 Hi you guys, my name is Brittany and welcome back to my YouTube channel. You guys, we are going to have another chit chat, a personal homeschooling video where I'm going to share all of the unpopular things I do in my homeschool. So if any of you guys are new here, again, my name is Brittany. I'm a homeschooling mom to three girls ages 11, four and three. And I am in my third year of homeschool. So you guys, in today's video, I really just wanted to talk about some unpopular things that I do in my homeschool that I really don't see many people do. I really wanted to highlight this video today because not everyone's homeschool is alike. And while we do see similar opinions here on this platform, I do want to share that it's other people with different opinions and different things that we do do in our homeschool that is contrary to like the popularity or the popular things that most people do do. And I'm going to be really vulnerable and open in today's video and sharing some of the things that I do do. Whether you agree or disagree with the things that I do in my homeschool, I really don't mind if you want to go ahead and comment. And we have like an open dialogue after today's video just to, I guess, compare and contrast some of the things that I may do differently in my homeschool from you guys. And yeah, so as always, you guys, I definitely love chatting with you guys in my comment section. So I'm a little bit nervous, but here we go. So the first unpopular thing that I believe I do in my homeschool that I don't see mentioned that often is I make my kiddos redo their assignments, including my four-year-old. Yes, you guys. I really feel like for me being the homeschool mom and the homeschool parent, I feel like I have to take some accountability in my kiddos education. And by doing that, I really feel like if I know that they are giving me subpar work or they are not working to their full potential, and I know they can, I feel like it's my responsibility as homeschooling mom and parent to really continue to challenge my kiddos and to get the best out of them. And by doing that, all I'm going to say is I will make them redo their assignments. Now for Leia, my four-year-old, it will definitely be in more of a gentle way where we're working on, let's say we're working on handwriting, and I know she has mastered a letter and she's just goofing off. I will say, all right, Leia, I know you know how to do this letter really, really nicely. Let's take our time. Let's make it nice and pretty one more time. And that's kind of like how I will encourage Leia. As far as my older daughter, Brielle, typically what I would do to encourage her, I will say things like, Brielle, I know you can do better on this assignment. I know we have went over this and I want to see your best work and I want to see you put your best foot forward. So those are like some ways I will like motivate my kiddos when I'm asking them to redo their assignments. I definitely don't approach it in a negative way where I'm like talking down on them or like yelling or screaming. I just let them know what my expectations are for them for that particular assignment. And I just challenge them to, you know, do their best. And we don't hear that often in the homeschooling community, but that's something that I do that I feel like a little bit different. Another thing that I do in my homeschool that is really, really different and I feel like it's really controversial in like the homeschool community is that I test my children, particularly because I do have a state requirement to test. However, I do test on like a weekly basis in my homeschool as well. So in a state of Georgia, I am required to do standardized testing after the third grade every third year. So for me, that means that I have to test for third, sixth, and ninth grade are required years for me to do standardized testing. However, ever since my first year of homeschooling my old disorder, Brielle, when she was in the third grade, I tested her in the third grade and I haven't stopped testing her as far as standardized testing since. So she has done a third grade test and a fourth grade test. And I plan on doing a standardized test at the end of her fifth grade year as well. I just find personally that standardized testing is very helpful for me as the homeschooling mom to see the areas that Brielle has grown in and to see the areas that we still need improvement in. And I feel like our day to day, while I do have like a closer eye on things because I am working with her one-on-one, it's certain things that I may be unaware of that we do need to work on. And those standardized tests, at least for me, they're so beneficial. Since my daughter was public school from K and then half of second because of the pandemic, she is actually already used to standardized testing in her public school. They did the math test and they did that quarterly. So when we transitioned to homeschool and did standardized testing in our homeschool, it was just something she was used to. When we do do standardized testing in our home, I just make sure we don't do anything else that day. But you know, her taking the test and she's free the rest of the day. And like I said, it really helps me. Now as far as like a weekly and a monthly basis in my homeschool, I do test both of my kiddos, my pre-care and my kindergarten. For my daughter, Brielle, we do a mixture of written and oral tests. So for things like math, she gets a test after she completes each lesson in math. And it really helps me gauge and see the problems that she is really understanding and the concepts that we need a little bit more practice on. And math, I'm sorry, it's just like, I feel like even with my younger kiddos, if the curriculum offers a math test, I'm going to give it to them just because I really think it's beneficial, especially in this subject, to do some form of written test. Now, another area that I do written test for Brielle is also in our English curriculum. This is our building English series from Rod and Staff. I forgot to mention in my last update video that we did pick this back up in January and we've been doing Rod and Staff along with Fixit Grammar since January. So we're working pretty well in this English curriculum and after each chapter that she's mastered, we will go ahead and do a test. And you guys, I actually also give her a great value for her test and let her know you missed two or you missed one. Let's go over this problem again and then I take our test and I put it and I found them in my record keeping. At least for these two subjects is the only portions that she has a written test. Now as far as her other subjects like history and vocabulary and science, I do oral tests. So for history, I may ask her to recall the specific time period that we're talking about and give me like further details or explanations for science. We recently went over the water cycle, so I may have her do a oral narration of the water cycle and use key terms to explain it back to me. So those are ways that I do test in my home school. So I do a mixture of traditional testing and a mixture of oral testing. Now for my younger daughter, Leia, what I typically test her on orally is her math. So we're doing kindergarten math with confidence, you guys. And I love this curriculum, but one portion of it that I love the most is that in the beginning of each week, they have this area where it's called weaving, weaving math into everyday life. And it gives me examples of things that I can do around the house. And for this week in particular, it had us palling laundry. So we would do five pals of maybe some towels and two pals and she was correlating, I have a group of five and a group of two and together they make seven. So those are just ways around the home that I will weave in like oral tests of things that we've went over within my four-year-olds math curriculum throughout the week to kind of see if she retained the information that we've went over in a really gentle way. So I really feel like testing is beneficial. I feel like I'm really able to gauge and see where my kiddos at, especially for my oldest daughter, Brielle. I'm able to see if I can just skip over chapters and kind of like keep on moving forward, especially in keeping up with the pace that she does work in. Another unpopular thing that I do in my home school, you guys, is I don't stop my math curriculum, especially for my oldest daughter, Brielle. Ever since we started our home school, we never stopped math, like even throughout the summer we would do math. Now when we are on like our week break or our two weeks break, because I do follow the Sabbath homeschooling schedules where we have six weeks on, one week off. When we have that week off, she's not doing math and between our end of our school year and summer, I give my daughter a two-week break off of math. But other than that throughout the summer, she is working anywhere between three to four days out the week on math. I feel like math is one of those subjects. If you don't use it, you lose it. At least that's how I feel. I feel like she doesn't have to go through that beginning part of the homeschooling year where she's reviewing order concepts that she went over. I feel like because she doesn't have big pauses or gaps, she still remains confident within this subject. She specifically told me she does appreciate continuing to do math because she doesn't like feeling behind when she has forgotten some concepts and things like that. So that's just one thing that I do do in my homeschool. Over the Christmas break, I do follow the same rule where I will give her a week off of math. And even though we are still on like our break, she still will do maybe two or three days of math even during like our holiday break period. I just feel like it's just really beneficial in our homeschool. Something else that I do that is very unpopular in my homeschool is that I do have structured learning for my three and my four-year-old. Now, I really don't know what the definition is for formal education. But I feel like my definition for formal education, at least for the younger ages, is when you are setting aside structured time to work on them with specific things, whether it be through written workbooks or whether you're doing hands-on activities. I feel like formal education, at least in my opinion, is when you're setting aside structural time outside of everyday life to teach your kids something specific. And if I put that definition as like formal education, I definitely do that with my three and my four-year-old. I actually started bits and pieces of formal education with both of them around the age of two, where we would do early math skills, we would do letter recognition, and we would do letter sounds and things like that. I started off my kiddos pretty early with those things, especially with my daughter Leia because that was exercises that we were doing for her speech. She actually learned letter sounds to help her speak fluently. And we worked on like a lot of like words, sight words and things like that, especially towards the beginning parts of her speech therapy and helping her with her speech. So I kind of, all the things and the tools that I learned in speech therapy, I inadvertently did those things with my youngest daughter Alana who is three now. So if you say or if you would say like, do I do formal education with my kiddos, I do. I feel like it's beneficial. I feel like we don't give like our younger kiddos the benefit of the doubt. I feel like it is a happy medium where we can continue to teach them and feed them outside of like life skills and things like that, especially if they're willing and they want to learn. I feel like we are doing our kids an injustice by waiting to a specific age to teach them. That's just my opinion. Some other unpopular things that I do in my home school is that unless my kiddos are sick, if we have a sign for that day for us to do a specific task, especially when it comes to our core curriculums, whether we're having a hard day or not, I do set the expectation for us to complete all of our lessons. Now this is specifically for my oldest order. Now for Leia, I feel like I still kind of can be a little loosey-goosey with her because she still is four. However, I feel like when, at least for me, when Brielle hit fourth grade, I really started to put my foot down in our homeschool when it came to completing and finishing off our core work, especially even if she was having a hard time with the lesson. I think I talked about this and I mentioned this in my unpopular homeschool opinions. But like I said before, I will take breaks in my homeschool, especially when we have hard days. We may not be finished, like in early afternoon, like we typically are, but we will complete those lessons. I feel like it's a skill that she needs to learn, especially as she goes off into the real world. She is going to be held accountable on her job, just accountable just everywhere to a complete task. And I definitely want to teach her that at an early age. I really want to teach her that discipline and I feel like by holding her accountable to complete her homeschooling work, even when she has hard days, it's just a life lesson that's important to me for all of my kiddos. And like I said, while I feel like this skill definitely can't be practiced until they are a little bit older, I still feel like this skill is very beneficial in my homeschool. Something else that I do in my homeschool that is pretty unpopular is that even when we are on our week's breaks in our homeschool, we still follow our same routine. And what I mean by that is that my kiddos, even though we are on like a week break, they still have the same bed time. We still wake up around the same time, the time where we typically will do like our formal curriculum. I won't allow them to like watch TV, have their technology time early. They will do something hands-on and educational. For Christmas, a lot of my family members got my oldest order in particular a lot of like STEM kits and art kits and things like that. So instead of us doing our formal curriculum during that time, my oldest order will pick out one of those kits that she got over Christmas and for her birthday and she will work on that. She will do some drawing. She will do anything like that she wants to entertain herself while still maintaining our same routine. We will typically have lunch around the same time, we'll do read-alouds and bed time the same time. So when it comes back to us starting off our next six-week term, we necessarily didn't go completely off of our routine and it allows us to like ease back into our homeschool routine. The only thing that we're doing is we're adding in our curriculum because we still did like our typical flow outside of the formal books is what I'm saying and it's very beneficial and it's very helpful in my homeschool. Even throughout the summer, you guys, while we may wake up later and go to bed a little bit later, we still follow the same like rhythm and routine. So when it is time for us to start kick back our school year, I feel like ever since I started doing that, I never really had like hard transitions and starting back. Now I definitely felt tired and starting back our homeschool, you know, while we're picking up all the books all over again, I did feel tired and fatigued after our first week back, but I never felt like we were just all over the place as far as like our routine and I really feel like by keeping a consistent routine in our home even during our off periods, it definitely is very beneficial. Now the last unpopular thing that I do in my homeschool that I really haven't mentioned yet on my channel but I am going to mention it now and I don't know if anyone has noticed it, but this year in particular, I have decided or not really just me, me and my husband, we decided in our homeschool that even though we are Christians, we have decided to use secular curriculum for at least our core in our homeschool. Now I can make a separate video if you guys want to know all the reasons why we have chosen to use secular curriculum in our homeschool as a Christian family. If you want to know more details, just let me know in the comment section down below. But I'm not too sure if any of you guys have noticed over the past years that I have been homeschooling, I have stopped using less and less Christian curriculum. Right now, the only Christian curriculum that I am using is our Rod and Staff Build in English series is the only one that I am using other than that all the other curriculums that I am using for my kiddos is either completely secular or neutral. And I actually prefer it that way. One of the main reasons why I do prefer it that way is because I really feel like we are diving in deeper into our specific religion and our specific devotions and biblical discernment outside of our curriculum. And I feel like we're going deeper. I feel like I did depend a lot on my religious curriculum to do all of the work for me. And that's just one of my reasons. Like I said, you guys, I can make a separate video if you want to know all of the reasons why I have chosen in our homeschool to use secular curriculums. I definitely will talk more about it because this is something I am passionate about, especially now seeing the difference between using at least starting off our homeschool year, we were using all Christian curriculum to now using mostly secular. So you guys, these are all of the unpopular things that I do in my homeschool. Let me know in the comment section down below if you do some of these unpopular things. If not just let's just chat it up like I said before. So thank you guys so much for watching and I look forward to seeing everybody in my next one. Bye.