 my plan you guys and I was like all right here we go we got our curricula and bam I was hit with the high emotions of a middle school. 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 all about my transition from elementary to middle school in my home school. So if any of you guys are new here to my channel again my name is Brittany. I'm a homeschooling mom to three girls who are in sixth grade kindergarten and preschool. So you guys this is really going to be like a old school chit-chatty video that I'm going to have with you all. I have a few bullet points that I want to remember to mention in today's video so if you see me looking down I'm looking at my notes but I definitely want this video to be more of like a heart to heart and sharing with you guys my journey in my homeschool transitioning from elementary to middle school. So my oldest you guys she's officially a tween. I'm homeschooling a tween. She turned 12 in December and I definitely will say my transition to homeschool. I had a few surprises that I feel like I personally wasn't prepared for all the way and hopefully in sharing my journey with you guys it will kind of help you prepare for the changes that you will embark when starting middle school. So first things first I would say the biggest thing that I had to overcome in starting middle school was really my fear of the unknown. I began to stress myself out at the second semester of my daughter's fifth grade year when it came to like planning out middle school. I would definitely say it was an added layer of pressure for me planning out like her sixth grade because I felt high school like looming in the background because I really feel like okay I have three years to get my daughter prepared for high school. Here in my homeschool I am preparing her for college so I am more and more of a college track when it comes to like high school. So I definitely know it's some goals that I definitely want to meet by the end of her middle school years. I really feel like this is not really the time to experiment with my oldest. I really need to like hone in and and get it together. All of the inconsistencies that I have done in the past I really need to you know cut out all those bad habits especially going into middle school. I really felt that added pressure and I definitely will say one thing that did alleviate that added pressure of you know intern in middle school was planning out my daughter's full middle school years and I know that may sound completely crazy to a live you guys but if you go back to watch my homeschooling brainstorm video that I made around this time last year when I share it with you guys my sixth graders plan I really share it with you guys the plan that I have from sixth through eighth grade. If you guys want more of a detailed video about like her long-term homeschooling plans I definitely can make a separate video for you guys but in that video I think I went pretty good in detail about like her overall plan and I really feel like that put me at somewhat of an ease to know that you know what I'm coming in these middle school years with a plan I'm not coming in it blindly I know the goals that I want to reach and I can see the end and I can see where I'm beginning and that really helped me out and I know a lot of times we really don't do like long-term planning until we enter in high school but I definitely will give you guys the advice to try it out and see if it works for you see if it puts you at ease especially entering your middle school years because it definitely put me at ease planning out you know the full three years um so that was something my first hurdle that I had to overcome in transitioning from elementary to middle school now going into middle school I had my plan you guys and I was like all right here we go we got our curricula and bam I was hit with the high emotions of a middle schooler and I really had to be flexible when it came to my daughters um just this is just a really fine time when it comes to like puberty and emotions especially for us you know young girls and I really had to think back at the time when I was a middle schooler and I really had to come at my daughter with a lot of empathy and understanding and knowing that you know sometimes I may feel like the high feelings may be coming off like attitude or talking back and I really had to empathize with what she's going through like her physical and her her emotional and her bodily changes that she's going through right now she is going through a lot and I definitely will say being more empathetic and sensitive towards the times where she does have higher emotions really has helped me overall in our home school and it allowed me to stop budding heads with my daughter because I was coming at it like she was being disrespectful versus really understanding those like developmental things she's going through right now one thing I definitely can say help me prepare for these big emotions these big feelings was last year you guys I don't know if you've seen my video with like my morning basket me and my daughter read and did this book it's called me and my feelings and it's called a kids guide to understanding and expressing themselves and this was a great tool for me to do before we really entered into like all of the big feelings and emotions because I was really able to take tools that you know we went through in this book to allow her to be able to express those feelings express how she's feeling to the best of her ability so I can be able to really meet her where she's at so I definitely will say the the emotions came to me by surprise but I feel like now we are in a better groove and I really can follow her lead when she's not still having like the best of days I can really cater and pull back when it comes to that and I can really give her what she needs as far as like her social and emotional health I definitely want to do more things in that category so if you guys have any suggestions as far as like books or tools for social emotional health leave them down below I would definitely love any type of suggestions that you guys have in that category so that was one thing that definitely took me by surprise and it took me back a little bit um the second thing I really feel like it was more so on my part that I had to get used to was really given my daughter the autonomy to be independent in her studies and in her home school now I definitely will say I really believe my daughter is not a typical sixth grader as far as the independence level that she has because I don't know if my younger two coming up will be as independent as her but I definitely had to step back and cater our home school to her needs I'm so happy with the curricular choices that I picked out for her because it's allowing her to have that independence and that autonomy reading her own lessons doing her own independent reading and I'm really just coming back in on the back end but I definitely will say me as mom and facilitator I had to really check myself and give her like just hand her the throne and if you guys watch some of my older videos you would definitely see I always mentioned that I struggled with you know just giving her you know that autonomy and now I really feel like I have finally just like released it and my daughter is soaring in our home school so typically it's like either one or the other we want our kids to be independent and we're like pushing them to do it and I feel like I'm doing the complete opposite like I'm being a helicopter mom and hovering over her and still thinking she needs me when she really is truly capable of you know the level of independence that I do give her in our home school I do want to make a routine for you guys a video for my oldest daughter really really soon so you can kind of see her flow of her home schooling day and how she gets things done I will say even though I am allowing her to be pretty independent at this level I check in with her daily I do not leave any assignments or things like that to the end of the week now I know when she gets up there in high school I probably will be able to only have like weekly check ins with her but now since she's newly at like her independence and things like that I do check in with her on a daily basis some things that has definitely helped us has been you guys this free planner that I found online if I still can find it I will link it for you all I just binded this at home with my binder machine and we had like an extra coloring page she colored her own front cover and made her like cover page for her planner having this simple planner helping her fill out the days Monday through Friday of what she wants to do how she wants to deviate her assignments of the week we went to the dollar tree you guys I get her these like fun little stickers this has been gold in my home school and I definitely will say you do not need to get a fancy student planner but just giving your kids plant like a planner around these middle school ages has been gold for me because I don't have to continuously follow up behind her she knows what she has to do she can check off her checklist and she feels like I'm not all over top of her 24 7 and I really like that she has a little section in this planner that has like notes so what I do sometimes in this note section is if I have anything I want her to do or she's in bed or it's nighttime I will typically write any like little notes or things on the side of her planner so when she comes back and looks at it the next day she can see oh mommy wants me to do this or oh we're gonna go over this and having this simple agenda and planner has been just great in our home school and I definitely want to get her you know official planner soon but for right now this is great and it's working out well and it's really given her that level of independence in that checklist that she needs and it's helping her divvy out her days in her assignments and I definitely know as she gets into high school she's going to be more fluid when it comes to making a plan and getting things done off her checklist and I'm so happy I already have her established in like an agenda so um that definitely was a pro I would say in our home school as far as establishing like independent things like that now as far as the overall workload in middle school I definitely will say it has definitely hiked up a big notch at least for me I should say I'm not too sure if it's because I switched over to a completely new curriculum before I was piecing things together now I'm using like all in one curriculum but I definitely will say the workload has increased and I definitely had to get used to the time that is taking her in her workload and knowing that you know those long days are past where school is over by noon or by lunchtime I feel like that typically ends around you know upper elementary where you know school is over by noon or one now school days for us in anywhere between two and two thirty and I have to be okay with that I mean she is not fatigued she's able to handle the amount of coursework that she has um some days we get through everything on our checklist some days we don't some days we do more so it just depends but I definitely had to get used to knowing that even though her schooling is not over to two and two thirty that that is just the natural I guess flow of um the workload when it comes to middle school um I really had to stop watching so many videos and so many clips of people saying oh their school day is over at 12 and in knowing that it is different in middle school and I just want to let you guys know you know those days are going for my uh oldest now my younger two of course they are completely done but for her uh in the afternoons is typically when I can have like our one-on-one time I check in with her um we're able to do uh any type of subject she needs me for together science experiments that is like her one-on-one time with me and we just work until we get done or until I see her fatigued um I had to really realize that even though we still are done between two and two thirty she still has a big chunk of her afternoon to continue to do those interest-led learning things that she wants to do and I think that was my biggest fear when I entered in middle school was that the workload was not going to still allow her to be able to take that like uh I guess freedom that homeschool offers us for her still to be able to do those things she's passionate about for her to be able to find new passions I still wanted to allow that time in our home and in our homeschool and you guys um I just have to realize that in order for me to do that I had to cut out some things and for my um oldest in particular she doesn't have or even my littles I should say I cut out their screen time in the afternoons they don't get their screen time until my husband gets off of work so after they're done with school having no screen time really still allows them to be able to do those interest-led learning things without having the distraction of technology and it's allowing them to get their hands messy to do like fun arts and crafts and things like that uh by eliminating the screen time and I know it may be hard for some but it definitely was beneficial to me in our homeschool especially now that my daughter's uh schooling does take a little bit longer I want her to have that interest-led time and it's important to me so screens they're gone so um they get their screen time in the evenings between six and seven and after that my daughter does reading and you know we go on with our bedtime routine so that has definitely been an adjustment towards like the beginning of our school year but it definitely was worthwhile my daughter still loves creative writing she's writing a ton I know I don't mention it as much as I should but I think so far she's written already three short stories this year um one thing I definitely will say is I love when we get to spend that one-on-one connection time when she finishes um one of her creative writing pieces we go in her room and while my younger two are asleep I allow her to read to me like her creative writing things like that and um I guess I'm just saying I like having that time now that she's older to still connect with her and I guess I'm getting into my next point which is going into middle school with her I definitely knew I wanted to still create opportunities for us to connect one-on-one um because I have such a big age gap with my kiddos I definitely find it harder to find pockets of time where I don't have two younger ones like clinging to my legs 24 seven I know even though she's older she still needs her mom and I definitely want to make sure I find times to like connect with her so some fun things that we have planned this year to connect has definitely still been for her to read her creative writing to me um she definitely wants to learn how to crochet with me that's one of her goals she told me she wants to start like a book club so we actually picked out our first book that we're going to read together right now she's written another independent reader that she picked out but one of her next books hopefully we can start reading together is from the desk of zoe washington so um we're going to be reading the chapters together and then coming back and discussing them and creating like our own mommy daughter book club especially since she loves reading we do do our read alouds but I definitely think this will be fun because a lot of times when she's reading like her independent readers she always comes back to me and talk about it but she told me she would like for us to be able to talk about it in more detail and since our local library doesn't have a book club just yet for her age group I think when she turns like a teen I think it's from 13 to 16 is when the book club does start so from this age until she turns 13 you know we are creating our own book club at home so uh when she can join the teen book club at our local library she would really be excited about that so that's something that we're doing together as far as me continuing to connect with her another thing is I'm going to start a mommy and me journal this is just a dollar tree composition book that I found and my daughter her love language is definitely words of affection and she leaves me notes on my nightstand all the time and I'm going to start a mommy and me journal now this is just blank so I'm just going to start just writing things asking her questions and us leaving this journal back and forth on our night stand as far as like a way for us to continue to connect and if it's anything she wants to talk about that she might be a little bit scared to talk about she knows she has a place to be able to communicate with me through and um I definitely am excited to like start this one for her as far as like connection and things like that so that's definitely something that I have to work a little bit harder at now that she's in middle school is keeping the floor open for that connection I wanted to know if she has problems or issues she can definitely like come to me so that's something that I'm still working on and still carving out that special time um especially since my younger two you guys like I definitely need to realize she needs me and my younger two they're just going to have to sit down sometimes they can't have mommy all the time so yeah another concern or transition that I went through going into middle school was really worrying about proper socialization for my oldest I definitely will say the socialization opportunities for my middle schooler is definitely far and few in between now that she's older now we do go to like our home school hangouts at our local library but most of time you guys it may we may find one or two kids that are there that are her age sometimes when we go to the home school hangout it's no kids there you know my oldest daughter's age and um sometimes I am concerned about that socialization aspect when it comes to her and you know finding and meeting friends and things like that and I know you know socialization is like a big thing when it comes to home school community but I really feel like we need to talk about it more especially when it comes to like those older and middle school ages it definitely is harder for me to find more social opportunities for her now that she's in middle school and I'm definitely continuing to search and vet out you know clubs and other things that she can do that she's interested in to still give her that proper socialization when it comes to finding and meeting new friends and things like that so I definitely have been finding that aspect a little bit more challenging now that she's getting older we are definitely you know trying to bridge that gap and hopefully as we continue to go to the home school hangouts and she continues to do more events and things like that and clubs that are you know local community offers um she can continue to meet friends and form deeper connections but that definitely has been a concern for me as she is getting older but right now I just know I'm doing everything that I possibly can to bridge that gap when it comes to socialization and if you are in that boat with your middle school or just know you know you're not the only one so that is definitely something that I have been concerned about in my transition it's definitely not the same in elementary school where we go to the hangouts and it's a billion people her age it's not like that anymore and you know if I have to work harder in this aspect I'm going to do whatever it takes for her to be able for her to you know really have those deep connections and I'm really hoping that we can form them really really soon for her some things and some tips I would definitely say that has helped me with my transition especially with my daughter with the high emotions I definitely have found some things and like her love language when it comes to doing school that she loves and I'm going to share them with you guys as a recap my daughter loves drinking hot chocolate and tea during her school times and when I find that she's not in the best or the greatest day I'll stop our lesson and say come on Brie let's make some hot chocolate let's make some tea she loves baked goods my daughter loves when I make like any type of like breads banana bread blueberry bread she loves muffins so whenever I see she's not having the best of a day you know I definitely will while she's still doing school I'll start a batch of muffins or bread especially if we already have it in the oven or oven in the pantry and those are definitely some things that speaks to her heart and I definitely want to continue to find things that speaks to her heart especially when she's having those you know harder days now for me and educating myself I have two books that I want to read hopefully I should have them finished soon I'm trying my best to read more and I've been listening to a lot of audible books so the first two books I want to read this year is called Finding the Magic in Middle School and I want to I had this book on my um list for the longest which has been uh Raising Critical Thinkers by Julie Bogart so those are two books that I'm starting on audible that I'm reading to help me while I'm you know still figuring out these middle school years and really being able to serve my daughter to the best of my ability so overall I definitely will say the transition from elementary to middle school has been pretty smooth I had a few bumps in the road but um hopefully with all of these tools and these little things that I'm doing is really going to you know help these middle school years be fruitful and fun for my daughter and it'll prepare me for what to expect with my younger two so I really hope that this video just you know share with you guys you know the things that I went through some of the tips hopefully it can help you guys out just know if you're homeschooling middle school you are not alone and I'm going to try my best to continue to make these videos talking about homeschooling tweens and middle schools to really serve you guys um as a whole and help you out you know as you're going through your homeschooling journeys too so as always you guys thank you so much for watching today's video and I look forward to seeing everybody in my next one bye