 I need to work on some things. It has definitely been attitude and motivation. Hey you guys, my name is Brittany and welcome back to my YouTube channel. You guys, in today's video, I'm going to be sharing with you a September homeschool update. So if you guys are interested in hearing everything that has happened for us in the month of September, then go ahead and stay tuned for today's video. So if any of you guys are new here to my channel, again, my name is Brittany. I have a nine, three and a one year old and I'm in my second year of homeschooling you guys. This year has definitely started off pretty rocky for me, but it has been nothing but God. And some of the prayers from you guys and just the messages that you guys have sent me that has really encouraged me and just covered my home and covered my homeschool. And I really truly feel blessed just to really be sharing with you that my homeschool has definitely turned around. If you guys aren't new here, I did make an update within my first three weeks of homeschool which is really sharing with you guys my struggles and the things that has happened within my first three weeks of homeschooling in my second year and just all the love that you guys poured to me and the emails, they really mean a lot. And I'm really grateful for just you guys and just having this sense of community and the love that you guys shared with me in that video. And it truly meant a lot to me. And I just wanna thank all of you guys for that. So yeah, so you guys, let's go ahead and get into this update. I really wanna highlight our book highlights, our curriculum highlights. I wanna talk about anything that really comes to me as far as September in our homeschool. I really wanna try to highlight it and share it with you guys last school year in my first year of homeschooling. I really wish I would have documented month by month my homeschooling journey because I feel like right now I would really like to look back at that. So I definitely wanna make it a part to bring you guys these monthly updates just because I know it will help somebody out there watching these updates and also too, it always helps me to be able to look back and see where I started, where I came from and it really gives me encouragement to keep moving forward. So yeah. So I'm gonna go ahead and get straight into our books that we've read so far within our first quarter of our homeschool because we did complete our first eight weeks and I'm so proud of us. So the first book that we started off our school year with was the trumpet of the swan. This was a continuation from summer and it definitely was a great book. This is a classic. Anything from EBY, I definitely recommend to you guys. So trumpet of the swan, it was beautiful. I definitely recommend it. We went straight into our second read aloud which was a long walk to water. We're actually doing an Africa unit study from the heritage mom. It's called Amazing Africa. It has definitely truly been a blessing in our homeschool and I wanted to add this read aloud a long walk to water in addition to all of the resources that she provides for the Amazing Africa unit study and this has definitely been a beautiful book. This was one of the highlights that my daughter said for this school year. This book follows a journey of Nala and Saba in Sudan Africa and it just follows their struggles, how they overcome them. And I really feel like this book definitely shed a lot of light in my daughter. My daughter is nine, she'll be 10 in December and it definitely impacted her a lot. I definitely would say this book is definitely for middle school, possibly high school because of the content and things like that in this book. But if you feel like your student is mature, I definitely would say this is definitely a good read. It really opened her eyes to just the basic needs of others and just the things that she has here and just for her to be really grateful for just our life here in America and the things that she doesn't have to deal with. It really showed these two kids persevere and throughout difficulties and the challenges that life faced them and she really enjoyed following these two people, Nala and Saba and she really enjoyed seeing how they persevere through everything that life brought to them. And yeah, she definitely enjoyed this. I definitely would say this is a must read for any student. Again, like I said, I really feel like this is for more of a mature audience. I would definitely tell you as a mom to read this book before you present it to anyone in elementary school, possibly younger than fifth grade. I definitely would say to pre-read it, but it definitely was a good, powerful book, at least in my opinion. So yeah. So going from such a strong nonfiction story, I wanted to give us something a little bit light after that. So right now we are actually reading packs as our fall read aloud. It's definitely been amazing. We've been really enjoying it. We're in chapter 13, so we're almost halfway through this book. I definitely know in our second quarter we'll probably be finished this book in the next two weeks, but it's definitely been a really, really good told story about packs and Peter and their adventure together. Sarah Penny Packer is really a great author and I've really been enjoying it. I've been enjoying listening to this book on Audible version because last year I read all of our read alouds and I was really tired of just always reading along with all of the other reading that we were doing. So this year I gave myself a break and we are actually listening to this one and definitely has been really, really enjoyable listening and culling on the couch. And yeah, I definitely see why a lot of homeschooling moms love Audible books. So yeah, we've definitely been enjoying them here in our homeschool. Now as far as curriculum highlights and things like that, one of my main curriculum highlights has definitely been amazing Africa. I know I talk about it all the time, but I really have been enjoying that unit study in our home. We're about halfway done with that unit study. We will be done with it before Thanksgiving and I'm really gonna be sad when we finish exploring all of these countries within Africa, but it definitely has been amazing. I have been learning things that I didn't know even as an adult. So it's really been a learning experience for me and for my daughter. So yeah, definitely that has been one of our curriculum highlights. Another one of our curriculum highlights has definitely been Fixit Grammar. You guys, if you see my curriculum changes video and I talked about all the changes that I went through with my curriculum, those was like one of my main struggles, just picking the wrong pick curriculum for the start of the school year. I picked curriculum that was too teacher intensive especially for the place in life that I'm at right now. I do have two toddlers. I have a one and a three year old that still demand a lot from me, but I still need to be able to carve out that time to give to my daughter. So picking curriculum that's not too teacher intensive is really important to me. And I feel like that was where a lot of my struggles happened at the beginning of our school year. I'm just picking the wrong things that didn't fit our season of life. But one thing I did pick that just went well from the beginning was Fixit Grammar. My daughter actually went from being able to identify parts of speech about 50% to about 90% after just finishing the first eight weeks of Fixit Grammar. So they are actually only edited in one sentence a day, but I really feel like just these simple grammar lessons have definitely strengthened my daughter's grammar skills and learning her parts of speech. And this has definitely been a highlight for me and for my home school. Now as far as our second quarter goals, we are going to be putting Fixit Grammar down just the end or for our second quarter. And it's really not because of anything negative. It's actually because of something positive. Me and my husband decided because my daughter loves writing and she enjoys writing so much that we are going to let her do a writing course next school year. And I looked into a lot and I really think I'm gonna go ahead and do IEW structure and style. I think it's the first one is A, structure and style to really help her with those writing skills and let her hone in on them because writing is something that she just naturally enjoys. And I really want to continuously allow her that time and that space to flourish that craft. So yeah, we are definitely going to put her in IEW either January or next school year. But right now it's looking like we're gonna allow her to do it in January. So I feel like by putting this on hold and letting her do Fixit Grammar with IEW, it would definitely be a good compliment just because she will be doing more composition. And I want her to have those short grammar lessons with it. So as far as another curriculum highlight, I definitely have is master books. We went back to master books you guys and it definitely has been amazing. We're actually doing master books, language lessons for a living education level five and it's been a beautiful fit for her. We did level three last year and I jumped skipped her to five. I really feel like last year we should have did four but I didn't make the switch when I should have. So I just jumped skipped her. We went to five. It's been a perfect fit. It's been a perfect compliment. I feel like she wants to do lesson after lesson because English is like the subject she loves the most and I'm so happy that I found something that she's able to do. She's able to get it as short and sweet. It's to the point and I can still give her that space to be able to do her creative writing and things that she likes to do. As far as creative writing goes, my daughter finished writing her first story and she actually illustrated her title and she actually made a, what is this? I guess her back cover of her first story that she's written here in our homeschool and it's been amazing seeing her go through this writing process, writing her first story. I think this little story has 15 chapters in it and it's so amazing just watching her flourish in a crack that she loves and I'm so happy that I jumped a gun and made those curriculum changes in the beginning of our school year to allow my daughter that time and that space to be able to do something that she loves and she enjoys. So I definitely will say that I'm happy and I stand behind firmly, me just jumping a gun early within our homeschool because ever since we switched and we're doing the curriculum choices that we are doing, it definitely has been beautiful. Our days just flow great and I feel like I'm really enjoying what homeschooling is meant to be and yeah, you guys. So those are our curriculum highlights. Now I want to talk about Bible. This year we actually did something a little bit different for Bible. We added in these character matters cards from September in code and you guys, these character matters cards have definitely been a great addition to our homeschool. You guys, like it's so crazy that I'm over here teaching my daughter characteristic traits and things like that and me teaching her these things is really resonating with me as well. Like if I want my daughter to pursue these characteristic traits, I have to be the example for her. So as we are going through them, I feel like I'm taking more from it possibly than she is at this very moment because mama bear, you know, I need to work on some things and I need to really display how we are supposed to be here on this earth and how God wants us to be. And I really need to set that example for her. So as we are going through these characteristic traits, not only am I giving this to her but I feel like this is a good reminder for me to continuously show my daughter's examples of how he wants us to be, especially in our homes when we can lose our patience pretty fast and things like that. So these character managed cards have been beautiful. I'm not too sure if we're going to go through all of these throughout the school year, it will be really nice to be able to go through all of them but I'm really going to just take our time when it comes to character and character development but it definitely has been a beautiful addition in our homeschool. Something else that we do for Bible is I teach my daughter Bible through our Sabbath school lessons. I go on Grace Link, on the Grace Link app and I pull up her primary Sabbath school lesson which is for ages seven through nine and I just print off the lesson for the week, we go over that as well. Something that we do daily in addition to her Sabbath school lesson is also this cute little devotion and I found on Amazon and it's called how to grow a courageous girl. And this little mini devotional you guys has been so amazing in our homeschool. These little devotionals are about five minutes. They have a scripture verse and a prayer at the end of it and I really feel like a lot of the things that they're touching on in this little devotional, it really has been amazing and it's really age-appropriate. I would say like between ages eight to 12 will be a good age for this little mini devotional. I really feel like my daughter can do this on her own and read it. However, I like to read it with her. I like to talk about what the devotional says and things we can take from it and it's really been amazing. This little 499 book from Amazon, you guys is definitely has been a highlight. Now along with Viable, you guys, I really wanna thank my mom because she definitely always contributes to our homeschool and I'm so blessed to have her. She went to a Christian bookstore sale and she was able to find me these beautiful family book devotionals that I feel like we're definitely going to add in our second quarter. These books actually go over the Old Testament. So this first book right here goes over Adam and Eve. This next book starts off with Abraham. This one talks about Jacob and then it ends with Joseph. So all of these books right here are all goes over the Old Testament. This is actually an older edition she found on sale and I'm so happy to have these beautiful devotional family books in our homeschool and mom, if you're watching this, thank you again for these books. They're beautiful. I'm gonna try to insert you guys pictures and flip-throughs of these devotional books and if I can find the links below, I will definitely try to find the links to it as well for you guys if you're interested in these family devotionals, but yeah. So you guys, as far as I should say, like some challenges we've faced this quarter, other than like curriculum challenges, I will say it has definitely been attitude and motivation. My daughter, Gabrielle, you know, typically we have a student that loves English and writing. They typically don't like math and science. My daughter loves science, but math, not so much. And it's just so crazy that she is really, really good at math. We are actually doing a Becca arithmetic four for math. We did a Becca arithmetic three last year and she's good at it. I talked to her about the, whatever our new concept is that we're learning. I feel like she gets the concept right away. She does her problems and when she's doing her work, she might get like one or two problems wrong within the lesson. And I really feel like she's good at math for the most part. She just doesn't like it. She told me she just doesn't like all of the work that math, you know, that you have to do when it comes to math. And you know, I understand, but you know, I told her, you know, Brie, we have to show up and we have to have a positive attitude when it comes to subjects, even the ones that we don't like. So even though math is not her favorite subject, she's really, really good at it. And I'm going to continuously motivate her. And my main motivation is really bribery. And I know that sounds bad. And how I do it is it's pretty much, I tell her, Brie, we're gonna do math before we get to our English and writing. So I always do math first, then we do our English and writing. So that has definitely been, it's definitely been a motivation for her to get done with her math so she can get to a subject that she loves a little bit more. So, so yeah. As far as her writing and goals that I do have for her writing for our next quarter is that I really want to start teaching my daughter more, I guess, editing skills when it comes to writing. I really want us to focus more on grammar. In particular, I want us to work on like fragments and run on sentences. I feel like within her writing, coming up with ideas, outlining, coming up with her topic sentence and conclusion sentences and paragraph formation. All those things come really natural to her. But I feel like the grammatics and things like that, like forgetting to put a period at the end of her sentence and things like that and not breaking up sentences that needs to get broken up. Little things like that are things that we're gonna focus on more when it comes to the rest of this quarter to get her prepared for that formal writing class because I definitely know she's going to do amazing in it. I just want to make sure that we find to these little teeny things when it comes to her writing skills and everything like that. So again, we are gonna put aside Fixed Grammar. We're gonna focus on our master books, language lessons for a living education. We're going to do some oral grammar drills and I'm really going to work on those things with her to prepare her for this IEW writing class. She's really, really excited about it and I'm excited for her to be able to work on something that she's really interested into. I do want to teach her how to write persuasive paragraphs and expository paragraphs as well before she starts. So she can get into a different style of writing. She's really, really good at storytelling, personal narrative, things like that but I do want to get her to be able to do other forms of writing and those are the two forms of writing that I do want to introduce to her this second quarter. So yeah. So you guys, another life update that did happen to us in the month of September and it's really, really sad for me to say this but I understand that this is just a cycle of life but if you guys do follow me on Instagram you probably would have known that I expressed to you that my grandmother, she passed away on September 2nd and this month has, or this couple of months has really been hard but with my grandmother passing away, it definitely hit home and it definitely has been a hard season for me going through grief and everything like that. My grandmother really had a powerful impact on my life and I can't express to you in this short video just how much she was there for me. My grandmother actually taught me how to read which is crazy for me to say it that she taught me how to read and my grandmother put me into private Christian school and it's just been so many moments in my life that she has just been there. She was there with me when I purchased my first car and it's just been everything. She was there with me when me and my husband we purchased this house that we're in right now and when she's seen our house she was just so proud of me and it's really hard to go through like this grieving process along with trying to be strong for my girls and being a good mother and everything like that. I'm really happy that my grandmother is no longer in pain and I know I will see her again someday but it definitely has been hard this month in particular with everything and the grieving of my grandmother but I will say homeschooling has definitely been a positive distraction in my life. I really have been pouring into not only Brielle but my other daughters because it's really important to me now and just remembering all the things that my grandmother taught me and it feels good that all the things she taught me now I can teach my daughters and I know if she was able to see me today she would be so proud of me and everything that I'm doing for my girls and yeah, so that has been a big life update that has happened and I wanna thank everybody who did reach out to me when I expressed her passing away and things like that and those words, they really meant a lot to me so yeah, you guys. So as far as goals and things that I have for the rest of this school year or not the school year but the rest of this quarter as we're going into our second quarter is goals for myself is that I wanna be more mindful of myself and I wanna be better at taking care of myself. You guys, I'm really bad at waking up before the kids actually wake up to the baby monitor of my kids being up in the morning and I really want to start taking better care of myself because I can't pour from an empty cup and I wanna start waking up at least an hour before the girl so I can do my morning devotional so I can listen to my podcast that I love to listen to. I really wanna pour into my spirit and my heart because I know it definitely will help me when I'm pouring into my kids especially in our Bible time and within our home school and that's definitely a focus that I wanna focus on. Another goal is I wanna spend more quality time with my husband. I feel like ever since we have had our kids we have definitely, haven't done a good job at spending that quality time together that we need to with it coming up on the fall season especially here in Georgia, I'm really excited about it. I'm excited to be able to pull out some of our favorite movies and just spend time on a couch watching movies when we put the girls to sleep and things like that so that definitely is gonna be a priority this second quarter just in life in general is just to carve out that special time with my husband and for us to do those fun things that we used to do even just as simple as like I said just watching our favorite movies and eating snacks when the kids go to bed and things like that so yeah. Another one of my goals or whatever for homeschooling is that I want to be more intentional when it comes to Leia my three year old. She actually has been doing a really good job you guys as far as her speech and language development speech therapy started back in August so she has definitely done awesome when it comes to that but I really feel like I didn't spend as much time with her as I wanted to doing like preschooly things, messy art, doing all of those type of things so I definitely wanna put more emphasis on carving out that time for her especially in the afternoons in the afternoons when they wake up from that time that is like her prime time she's always giving me books and that's the time she wants my attention the most and I really want to be intentional with continuously teaching her things she definitely has flourish just first quarter she actually has learned all of her letter recognition is it called it? Letter recognition yeah that's what it's called she's learned her letter recognition her uppercase and her lowercase and she actually knows all of her letter sounds fluently out of order and she's doing really good with that she's doing really good with like all the little logic puzzles she's doing really really good with simple math with the counting bears that I've been doing with her so the time that I have been spending with her has been intentional and she's doing good and she's thriving but I wanna be even more intentional with giving her that extra special time that she needs now as far as my one year old Alana she's just doing her one year old thing but I do wanna be intentional with her as well continuously reading with her helping her develop her language and speech skills and continuously helping her form her vocabulary and working with her as well so that's another goal as far as YouTube goes I do have some small goals for YouTube is that I wanna just I guess I should say I wanna be more consistent on YouTube I feel like doing two videos a week is really too much for me I feel like I've tried to do two videos a week it's easier for me to do two videos a week in a summertime when I'm not homeschooling but now that homeschool is in full effect I think I'm gonna drop down to just doing one YouTube video a week and I hope you guys can understand that I really need to continuously pour into my family and into my kids I love YouTube, I love filming and this is like the best part of my day filming and creating things for you guys but I definitely need to have a good balance between my home life and my work life so I think me scaling back to just one video a week will definitely work this month I was actually only able to post one video a week and I definitely think that that is like my good flow my good rhythm and yeah, you guys if you have any video recommendations just let me know, leave them down below for me and I definitely would love to do it I know you guys are looking forward to a day in a life and don't worry, it might not be the next video but the video after that I will have a day in a life for you and I'll show you a little bit more of our ins and outs our daily schedule, our new daily flow and how I'm managing things between my nine year old and my two toddlers and how I'm getting all of our home school done we're still able to do all the fun things that we like and we enjoy and everything like that so you guys, that's my September update that's really everything that has happened I'm really happy that even though life circumstances and our challenges that we face this first quarter I really feel like I'm proud of us all of my goals as far as where I wanted us to be at in our curriculum for the first quarter we met them we have done an awesome job I'm proud of my daughter for just all the things that she's done and she's reached her goals she's reached this first quarter and I can't wait to see how the rest of our home schooling year goes I really feel like I'm at the point right now where I can say that I'm seeing why people love home schooling and I'm seeing that joy and that spark really come to life I feel like my first year I was just in the hustle and bustle but now I feel like I'm seeing it I'm seeing why home schooling is such a joy and it really means a lot to me so you guys I really hope you enjoyed today's video I really hope you enjoy seeing my September update as always you guys please don't forget to comment, like and subscribe and I look forward to seeing everyone in my next one