 My name is Brittany and welcome back to my YouTube channel. You guys in today's video I am going to be doing an end of the year reflection video of our second year of homeschooling and I have Brielle here with me She's kind of shy right now, but I really wanted to include her in today's video So you guys can really get a full glimpse of all the things she got up to I really feel so bad for my baby girl Because she really has been my full-on guinea pig with her being my first and this is my first time really homeschooling I really had to do a lot of trial and error until I was able to really figure out What Brielle needed from me as a you know homeschooling mom and all the curriculum pieces that she actually did really truly enjoy So you guys we're gonna flip you around and we're gonna show you guys like all the Projects like all the fun things Brielle got up to this homeschooling Okay, you guys Brielle decided she wanted to show you guys her actual flow of the day and what she actually did So we started off our day using math and we chose Saxon math you guys if you are not new here to my channel You already know we have had like a math journey this homeschooling year until I finally figured out what Brielle was looking for in a math curriculum and what was gonna work for her and Saxon math just happens to be the math that worked out for her We utilize Nicole the math lady. So Brielle watches her video lessons in the morning. So she doesn't need me She's able to do this independently The only part she needs me for is this part right here, which is the mental math Good job read that part, which is the mental math and then I check all of her Lesson practice and I check her mixed practice as well when she's pointing to good job So that is pretty much all I do as far as my parent involvement in Saxon other than that She does it on her own. So Bre do you want to show them your math notebooks that you used? So these right here are the math notebooks that she used. She utilized these ones from school Ness, which I absolutely love They have the grit paper in it So she was able to be able to practice being able to copy all of her problems down and be able to solve them So I really love utilizing grit paper for this I mean you don't have to get these bougie school Ness notebooks, but I just love them so much the quality is really really good So we utilize these notebooks for all of her like math work. So in total in Saxon, this was like the most Consistent math curriculum we ever used. So we actually finished off the year doing lesson 64 We completed six investigations and 12 tests. So that is about the halfway point for Saxon I have another video on my channel showing you guys like a full on review of Saxon math and everything like that So, um, right now I'm going to go ahead and let Brielle talk and give you her opinion about Saxon. So Bre what did you think about Saxon? I like Saxon It was better than the other math that we did. It was better than the other math. We did. Okay So what do you think about Nicole the math lady? She's cool and I like how she Explains the video. Okay. You like how she explains the concept. You like how she explains the concept So how does Nicole teach it? She just gets right into it. She gets right into it. Okay. So Brielle likes Nicole the math lady She's at that whiteboard you guys and she just gets right on into the math problems and she's able to do everything So that is Saxon math I'm so happy we found something that Brielle enjoys and as you guys can see Saxon's black and white and straight to the point Okay, you guys the next thing I'm going to show you is all of Brielle's creative writing So Brielle started off her school. You're doing her writing in her daily journal right here and She really enjoyed utilizing her daily journal and what she did was she would just write down like her thoughts her picture She would do poetry. She really enjoyed using this notebook However, after Brielle learned how to type by using typing comm she really stopped using her journal And she started typing up all of her creative writing stories And you guys like I am so proud of this girl of all of like the stories she wrote and she really really Got into writing this school year. So If she didn't have time to do her creative writing right after math She would typically pick up creative writing after in the afternoon So that was just something she did before she had her screen time So these are like all of the creative writing things that she did and I'm so so so proud of her If you guys follow some of my update videos, you would have seen like some of the pieces that Brie Did the months that she did and she worked on them. So Yeah, so Brie, um, how did you enjoy creative writing? Uh, I liked it because I could think of a story and I could write about it You liked it because you can think of story and write about it and I could get inspiration from other stories too Oh, yeah, all the stories you were reading. So yeah, so Brielle really really enjoyed creative writing And this was just a really fun outlet for her to do. Um, this didn't follow any curriculum This was just something Brielle completely did on her own Okay, you guys the first grammar curriculum program that we did was actually fix it grammar and you guys Brielle really really enjoyed fix it grammar fix it grammar is just a really simple grammar program Where she is just going over one sentence a day and she is editing it and she is finding the different parts of speech So uh fix it grammar was kind of like a warm up and also to fix to grammar really came in hand When we finished off our main grammar curriculum a little bit earlier than expected So we pulled out fix it grammar and we really enjoyed doing this And it's just so crazy how they start off in the beginning of fix it grammar Like only being able to identify just the nouns. Yeah Isn't that crazy for when you look at that and then at the end She was being able to identify like the nouns the prepositions the coordinating conjunction She was able just to identify everything and like i'm so so so proud of like all of her hard work And I really enjoyed her using fix it grammar as a good way for her to Really master and hone in on those grammar skills now you guys fix it grammar actually completely revamp their Style of grammar so now each of the days are broken off on each page And the way that they have their new setup is so so so good So we are taking fix it grammar into us on the next year So for fix it grammar, they actually wanted the students to write out their story after they edited In a notebook, but brielle since she got into typing so much She decided she wanted to go ahead and type out the nose tree story. So brie. What did you think about uh fix it grammar? I like fix it grammar and it was like simplifying rotten staff Oh, okay. So it was simplifying rotten staff. So she's kind of already going ahead It was perfect to use at the end of the year because we were starting to get tired Yes, she's right So brielle she pretty much just said that it was perfect using at the end of the year because we were getting kind of tired So this was a great supplement for us to add in now Now fix it grammar to really be honest you guys it can really stand on this own As a full-on grammar curriculum, but as you guys can tell brielle really enjoys writing So I really wanted her to hone in on these grammar skills to really help out with her writing skills Okay, you guys so brielle. She actually utilized rotten staff build an english series as like her main grammar program And we really really enjoyed using this grammar program. It was very thorough It's a mastery based program where each chapter we are going to be going over just one part of speech And I love how it systematically built upon each other Rotten staff really utilizes the diagramming of sentences really heavily Uh, so it's a really completely different opposite approach than fix it grammar However, I love using both of those approaches because at the end of the year After she finished rotten staff and we went back to finish off fix it grammar It was really cool being able to see if she really mastered those skills Or if she was really heavily Reliant on the diagramming to be able to pull out those different parts of speech So as you can tell it's a trim with brielle. She just loves simple basic curriculums Now I will say this uh curriculum is pretty teacher intensive because I do have to go over and read this part with her Um, and then I do the oral drills with her And then she's able to do her written practice and review on her own Most of these lessons we did however do it completely oral So it took me between 25 and 30 minutes really heavily focusing on grammar However, I feel like it was worth it for me to hone in and do One teacher intensive program like grammar because brielle enjoys writing And by her learning like all of these different parts of speech and grammar really really well this year I noticed a big improvement within her writing. So i'm happy we took that the time and we utilized rotten staff So brie actually did all of her written practice in these composition notebooks. She utilized using Different color pens and things like that. So she really Like doing it with different color pens. So, um, we also utilized the the worksheets right here And these were like optional. We didn't have to use these However, if it was any type of skill Brielle needed to master or work on a little bit more we would pull out the worksheets and um Sometimes when I pulled out the worksheets, she was kind of like, ah the worksheets, but But in the end it was worth it for her to get that extra practice when she needed it So this writing staff also has the test booklet, which is right here And the test booklet just allowed me to be able to see if she really honed in or mastered The specific topics within grammar and it just was just basic to the point Writing staff is a really affordable curriculum I wanted to highlight and show you guys one of her writing assignments that she did Which was a book report on on the banks of plum creek and brie did an awesome job She was only really supposed to write three paragraphs But she ended up writing five paragraphs as you guys can see and this right here is her rough draft So after she did her first draft I went over it with all the edits and then she did her final draft And she did a really awesome job on her book report. So you guys that is rodin staff. So brie, what did you think about rodin staff? I liked rodin staff. It it was um, I liked how it um build it up on each other and the lessons weren't just um Just doing this doing verbs one day then add to the next okay how to stack that So brielle was pretty much saying she liked how it was mastery And it just went over one part of speech at a time and it wasn't expecting her to know Nouns and verbs and adjectives all within the same day It just really took its time building upon each other and I really feel like this helped her a lot when it came to grammar So rodin staff and um fix it grammar you guys. They're very very good both very thorough programs I really don't feel like you need both of them. However, we just chose to do two grammar programs this year Okay, you guys the next program we did was 180 days of spelling and word study And we started 180 days of spelling and word study in our second semester and brielle She really enjoyed this program again. It's just a simple thorough spelling program We used ebb and more spelling our first semester and it went very well too One thing I will say is that 180 days it gave her a more variety of activities And I feel like it was a little bit more challenging for her and she really really enjoyed it So brie, what did you think about 180 days of spelling and word study? I liked it um because it had the um ones where you could do cursive and where you could um change the questions into sentences And it is a variety of different things different things that you could um do so it wouldn't be boring Okay, so she liked this one. I also had her fill out in her composition book Each of the days I had her fill out the vocabulary words So she was able to do the fill in the blanks a lot easier because each day she would define five words and at the end of the day She will have all 20 of her uh spelling words defined So this actually is not just a spelling program, but it's a vocabulary study as well So we really really enjoyed these okay you guys So we actually did two science curriculums this year We actually did the good and the beautiful mammals curriculum in our first semester So i'm gonna have brielle show you her science notebook that she did So um after each lesson of um after each lesson of the mammals unit Brielle she would just put her vocabulary words inside of this um Composition notebook and she would journal it. Um one thing I will say is I already have a review video on my channel about The good and beautiful science units. I like these units. However for me This was just too experimental heavy for me to be able to do this with both of my uh with um Brielle and also having my two toddlers. This was just too much for me. This will be great for family style I really feel like we kind of put off science a lot because I knew it was going to take more of me And I already had other teacher intensive. Um What is it teacher intensive subjects, but overall uh this science program? It was pretty good and I would recommend it to uh family style learning But if you are just like me you have like one school age kid and two toddlers I really wouldn't recommend these units for you to use Um, but other than that, I mean it was okay. Uh, I didn't mind it. So brie. What did you think about the science unit? I liked it and um, it was really fun to um, like cut out all the things and um Add the pictures and to like make the little puzzles and things like that But it was also fun learning the information about each animal too in their classification So you did like it. So yeah, so as you guys can see we didn't finish off the unit What lesson is this? So we the bats So we only got to about lesson 11. So we didn't finish the last three of this, but overall, um, these These science units, I mean, they're okay. Uh, but like I said, I would really recommend these for uh family style learning Not necessarily for someone in my case with just one kiddo because it is a very heavy prep and very heavy teacher intensive Oh, I forgot to show your uh painting your water painting you did when you did the marsicles and she really enjoyed this one So it was it was overall pretty good. Now the science curriculum that brielle absolutely love was god's design for life We actually did the human body and we did the world of um Animals so we did in total three sciences this year. Um after I show you guys like her, um, What is it after I show you guys her science notebook? We're gonna show you guys her big project that she did for um the Science unit in the human body. So this right here is actually brielle science notebook and She utilized this notebook all throughout when she did the world of mammals And also too when we went over the human body as you guys can see We kind of really enjoy doing like these interactive notebooks and she really enjoyed this now one thing I will say about god's design is that I really didn't like the teachers manual that came with it. I really like going on teachers pay teachers and grabbing these uh really cool printables to be able to use And uh brielle really enjoyed these one thing I will say is that um, I really found that the human body is such a simple Unit I really kind of felt like I could have did it without the Using god's design. I really felt like I could have just did this one on my own We watched a lot of magic school bus videos and um, yeah I really enjoyed all these interactive pages that I found on teachers pay teachers. So, um Yeah, so that was two or that was actually all the sciences we did this year. So brie What was your favorite science? the human body Or I should say the life science life science. So she said god's design for life was her favorite This is one of the first activities that she had to do god make me special And I really think she did a good self illustration on that and this is another printable from the um What is it from teachers pay teachers that went along when we went over the brand Okay, brie. You want to show them your first project you did the big one? This is the behavior and interesting facts Or like you yeah, so each of the mammals that brielle did She actually it actually took her like over a week to do each one of these little fan decks Where she had to write their uh their animal their class their classification She colored in the habitat and where they were uh found at of course they all were found in africa This was the african mammals Unit but she also wrote about their diet their life cycle their behavior And the interesting facts and this was just a way for me to do a mammals project Because we wasn't really consistent with the mammals unit. This was a way for her to still to be able to Have fun diving in deep into like all of these african mammals So brielle like did an awesome job on this display board and she actually Did a presentation for our family during christmas and this right here is um, no, no, thanksgiving So on thanksgiving she did a presentation and this right here is her Presentation that she read to everyone. So she did an awesome job on this african mammals project in the first semester Okay, so this is brielle's human body project. She's gonna show you so this is actually brielle I actually laid her out on this. Uh, what is it this, uh It's a um Parcel paper. Yes parcel paper This is her imprint and what she did was we went on teachers pay teachers and she was able to Put in the different body parts and label some of them on This parcel paper and she did an awesome job and under each of them It has like a flap where she had to like Write out what each of the body part did and their systems and it's kind of cool like how this uh one All works out. So it's really really cool. She did an awesome job on this, uh Human body poster and she really enjoyed it. So after we finished each one of the Like the nervous system and circulatory system. She will come and add it to her like big projects So this one was a really fun one that we finished off this homeschooling year So brie, which one was your favorite project the mammals or the human body? Yeah, you did work on it Yeah, you did work on this one longer. She actually uh had a limited time on this one because we were ready to start our second semester So at the end she had to like wrap this one up But this one she had all second semester to work on her human body one. So she really really enjoyed it Okay, you guys for history. We did a lot of stuff for history, but our main history was amazing africa So we utilized amazing africa, which is a heritage pack from amble or nail johnson I actually have a separate video on my channel going over in depth of our review of amazing africa But we really enjoyed it We went over 26 picture books in all 55 countries within africa and this is like the main reference book So brie go ahead and show them your um writing notebook that you did Yeah, so this is all of the countries that brielle ended up writing about and I really utilize History as another writing opportunity for brielle because again, she really enjoys writing So as we went over each of the main countries within africa She wrote a paragraph about it and as you guys are going to be able to see as she gets closer to the end brielle really is like starting to write really full paragraphs She is writing like three paragraphs towards the end So we really really enjoyed doing this africa continent study and this was a part of our geography slash history study But I do have a whole separate video of our full review on amazing africa So brie your notebook looks amazing So, yeah, so that was amazing africa heritage pack now for uh, martin luther king day We actually did this uh, what is it this free pack from the walk-off way? And it was a really cool pack where we did a week study on Who was martin luther king brielle was able to do a timeline on his life? And she actually did some copy work within her packet She did a watercolor on a dr martin luther king that week We actually did some geography and she also wrote a really really good paper on dr martin luther king So, uh, she really really enjoyed doing this, uh unit of learning about dr martin luther king And again, we spent a whole week doing this one and she did an awesome job on all of these colors So this again was a free unit from um, jessica from the walled off way And these were the two books that we read who was martin luther king and the story of martin luther king Now for a black history month. We had a really really fun time with black history mom This is just a few of the main books that we use We use little leaders both women in history and we also use little leaders exceptional um men in black history and brielle She actually had an opportunity to write some bibliographies on the people that stood out most to her One was uh, dr. Charles r drew. She did a bibliography on him. She did a bibliography on kathryn johnson She also did a bibliography on betsy Coleman Uh, and then she also did uh, her last big bibliography was on mitzy copeland So these were the people that stood out most to her these right here that brielle is showing you It's just like her rough drafts and all the practice that she had to do to get up to her final draft on her work And then these are some coloring pages that we used from puzzle huddle.com. They actually had some free pages So when we were going over uh all of the people within black history the people that really stood out to her She actually colored some pictures about them. So we really really enjoyed black history month And i'm happy we carved out that time to be able to learn about all these amazing people within black history. So um, yeah So brie, what did you think about black history mom? I liked it because it's because we got to learn about each black person having an impact in america Yeah, yeah, so it was really fun for her to do this black history study. So um, yeah, thank you guys so much for watching today's video I really hope you enjoy seeing all the things brielle and we got up to this homeschooling year I'm so so so proud of brielle. She really did an awesome job And I really hope in today's video is not like i'm really bragging on my baby girl I kind of am but I'm really really proud of her. I'm proud of everything we accomplished. I really did not believe We were going to have such a successful homeschooling year because we really started off this homeschooling year Really really rocky. However, we're so excited to start our third year homeschooling because I really feel like we know What we want. We know our groove and hopefully we have a good third year of Homeschooling. So you guys, thank you so much for watching today's video I really hope you enjoy and I look forward to seeing everybody. Am I next one? Bye You