that my toddlers do right now is really Bible. And if they want to pulse like these interactive notebooks and like some color and sheets off of their preschool cart, that's really all like I do with them for right now. I really just need to stop comparing my children to other children that I'm seeing on the Internet. And I really just need to meet them where they're at. And I'm going to just be honest, like I am very guilty for that. And I just don't want to kill my daughter's love for learning. I don't think I have, but I just want to, like I said before, just meet her where they're at. So you guys, like really, that is everything that has happened in March. We're tired, we're ready for the school year to end. And yeah, you guys, so as you guys are seeing this video, I have about 30 more days that I need to record for the state of Georgia for our homeschool. So we're looking at finishing our homeschool year around May 13th. If my daughter finishes curriculum before then we will just kind of like play and have fun until then. But that is like our end date. So it is near. We are almost done with our second year of homeschooling. So you guys, thank you so much for watching today's video. I hope you enjoy here in my update. As always, let me know how your homeschool is going. If you're you're done, you're tired, you're ready to wrap this thing up. Just let me know down below. Thank you guys so much for watching. I look forward to seeing everybody in my next one. Bye.