 I know we are about to see curriculum picks and curriculum pick videos. And I definitely have to say, I'm not ready. Hi you guys, my name is Brittany and welcome back to my YouTube channel. You guys, I am just going to do a old school homeschooling update video for you guys. We're really gonna recap my January and February months since I really haven't like come on here and share it with you guys some of our homeschooling updates and things that has happened for us in the past couple of months. So we're just gonna chit chat it up again. I just wanna say you guys, before I really get into this update for January, I really wanna thank all of you guys for all of your encouraging words, your emails, all of the messages that you've sent me after I post my last video of just sharing with you guys some homeschooling struggles that I really have been facing over the years that I have been homeschooling. And I'm so grateful. I'm so grateful for this community and for all of you guys that have reached out to me, your words, your messages, your emails, they really meant so much. It really motivated me to just continue on this journey and just to push forward. And I'm really, really grateful for all of these connections that I have met online with you guys. And yeah, you guys, like I really don't have the words. Again, I just wanna say thank you so much just for everything, all of those kind words. They really, really meant so much to me. These past couple of months, you guys, they really have been challenging for me. Just because in the month of January, you guys, I started potty training my three-year-old, Alana, who is my three-year-old, she turned three on January 2nd. And I really felt the pressure to really start potty training after she hits that point is like, okay, here we go. And potty training and homeschooling, you guys, is like no joke. If you guys have done it, you already know what I'm talking about. So it definitely has been challenging, especially in January, getting her to go to the potty and still homeschool. And I have two other kids that need me and it definitely was crazy. It was messy, but hopefully we are at home stretch when it comes to the potty training and things like that. She's getting it. And I'm so grateful that we're kind of like over this little beginning hump of potty training and things like that. As far as me, you guys, I have been doing my best to take better care of myself. These past couple of months, it really has been hard putting myself forward and taking care of myself and prioritizing myself over everyone else's needs and my family. I don't know what it is about moms. We feel like we're being selfish when we take out that time to take care of ourselves. But I definitely noticed a difference in me really taking better care of myself and my overall health. And hopefully I can continue to prioritize doing those things that I need to, to continue to uplift my spirit and to take care of me so I can continue to like feed my family and give them the things that they need because I'm spiritually, emotionally, physically, I have met all of the needs that I need. So I'm still working on that, you guys. I haven't gotten it all together, but I definitely know those were some of the things that I really was prioritizing in the month of January and February. Now you guys, let's go ahead and get into the books. So we have really enjoyed our read aloud this past month, which was Planet Earth is Blue. This was a great book about a young girl who was autistic and it really put us in her brain and her viewpoint of how everyone around her viewed her and viewed her disability and viewed her difference. And this was a great and great. I mean, you guys, like I'm already fumbling over my words, but what I'm trying to say, this is a great read about understanding a perspective of someone who has a difference, who has a disability. I definitely will say this is not an elementary read. This is definitely a middle grade read because of the topics you will be talking about as we read these chapters. I really loved hearing Nova speak and it was so great. It was so great, so powerful. So many great discussions me and Brielle had over this book. It did have a sad ending, you guys. But Brielle overall said she really enjoyed this. It correlated really perfectly with our science unit because we have been studying space because Nova, she has this like dream to be the first autistic person in space and they really followed the space timeline in talking about all the different events that happened in space. So it was so amazing having this read aloud while we did science. They matched perfectly together but this was a great, great, great story. I definitely would recommend it but especially for middle grade readers. Now as far as our last read aloud that we're going to do in our homeschooling year, this year I did have us plant to do 10 read alouds. It didn't quite happen. So I think I'm gonna have us only do five read alouds for this homeschooling year because we have been reading a lot through history and I really don't wanna put that much pressure on ourselves to just read so many read alouds especially since we're doing so much in our literature based history studies. So our last read aloud that we're gonna be reading as homeschooling year is going to be Ancestor Approved. Brielle picked this one out and I'm really, really excited to read this one. It looks really, really fun. We're gonna listen to this on Audible because Audible has really been saving me, you guys. It's been saving my voice especially since we've been doing like a lot of history reading. I really love taking that pressure off of myself especially during lunchtime and we just listened to a book and then we can talk about it after we hear the chapter. So we're definitely gonna use Audible again for Ancestor Approved. Now some of the books that Brielle has been reading her fun reader she read this month was Operation Sisterhood. This was a great one because this actually is about a group of homeschooling kiddos and she really, really enjoyed this one. I really have to get Brielle back here with us, you guys, for her to give her book reviews at the end of the year of her independent fund readers because she told me she read some really, really great ones and I definitely wanna give you guys some inspiration as you're picking out some fund readers for your kiddos especially middle grade readers. I feel like we don't see that many videos on YouTube about the middle grade ages when it comes to good readers. So she definitely enjoyed Operation Sisterhood. Now as far as like her independent assigned readers, I started off Brielle on the American Girl series. So she's actually reading both the Addy series and the Meet Felicity series because these actually match up in the time periods that we are in both of our history curriculums. So in A River of Voices we are in that colonial age or that colonial time period. So that's why she is reading the Meet Felicity American Girl historical fiction series and then for our heart and soul, we're in that Civil War reconstruction period and she is reading Meet Addy which is a great, great, great American Girl series to read during that time period. So she's really enjoying these and I don't really feel like these feel like assigned readers to her just because she is really enjoying them and it's kind of nostalgic because I read these series growing up and I'm so happy to be able to like share and some memories with Brielle as she is picking up the American Girl series and they're really, really fun. So that is like some of our reads and our read alouds. Now, as far as our heart and soul African American history, you guys, like the picture books that we have been reading just overall has been amazing. I'm just gonna share with you guys the titles because I definitely wanna make a book review of all of the books that we've read, especially ones that we highlighted because also the picture books we've read this year through Heart and Soul and A River of Voices have been so much fun and the chapter books as well. I don't think we really had a bad historical fiction book this homeschooling year, which is pretty odd but this book that we read was Crossing Bachito which was a great story about how the Choctaw Indians were actually helping enslaved African Americans to their freedom by crossing the Mississippi River. So this was a great one. We also read John Roy Lynch, which was slave to Congressman which was a great picture book as well. We read I Have Heard of a Land which actually is about African American pioneers in the Oklahoma Territory, another great picture book and the last picture book that we've read in the past couple of months has been Bass Reads, U.S. Marshall. This was a great story about Bass Reads because you guys, he actually was a slave and during the Reconstruction Era he became free and then he became a U.S. Deputy Marshall and he didn't know how to read and write. So all of the people he had to find and hunt down as a bounty hunter, he memorized all of like their descriptions and things like that and all of it was in his head by his memory and it was so amazing just hearing his story written about his life so we really enjoyed all the picture books we read over the past couple of months in heart and soul and our historical fictions we've been reading as well. Now you guys, let's go ahead and get into my I guess curriculum update because I do like to share with you guys what's going on as far as like our curriculum, any changes or anything like that. So the biggest change as you guys have seen in my previous videos was that we switched from Saxon to Matthew C. Epsilon and you guys it's been going so great. Like I'm not gonna lie. Like I am not one to condone or to say, you know just switch curriculum like nilly willy because definitely when making curriculum switches especially when it comes to math I feel like you really have to think those out. And I'm so happy I made this switch for Brielle even though I was very hesitant to make this switch with her a mid year but Matthew C has definitely been a better fit for her. In particular, I'm noticing her confidence in math has definitely increased her understanding in math has definitely increased. And I really feel like a mastery approach for her and mathematics actually was better than a spiral approach. I do have my video coming out soon about my either it's gonna come out before this one or after I'm not too sure, but I did make a comparison video between Matthew C and Saxon. And in that video I just explained to you guys like both of these curriculums Matthew C and Saxon are very, very strong. I really feel like it just depends on your kiddos and your kiddos needs. And Matthew C has definitely fit Brielle's needs much better than Saxon. But overall both of those programs are great. I stand behind both of them. And Matthew C just has just been sticking with her you guys and I'm so happy to really to my surprise. We are actually almost at the halfway point of Matthew C Epsilon. It has 30 lessons you guys and we are starting lesson 14 this week. And we've only been working through Epsilon for about I think six weeks now. So it's so crazy like the pace at which Brielle is going in this. And I wasn't surprised because I know since she's coming from Saxon, Saxon was a spiral. Some of the concepts in here she was just really touching on to understand it in a different way. But it's really clicking and resonating with her. So I definitely see us finishing off Epsilon by the end of our school year. And if we get into Zeta before the end of our school year that's fine. If not, I definitely will be happy just to finish off this level and then for us to go into Zeta which is the decimals and percentages after we finish this one. So overall I'm definitely happy with our math switch even though it was scary. As far as our other subjects you guys I definitely can say in our homeschool overall this homeschooling year I really feel like my strengths or our strengths has been definitely math has been a strength even though we made a curriculum switch writing has been a strength. We've been using IEW guys and right now we are about to start week 18 of IEW. So we only have about six more weeks till we complete the IEW structure and style level 1A and overall Brielle has done so great with it. It is a rigid program. I really didn't realize how time consuming it was gonna be for Brielle to write these papers but I definitely have seen like growth in her writing skills overall. It's so crazy how I have read her first paper and then I read her like last paper that she wrote and the difference is like mind blowing. So I definitely know the structure is needed when you are writing like more like research papers and things like that but I will say this when I do make my end of the year review on IEW I'm gonna be honest I really feel like IEW they don't really teach the kiddos about having their own voice and that's one thing I can say it's lacking is that while they do teach the kiddos how to structure and the form those papers it lacks teaching kiddos how to use their own voice in their writing and that's one aspect of it I definitely will say that IEW is missing but overall it gets the job done and I'm really really happy in seeing the growth of her writing but I definitely know she hasn't necessarily learned about her voice in her writing through IEW she actually has learned about that through doing creative writing and other writing exercises we've done in the past. So that's my thoughts about it. Again I will give like a final overview about IEW but overall it's going great. So I'll say like I said math, history, writing's been going good this homeschooling year. Our subject we really have been lacking in this homeschooling year has definitely been science you guys I really have been dropping the ball this year on science. We are actually just wrapping up our space unit that we did with science and I really really enjoyed it. We started off our homeschooling year using God's Design Heaven for Earth God's Design Heaven and Earth which is a great science curriculum but I was just finding that I was not picking it up you guys and I was really just letting science fall back on the back burner. So what I ended up doing was I ended up like piecing together a science unit for Brielle by using our DK Encyclopedia and just having her finish out this science unit doing it pretty independently where she used her DK Encyclopedia. I picked out a lot of National Geographic videos that she watched. We used a lot of teachers pay teachers and she finished out her science notebook and she did an awesome job on her school nest or inside of her school nest science notebook. This right here is the last page that she did which is the space exploration timeline where she went over just the timeline of space and exploration and all the advancements that we've made in space from the beginning to now. So she really really enjoyed using her school nest notebook really enjoying all the teachers pay teachers printables that I found off for her just so she can kind of finish off that space unit and she can work on it independently especially since the potty training you guys like that has definitely taken up a lot of my time. So I didn't really want Brielle to lack in science so I really set up that mode for her to do it independently. Now for the rest of our school year you guys I went ahead and I purchased this 180 days of science for her so she can kind of work throughout this workbook especially on the days where I don't necessarily have anything scheduled for her to do in science for us to do together I should say and I still want her to touch upon different science subjects. This is just the area that I feel like I'm lacking and I feel like by adding in this workbook it's really allowing us to still touch on science even though it's not my ideal way to do science. I feel like at least we're touching on it she's still learning new things. It's just in a more simple way and yeah I definitely know over the summer I'm going to do something in science and knowing that this school year we didn't do as much in science. So like I said we are finishing out our space unit. This is our last week that we are finishing it out. The only thing we're going to do is Brielle she wanted to do like a 3D space model so she's gonna be working on like a little project as far as that goes and we're going to read hidden figures and we're gonna watch the movie hidden figures. So that's like the last thing that we're gonna do for to like finally conclude our space unit and then after that like I said I think I'm just gonna work through our 180 days of science and I might find a couple of units for us to do to end off the school year it just depends but this is gonna be the main thing I'm gonna focus on. Like I said I know it's not ideal but at least she's still getting in science. Now you guys I know we are about to see curriculum picks and curriculum pick videos and I definitely have to say I'm not ready. It's so crazy because this time last year I actually was posting my curriculum picks for all of my kiddos and I was ready and I had a plan but I really feel like this year overall I'm taking a big step back and my two words for my upcoming home school year is actually simplified and connect and I really wanna focus on those two words when I'm making my final selections for my curriculum picks for my kiddos. Now I will say for Leia who is my upcoming kindergartener I already have her stuff picked out. I kind of already know the direction that I wanna go for her. It's really Bre Elle that I'm really struggling with where I wanna go in the direction I have some ideas. I have I think a plan but I'm kind of like going back and forth with it. I know for her independence is definitely like on a top of my priority. Right now she's working pretty independently other than history and read aloud. She's doing all of her work by herself. I'm just kind of coming in as facilitator and greater for her. So I definitely am looking for more of that independent structure for her so she can continue to work independently and gain that confidence as a lifelong learner. I definitely wanna find something that can stick with just because I mean I am entering officially into middle school for her and I wanna be consistent because at the end of the day you guys I'm gonna be honest like I really don't know if I'm going to homeschool Bre Elle all the way through high school and I really wanna leave that option open just in case I decide to put her into some form of public school for high school and I don't want her to be behind her other classmates in going back into that structure of public school. So I definitely know these next three years I am gonna be following closely like my state standards and things like that in my homeschool especially for her because I really don't know what direction I am going to go with her in the future just to be honest I am just taking it year by year with her but I do wanna leave that option open so those are like some of the criterias I think I wanna do like a brain dump with you guys I've been seeing a few videos on YouTube where people has been doing like brain dumps of like their curriculum plans and the things that they have planned for their upcoming year and I think I do wanna make a brain dump just to kinda get all of the ideas and the things out of my head and put it down somewhere just so I can kinda like really narrow it down I just wanna let you guys know please don't get discouraged and don't get overwhelmed as you will start seeing curriculum videos I'm gonna do my best to like filter through them because I know I'm gonna see them and it's definitely gonna be a trend in the homeschool community I'm not too sure where that trend is gonna be but at the end of the day when it's coming to you guys picking out your curriculum picks for next year my main advice I definitely will say is stay true to yourself in your homeschool don't worry if your homeschool looks a little bit different than others don't get the FOMO don't feel like your homeschooling curriculum that you chose is inadequate compared to others you know you and your kiddos best and that's definitely the best advice I will say is at this time you may wanna like keep your head down and just focus on you and your kiddos and just use the curriculum picks that we will be seeing just as resource entertainment but not necessarily making yourself become bound by someone else's opinions in their homeschool and the things that they're gonna be doing for the upcoming homeschooling year if that makes any sense so you guys pretty much this is like my homeschooling update nothing really much has changed here we're just kinda like taking it day by day the main things that I do wanna work on this upcoming month is really with my younger two especially my four year old you guys I definitely have gotten off track with her as far as like her homeschool she has definitely become very resistant in wanting to do homeschool and that's one of the reasons why I haven't posted like my pre-K homeschooling routine because right now she doesn't have a routine so my goals for this upcoming month is really to kinda get Leia back into a swing of school and a swing of things we really have been focusing a lot on speech therapy and we've been reading a lot with my four year old but I do wanna get her back into doing her math consistently her handwriting and her phonics instructions consistently at least three times out the week that I, three times out the week that was like our original thing that we were doing with her because that fourth day was focused on speech for her so those are like my goals for this upcoming month just to kinda finish out some of the curriculum that we're using and just kinda like stay clear on the road to finishing out this homeschooling year strong and not necessarily for me to get distracted by my next homeschooling year is my goals. So you guys, I really hope you enjoyed today's video I hope you enjoyed like chatting with me and us like talking and kinda catching up and everything like that. I know it was kinda all over the place but I love making these videos for you guys. So as always, I look forward to seeing you guys in my next video. Thank you guys so much and I'll talk to you later. Bye.