 Hey everybody, welcome to The Waldoch Way. I'm Jessica and today's video is going to be our homeschool fall favorites. So I find that every single season we have a few things that really stick out as favorites in our homeschool. A lot of the times that includes books and games that have just become favorites that we play over and over and over or we really, really enjoyed reading. And sometimes that includes a few other extra things as well. So I'm going to be sharing the things that were our favorites from the fall season in our homeschool. First up, the books. So Emily's favorite book from the fall season was What Is Lego? Surprise, surprise, she is Lego obsessed. So it really didn't surprise me that she loved this book as much as she did. Because it gave her a lot of extra knowledge about something that she already really, really enjoyed. Kevin's favorite book was actually a read aloud book and it was the Harry Potter book that we read at the beginning of the school year. So we read this through September and October and he has heard some of the Harry Potter books in the past but he's never like actually been around our homeschool to be part of the read aloud and the action. So this was a huge favorite of his. And then my favorite book from this past season was A Pinch of Magic. This was the book that came in our Alcrate and it just ended up being a fantastic book. I really, really enjoyed it. It's one that we read for a lot of our trip when we went up to the mountains and it was just, it was really fun. It kind of had like a just add magic feel which is a show that Emily really, really likes. So it was perfect for our family. And then for my favorite homeschool mom book that I read or the favorite book that I read over the past season, it was Awakening Wonder by Sally Clarkson. If you're a homeschool mom, this is just, it's such a refreshing, wonderful book. It's a great pick me up. I really enjoyed it. I've actually read it three times now just because it's not a super long read. You can read it in kind of a short period of time. I think both times only took me a week or so and you get so much out of it and I found different things to take away each time I've read it. So I've really, really, really enjoyed this book, this past season. And now on to the game. So since there's three of us, it's just super easy for us each to pick which was our favorite game that we played either the most or the most requested or the one that we leaned towards the most over the past few months. So we have one game apiece. My pick was Wildcraft. I absolutely love this game. I love that it's cooperative so that you're not competing against each other. It kind of makes for a much more peaceful gameplay especially when tensions are higher we just need something a little bit not as competitive. I love that it's a learning game so you're learning about herbs and how you can actually use them in the real world and it's fun and sweet and there's a story that goes along with it. If you buy it that's a free printable that you have to get, if you get it from Amazon, you can email them and they'll send it to you. If you get it from them, they normally email it to you. And so there's like a story that has different chapters that you can read as you're playing the game which is fantastic. And then there's also a guidebook that has a printable as well that goes with it. And then you can learn even more about the herbs as you're playing. So that's one of the things that we do now to kind of extend the game even further. And then Emily's favorite was Harry Potter Clue. So Clue has been a favorite of hers for a very long time. She's actually been playing Clue even before she could really write. We made a dry erase key for her so she could just do different colors and stuff. She's been playing Clue since before she could play a lot of games. So when we added Harry Potter Clue to the mix, I knew it was gonna be a favorite and it was she liked the different spins that it had because there's a few things that changed a little bit in this particular version. And we played it a ton. In fact, we just bought another different Clue because she loves Clue so much but this is the one that got played the most during the fall. And then Kevin's favorite was Harry Potter Labyrinth. So he recently fell in love with Labyrinth. It's a game that he never really had the chance to play with us a lot and he really, really liked it. He enjoyed it a ton. So Harry Potter Labyrinth just plays even more on that theme if you like Harry Potter and you like the game. To me it's even more fun because the moving floor kind of reminds you of the actual stairs move it, Hogwarts, and it just really brings you into that theme and it plays on it very, very well. So this is one that we played a ton. And if you like the game Labyrinth and you like Harry Potter, it's a must add to your game collection. Okay, I always add a few extra things and other than books and games. So I kind of have like a favorite of everybody's like one extra thing that we really, really love this past season. And mine is so silly it's organization but I love it, so I'm gonna show it to you because maybe you need some extra organization in your life too. And it is this expandable, like you guys, it goes from like one or two inches out to like two feet. It's a rainbow, which makes me happy and it holds 25 different or 24, I'm sorry, 24 different little tabs worth of stuff. So I have been using this for if you've been watching on social media, you've seen that we've been using this a lot lately. I've been incorporating like the little centers for Emily Moore, the little hands-on math and literacy. So I just put one center in each of the little pockets and I alternate math and language arts in there. So like I put a math one, a language arts one, a math one, a language arts one. So I can pull one out every day and I know that she's going back and forth between the two evenly. And it's just a really great way to store them. And then no matter how many pieces there are to cut out, I know that that will expand to fit all of them because it expands so large and 24 is just about perfect for a month. Like if I know that I have that much prepped, I know I have at least one thing every day for a month even if we get to absolutely nothing else. So it's just been really great. It sits on the shelf, it stands up by itself. It's pretty, it makes me happy and it fits a lot of needs. So that is my favorite thing, find and corporation into our homeschool over the last season and it's made my life so much easier. Okay, Kevin and Emily's favorite kind of mix together has been the Kiwi Co. Tinker crates. This was a box that when Kevin came home, we subscribed to, mainly because the Tinker crates are for ages nine plus and I knew Emily would need a little bit of extra help and really isn't my strong suit like this particular stem hands-on tinkering thing isn't really something that I excel at. It's not something I'm great with but it's something that Emily loves and Kevin loves it. So it was a perfect way to give them kind of their own thing. And so once a week, he does, you know some sort of class with her and anytime a Tinker crate has come it becomes the class for that week and it is hands down always their favorite. They've done a walking robot. They've done a glow in the dark kit that had like a pendulum. They've done so many really, really cool things. It's really a great kit. It has everything you need in it. It has like a little pamphlet, Zine magazine type thing that has even more information and more things you can do. And I've been really, really impressed with it. If you kind of want to see more of what comes in a Tinker crate and see them do it a little bit, you can do that right here. Okay. And then the last thing I have for you guys it's probably going to be a little bit difficult for me to show you but I will leave a link in the description box down below. And it is a podcast that Emily has fallen madly in love with. It is called Bedtime History. And it's one that we've listened to before but she just really didn't get into it. But the episodes are about 10 to 15 minutes long and he talks in such a way. I mean, it's not like monotone or boring, but it is he kind of talks slow and monotone and it's very soothing to listen to. And even the historical things that he's talking about some that you would think might be a little too much for bedtime. They're put in such a way that it's not too much for bedtime and they're just perfect. She listens to about one to two a night before she goes to bed and she has just fallen madly in love with them. Like she loves waking up the next morning and telling me what she remembers or what she's learned, what she heard. And they've been the perfect way to give her something to fall asleep to and to also kind of keep her busy mind going just enough to keep it on something, but then still give her the ability to fall asleep too. So if you have a kiddo like that when it's brain doesn't turn off and they kind of need a tiny bit of stimulation to keep their brain on something else, but yet still fall asleep at the same time, that is the perfect podcast. The length of the episodes are perfect. It's not super long and the subject matter isn't really advanced. At least I haven't found that it's been yet and his tone and everything is perfect. So that's been a favorite of hers and that's bedtime history. But again, I'll leave a link in the description box because I have all of our favorite podcasts broken up by different subjects. So just in case there's other podcasts you might like, you might wanna check that out. So that is it. That has been all of our favorites for this past fall season of homeschool and I would love it if you would tell me in the comments down below what have been some of your favorite either additions or things that you've just really been loving the past few months in your homeschool.