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Monthly Homeschool Update February *CHATTY* | 5th Grade | 6th Grade | Pre-K
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Jun 19, 2024
It's time for a homeschool update! I'm giving a brief rundown of the curriculum we are using and what's been on my mind about everything. Come hang with me! CURRICULUM & RESOURCES WE USE: 📖 Homeschool Planet – Grab your FREE trial and FREE lesson plan! 👇 https://blessedhomeschool.com/hsplanet 📖 My Father's World Curriculum – https://myfathersworld.zinrelo.com/ref/SAR7QG39 📖 Latin Curriculum – https://id.memoriapress.com//idevaffiliate.php?id=272 📖 Language Arts Curriculum – https://blessedhomeschool.com/llatl 📖 All About Spelling – https://www.allaboutlearningpress.net/go.php?id=1699 📖 BJU Press – https://www.bjupresshomeschooling.com/site/include.php?id=88 📖 CTCMath – https://www.ctcmath.com 📖 Bible Study Fellowship (BSF) – https://www.bsfinternational.org/
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Hey, you guys, welcome to today's video. Today is going to be my February homeschool update video
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I'm just going to be kind of chatting with you about how everything went for us in February, what our month was like, how things are going with our curriculum, if we did anything new, made any changes, things like that
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So if you enjoy watching homeschool update videos, stick around. So for those of you who don't know me or if you are new here, my same
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name is Farah. I am a homeschool mom to four kids. My oldest is 12 and finishing up sixth grade. I've got
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twin girls who are 10 and they are in fifth grade. And then my youngest is five. He is pre-k this
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year. So this is going to be a really casual, informal video. I've got this really disgusting drink right
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here. One of my goals this year was to try to drink more, well, not try to drink. One of my goals this year was to
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try to get more fruits and veggies. That's one thing that I really need to work on. And I recently
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researched all the different kinds of like green powders and things like that out there. And I
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found one that had the best reviews that supposedly tasted the best and had all these health
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benefits. This is my third day of trying it. First day, I tried mixing it with just water and it was
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terrible. And so second day, I mixed it with some frozen fruit. I froze half a banana and then I had
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some mango and pineapple and it is somewhat more tolerable now. But it is still, I'm going to have to
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get used to it. But I don't know. Do you guys drink any green drinks or any kind of things like this
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I would love to know if you found something that you like. It's really hard for me to get my
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fruits and veggies in. I feel, I don't know why. But this is easy for me. So we're trying it out and
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trying to see if this is going to be a new habit that I can stick with. It's pretty easy to make
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up a smoothie and it's much more tolerable to drink it this way. So grab, grab your favorite
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drink and just hang out with me for a few minutes as we chat homeschool and curriculum. Okay, so
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one of the questions that I had recently was just to kind of go through what curriculum we're
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actually using with our kids this year. And I kind of talk about it here and there throughout my
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videos, but just to give you guys a rundown in case you're curious, what we've been using, how often
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we use it and then I'll kind of get into an update. So our spine curriculum for my fifth and sixth
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graders has been my father's world exploring countries and cultures this year. That curriculum has a
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lot of different components. It has a Bible component. It has an art component, art slash music. It has a
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geography component, which is mainly what we are using it for. And then science. Did I say science already
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Has a science component. And it also, well, it doesn't have language arts
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or math. So you have to do your own language arts and math for that. And then it has different
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instructions for if you're using the curriculum with an older kid, so someone that's in seventh grade
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and then also if you're using it with younger kids, I think it's like second and third grade. So
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typically it's recommended for third grade and up, and it's part of my father's world family cycle
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So I'm using that this year with my fifth and sixth graders together. And we do use kind of something
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different for Bible curriculum. We have belonged to Bible Study Fellowship or BSF. You might have heard
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me talk about it before. But what BSF is, is it is an international program and they have
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different chapters around the United States, around the world. So they have a group locally
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and we meet every Tuesday morning, and there is a part for adults and then a children's program
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So the adults, the women, get together and they listen to a lecture, and then they meet in small
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groups and they have discussion questions over that week's lesson. And then there's homework that
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they can complete at home to bring in for the next week. And then the kids have their own
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program. And what I love about it is that the kids are learning the same exact lessons as their
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moms. So this year we are studying the book of John. We actually had BSF this morning. And I'm a
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leader in the children's program. So we're studying the book of John. And the kids, they're learning
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the same scripture, but it's targeted for their age level. So it goes all the way from, you know
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young kids, babies, all way up to high school. And it might be different depending on where you live
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what different chapters or what different BSF groups offer, what their capabilities are, but that's
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what the one by us is like. So we do that every Tuesday morning. And then like I said, with that
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there's homework. So my kids are older. They actually have a book that they will work on every day
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that has just questions and they can answer, scripture that they're reading
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So that's probably our main Bible. Now, with My Father's World, we do the Bible component
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because this year it's been reading through Matthew. So we read through the book of Matthew
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and there are usually some discussion questions that go along with that. And along with that Bible portion
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or the Bible part of the day, they have us reading Window on the World
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I think it's called, and it kind of touches on different religions and different cultures around the world, what they believe, what their beliefs are
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And so we've been studying that and using that as part of the program this year. But BSF is probably our main Bible curriculum right now
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So with my father's world exploring countries and cultures, you need your own language arts
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So we've been using learning language arts through literature. My sixth grader is using the tan book and my girls are using the purple book this year
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You need your own math component So we are using CTC math for all of my older kids We started off the year using their science recommendations but what I found was that the science part of exploring countries and cultures was just very light
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Usually it involves some kind of reading of one of the Us Born books that was included
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in the curriculum, and then the kids had to sketch out or write a summary of what they were
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what they learned from that page or what they learned from their reading. And there is another book that they use that is a little bit more
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or kind of for older kids. And that one was a little bit harder to read, but really good
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But we only used that, I think, one day or so a week. So we had the opportunity to try out Sunlight Science E, which we are currently still using
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We'll use that to finish out the year. But my son is also, my sixth grader, is currently using Science Shepard for Science as well
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Because we had the opportunity to try it out. And we wanted to get a feel for the curriculum
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if this was something that he wanted to use in seventh grade next year. So he is using that
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but he's really just doing one unit of it for right now. And then we're not sure yet if we're
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going to continue it kind of over the summer or if we're going to take a break and then pick
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it back up in the fall. He, like I so, we'll be going into seventh grade. So I'm still trying to
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figure out how I want the curriculum and everything to flow and be planned out before he gets to
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high school to ninth grade and what I want that sequence to look like. So that's something that I'm
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still thinking through, but I know we're getting close to that. So I'm trying to make some plans and
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start thinking about the high school years and what we want to have in place for that. Geography, though
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for exploring countries and cultures, we have really loved the geography portion of that. And that's really
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what I was most excited about because we haven't done a lot of geography in the past. So with that curriculum
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you're focusing on a new country every week or every two weeks
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So we will typically get books out of the library for our book basket on that country
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And that part my kids kind of do on their own. They'll read about the different countries from our library books
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There's also a geography game. So they're practicing learning where different countries are around the world
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And then we just dig a little bit deeper into whatever country we're focusing on that week
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And I do have a few videos that I did at the beginning of the year. that kind of show some of the different activities that are included in that and what we do with each country
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It's pretty repetitive. So we see the same types of worksheets and the same type of work
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It's just a different area that we're focusing on. Okay, so what else are we using
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I said we were using learning language arts through literature for language arts
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We did start using all about spelling with my girls. And this past month in February, we started with level two
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We're enjoying it. The hardest part for me is that it's teacher intensive
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So it takes an extra half an hour on the days that we're doing spelling to kind of go through the lesson with my girls
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But that's really what we kind of need right now. They need some extra help with spelling. So we're still using learning language arts through literature, but instead of the spelling portion with that, we're using all about spelling
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And we're doing that maybe three days per week. We have an extra spelling lesson
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Okay. And then some of the extra things that we're doing, we are using a history curriculum
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We are using BJU Press Heritage Studies 5 because we started this
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curriculum last year and we didn't finish it. We got about halfway through. So since there isn't a lot
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of history with exploring countries and cultures, we just continue that this year. And we are only doing
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that Mondays and Wednesday. So we don't do our history every day just twice a week. We're still also
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really enjoying our basics for a biblical worldview curriculum from BJ Press. And we do that. Usually three
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days a week, we try to get it in on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. Sometimes it ends up just being two. We are not
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using the art component of exploring countries and cultures. We have been utilizing creating a
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masterpiece. And I really like that curriculum. We've done some really fun projects with it
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This year, I think I mentioned this in my last update video. It's been really hard to fit in art
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And, you know, my kids really enjoy art. So it's just that's been kind of a struggle. We usually
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would do our art on Fridays. But this year, we have had a lot of extra activities on Friday
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either a quilting class. We do a quilting class once a month, or we will do field trips
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or just whatever else might come up, different activities or things that we have plans. So art has
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been kind of inconsistent, and I think I mentioned in my last video that I was hoping to get more
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regular with that. We actually did recently finish up a project. We were able to get the project
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done, but I'm not sure we're going to continue using creating a masterpiece. Next year, I'm still
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weighing my options on it, but we're going to be using my father's world again next year
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creation of the Greeks. And I'm pretty sure I'm just going to use their art component for
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their curriculum instead of trying to add on anything extra. Sometimes you see all of these
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different curriculums that are really fun, but you just don't have the time realistically to do
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everything you want to do. And that can be really hard. But we're most likely just going to use
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what we have in that curriculum. It's all there. It's all going to be. related to what we're studying so the art is going to relate to what we're learning in our
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history and everything there so that's most likely what we're going to do next year okay and I think
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that is about it we do Latin which I teach at our local co so my kids will have Latin homework every day from their workbook and then they do the main lesson with their friends at co And then the only other things that we kind of do that are extra are their music lessons
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which they do privately. They are involved in sports. So my girls do aerial silks and soccer. My son
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will do soccer again in the fall. So that kind of checks the PE box. We haven't implemented like a
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health curriculum or a PE curriculum aside from just the sports that they do. And the things that
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up in our science classes. And then finally, we do typing. So that is something that I schedule
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on their homeschool plan at checklist every day. I have them do about 15 minutes using typing.com
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which is a free program, just so they can get used to the keyboard and typing. They use the
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computer a lot for different school things. They enjoy using the computer for games. And so being
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able to type and navigate the computer is something that they will need to learn. So they do a little bit of
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typing every day as well. Okay, so I feel like that might have been kind of all over the place
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but I know some of you had asked specifically what we are using this year and what we've been
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doing. That's what we've been doing with my fifth and sixth graders. My pre-kator, we've been
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using my father's world voyage of discovery. And that's going well. We are almost wrapped up with it
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It's probably just going to be a few more weeks until we are finished with the curriculum. I have
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really enjoyed it. I will say, so my son is five. right now. His birthday is in December. So we're planning on starting the kindergarten curriculum in the fall
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And right now we're kind of at the point with this curriculum that it's getting to be a little bit too
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easy for him. So there's a lot of it that we're kind of skipping right now, which is fine with me because
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I know that he knows what he's going to need to know going into the next level and the next steps in our
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homeschool. So most of the curriculum, most of the ways of discovery is teaching kids their letters
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letter sounds and there's some character training in there and different activities and books that they
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have. It's a well-rounded curriculum. We just are at the point where he knows pretty much all of his
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letters and is getting there on his sounds and some of the repetitive activities have just gotten
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to be a little bit too repetitive. So some of the little games and puzzles and things that they included
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if you guys watch my unboxing video or any of my preschool day and life videos where you've seen what they
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kind of include in there. Typical my father's world fashion, they repeat a lot of the same
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activities every day. They're just not as exciting anymore or he just doesn't need to do them all the time
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or doesn't want to do them all the time. So we typically will kind of pick and choose which parts of
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the curriculum that we want to do that week. So we're still using it. It's like I said, just gotten a
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little bit on the easy side. I feel like, I mean, we could start our kindergarten curriculum tomorrow and
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he would probably be fine. But I'm not going to do that. because for one, I really don't want to push too much
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If this makes sense at all, I feel like when my oldest was in kindergarten
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that's when we started to homeschool. And I was very much into, in the mindset of, oh, I've got to do this. Right
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I'd have to make sure we do all the things. We do our curriculum perfectly
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We get it every day. We sit down and we do our school. And my mindset has changed a lot since then
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And I don't think I pushed him too hard. But I think that we just did more
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than we probably needed to. And it wasn't always as fun as it could have been
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I'm in a little bit different mindset now with my youngest and seeing even how their personalities are a little bit different
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My youngest loves to learn right now. He's still, even though some of the activities in our curriculum are kind of repetitive
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he still loves to do our school every day. And I don't want to lose that
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I don't want to push too hard. I don't want to do too much too soon and get to the point where it's not fun for him anymore
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And I don't, I'm not saying that kindergarten isn't going to be like that
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I just think that waiting a few more months, continuing to finish up what we're doing right now
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continuing to play a lot every day, letting him, you know, kind of just be a kid and play and do things before we start getting into the more structured schoolwork
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Which I feel as they get older, it gets more and more structured and, you know, we're going to have time for all of that
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So I don't know. That's just where my head is on all of that right now
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Okay, February updates. We're fairly boring. There's not a lot that necessarily happened or that we changed in February. With CTC Math, they did roll out a new exam feature, which I did try. I think that it could be pretty beneficial. I've only tried it once. I assigned one exam to my son. CTC Math is mastery, right? So the kids worked mastery on each topic, but it's important to remember that just because they mass
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it and they move on doesn't mean that they're going to retain that, right? Like, it's master at the
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moment, but they still need to continue to work on those skills and see those skills so they don't
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forget them. And so I know that's a problem that a lot of people have with mastery-based
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curriculum, but I love that CTC math does have opportunities for kids to go back and practice
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things. So they've got weekly revision tasks where every week you can assign a set of problems
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and you can assign them automatically that they will go back and pick problems that they have
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done before and they will review those. So that's what we have been doing with CTC math. They would
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work on their lessons, work each week on those, whatever I assign them, and then every week they
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would have one of their weekly revision sets Well when we got to do like the final exam because my son is finishing up sixth grade there was a lot of stuff he still really struggled with So it kind of made me realize okay
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even though he's mastering these topics as he goes, and even we're reviewing them with weekly
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revision sets, it might not be enough review. So what I decided to do is I'm kind of implementing a new
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schedule or a new plan for CTC math this month. So I will. have to give you an update next month on how it, how it goes. But I'm just incorporating more review
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I don't know why. I mean, you guys, I was a math teacher. I know how much kids need review
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But, I mean, even when I taught high school, it was like you taught a chapter and then you kind of moved on
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I mean, yeah, sometimes the math was integrated into other things that you were doing. But usually it wasn't
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until the end of the semester when you were preparing for a final that you really reviewed some stuff
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And so I realize that we might need more review than just the weekly revisions that's we're giving us
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So what I'm doing now is I'm scheduling out their lessons. And then after every section, I'm going to give them a diagnostic test
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CTC math has diagnostic tests. And typically they recommend using them to determine where you're going to place your kids and what level they should start with
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But I'm going to start using those to test to see how will they do after every lesson
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Kind of like a test. Well, it is a test. So I'm going to test them after every lesson, which we haven't really done yet
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And then based on that, we'll see if we need to kind of review some more or if we can move on
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I'm still going to use the weekly revision set. I'm going to print those out though every week
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Typically, they've just been doing them on the computer and submitting their answers. I'm going to print them out so they can work on them
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And I can sit with them and kind of see if they're understanding everything
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if they need extra help, if they're things that they don't remember. And then once we get to like the end of our
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a big unit will do like a big test over that. So CTCMath is great because you can create your own
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tests or your own reviews from question banks. So they have all these question banks for every
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grade level you have access to and you can create your own worksheets and reviews and things like
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that. So we're going to start doing a lot more review. And I'm going to be scheduling this out
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in homeschool planet. And I'm hoping that it is going to help with the retention just a little bit more
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So, I mean, we've really got a great mixture here with CTC Math
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You've got the mastery. And then you have this opportunity for review. So I will update you guys and let you know how that goes
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But I'm hoping that it will go better for my kids and also just give me a better feel for
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where they're at with everything. I think sometimes when we use online programs, it's easy to think, oh, they've got self-graded questions
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They have lessons that they're watching. They have all this stuff here. And it can be easy to think that you can be more
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hands off with it. When I think that when you're using online curriculum, you still really have to be
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intentional, intentional about checking in with your kids and making sure that they are understanding
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that everything is going okay, check in with their grade, make sure that they're learning what
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they need to learn. And that is something that I know, but I need that reminder sometimes. So I think
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that's about it for February. We are just kind of plugging along with our curriculum. There
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weren't any big changes or anything like that. I think that one of the main things that I realized
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for February was my need to kind of just get some things planned out a little bit better
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and really lay the foundation for the rest of the school year. So if you watched my
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planning video that I put out the other week, you'll see kind of what I did there. I planned out
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some of our math. I planned out the rest of our book studies for learning language arts through
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literature, planned out our science, and just really was intentional about what we wanted to finish
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because we only have about 12 weeks or so left in this school year, I think, roughly 12 weeks
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And I wanted to make sure that we got through everything we wanted to cover
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I am not one who thinks you have to finish all of your curriculum that you have, but, you know
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we set our goals and I know kind of where I want to be with certain things
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I had been kind of not lazy, but I just didn't have that set plan or really know
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okay, are we going to hit these targets because I didn't have it planned out? So that was something I
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kind of realized during February that I needed to do. I did a bunch of planning. I'm looking forward
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to seeing how that is going to be a positive impact in March. March is going to be really busy for
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us. We've got our break. So the break won't be too busy school-wise, but we are going to be
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like I said, going out of town and doing some fun, hopefully educational things on that trip
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I'm going out of town for another race. So I will get to be going to be going to be. you guys an update on that, probably in another video. So lots to look forward to this month
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And yeah, we're getting closer to the end of this school year, which is really crazy. It's
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going by fast. All right. Well, that is it for my update video. I hope that for those of you who
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wanted to kind of know what exactly we've been using this year. I hope that was helpful
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I feel like my thoughts were kind of scattered on that, but hopefully it made sense a little bit
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If you have any questions at all, please leave a comment below or even if you just want to say hi
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I love chatting with you guys. If you like this video, don't forget to give it a thumbs up and subscribe to my channel
22:17
It is truly helpful to me and helps others to see my content, see this video
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Thank you guys so much for being here. I will see you next time
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