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Hey guys, welcome to my channel Blessed Homeschool. This year I'm going to be making some big
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curriculum changes for my fifth grade twin daughters and my son who's going into sixth
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grade. So I wanted to hop on and do a quick video sharing some of those changes and just giving
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some updates to you guys. All right. So every year, usually beginning around February
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I like to take a good look at the homeschool curriculum that we've been using and decide
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if I want to make changes as we start to look forward to the new year. We look at what worked
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well for us, what didn't work well, what we might want to change, what do my kids want to learn that
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maybe we haven't been incorporating as much, things like that. So I feel that the choices
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that we've made so far have worked out really well for us. And we are going to make a few tweaks for
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the upcoming school year. As I mentioned before, I've got twin daughters that are going into fifth
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grade and my son will be moving into sixth grade. So I know that each family has to make their own
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choices about what's going to work for their own unique kids and their own unique styles. But I
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know it can be helpful sometimes, especially if you're a new homeschooler to kind of hear what other people are doing and the reasons behind their choices. So I hope that some of this will
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be maybe helpful for you. Okay. So first let's talk about what's changing for us. Our first three
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years of homeschooling. So when my oldest son was in kindergarten and then first grade and second
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grade, we mainly used My Father's World. And then we also supplemented with Sing4Math and All About
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Reading and Spelling. I used those for him during that time as well. And when my son began third
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grade, we switched to BJU Press Homeschool, their distance learning online. We really love that
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curriculum. We've been using that for the past three years. I love their biblical worldview
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integration. And I do have a post on my blog that you can read to kind of learn more about why we
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switched to that curriculum and how we used it, how it's been working for us. So the first year
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we used their distance learning online option pretty much exclusively. For the past two years
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we've used the DLO for math, reading, English, spelling, and I've done teacher-led for heritage
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studies, science, and handwriting. So we've kind of used a mixture of those things. In case you're
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curious, I'll be honest that many days handwriting got skipped. We made it through about a third of
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the way through the book and then we just kind of practiced handwriting in other ways as we did our
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learning. And we were able to work in the heritage studies and science about every other day with our
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schedule. So that's how we integrated those. And then for the rest of the subjects, my kids worked
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on those mainly independently while I helped them with anything that they needed help with
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There are two main reasons that we will not be using BJU Press for our core curriculum next year
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Not because I don't love it. I do. But because number one is time. All right. So this year
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my kids got involved in a few more classes at our local co-ops. We rejoined Bible study fellowship
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We were just busier with our math, reading, English, spelling, social studies, and science
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courses all taught and completed separately. Some days it became very hard to just fit everything in
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Now, I know it's okay if you don't get through all of your curriculum, but this year especially
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just seemed harder for us in regards to the time if we wanted to get through every subject on most
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days. So I began looking for a more integrated approach to conquering language arts and some
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different options for us. So that was the first reason. Second reason would be accountability for
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us. The first couple of years that we used the DLO, it really helped teach my kids some digital
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learning skills. It also helped them be a little bit more independent in their schoolwork. This
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year, I felt that my kids personally would benefit from a bit more one-on-one teaching
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and more accountability, especially in math and English. I'm not sure if it's because we're headed
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into the tween years or not, but I noticed a little bit more slacking this year from one of
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my kiddos, not pointing fingers, where they would either not pay as much attention to the teaching
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videos or they wouldn't ask for help when they needed it. There were many days I did have to go
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back and kind of re-explain concepts when I realized that pages of their work texts weren't completed
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or they were completely wrong. So that also added time to our already busy day and probably could
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have avoided if we had taken a different route from the beginning. So I learned that language
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arts was a bit more of a struggle for my kids this year and we just needed some extra attention on
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writing mechanics and spelling. And I also wanted a bit more literature in the curriculum than we
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had this year as well. Like I said, it worked great for us in the past. This year just felt like we
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needed to change it up a little bit. So that being said, here's what I've chosen for our curriculum
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next year for my fifth grade girls and my sixth grade son. All right, so for language arts, I'm
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trying something completely new for us this year. I'm a little bit nervous, but I'm also excited
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We're going to be using learning language arts through literature with my kids. I'm going to
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be using the purple book with my girls and the tan book with my son. What's most appealing to
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me about this program besides the literature is its integrated approach to teaching. So with one
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single program, we are going to cover multiple subjects in the context of the literature
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which I know research shows help kids make connections and create deeper understandings
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in their learning. So no longer will our English reading, spelling, handwriting be separate, but
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with learning language arts through literature, we'll be studying spelling, reading, grammar
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composition, research, study skills, higher order thinking skills, creative writing, and penmanship
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in an integrated manner. You can check out their website to learn more about it. Like I said
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it's going to be new to me too, so I will have to share more about it as we go, but I'm looking
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forward to trying something new and seeing how this goes. Their curriculum is a 36 week program
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It is five days a week, but I'll share more about that as we get going. That's what I have planned
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to try out so far. Okay, for math, with BJU Press Math this year, my kids would watch their lesson
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video online and then complete their work text assignment independently. Even though I love math
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I do delegate this because my kids are working at different levels. And with our crazy schedule
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this year, some weeks there may have been a couple of days before I could check everybody's
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math work. So they would do their math and usually I try to check it right away. Some days it just
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took me a day or two. And when I would check it, I would find they've been doing it completely wrong
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You know, part of that was on me and I needed to kind of be more on top of checking their work
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things like that. But sometimes things just get crazy. And I realized that again, with our
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schedule and just where they were at, that they might benefit from an online program that had
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shorter, more succinct videos, something that would automatically grade their work. So if I couldn't
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get to it right away, they would get immediate feedback and a program that had the ability to
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really target any weaker areas that they struggled with. I wanted a bit of both spiral and mastery
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and something that was adaptive. So as they were learning, if they missed something, it would kind
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of go back and have them redo some problems, things like that. So I found all of that in CTC math. And
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we actually began using that program a couple of months ago and we're going to be sticking with it
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for next year. I've enjoyed it so far. The kids have liked it. We're going to see one more year
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how it goes. I love that all my kids have access to all the grade levels and there's one family
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membership fee. So I'm saving a lot of money on my math, to be honest. So again, we'll see how it
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goes, but that's what we're using this year. Okay. For social studies and science, we really did enjoy
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our BJU Press Heritage Studies and Science this year, but I decided to go with an integrated
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approach again, and we will be using My Father's World Exploring Countries and Cultures with my
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fifth and sixth graders together. From what I've learned or what I've heard and what I can tell
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there's not a lot of history with this curriculum package and it's mainly geography. I don't plan
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on adding anything additional right now. In fact, we've done a good deal of US history the past
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couple of years and not as much geography. So I'm really looking forward to this study and doing
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this program with my kids before we dig into ancient history in upcoming years. The science
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component of this program focuses mainly on ecosystems and habitats and corresponds to
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different countries that we'll be studying. Exploring Countries and Cultures also includes
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a Bible component. So my plan is to use this daily with my kids. We will be reading and memorizing
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the Book of Matthew and also studying true missionary stories and learning about specific
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prayer needs of different ethnic groups. We've used the book that's included with this. It's
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called Window to the World, and I'm looking forward to revisiting it now that my kids are
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a little bit older. In addition, we attend a local Bible study fellowship that meets for an hour and
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a half once a week, and my kids get a short Bible study assignment that they complete from there
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But I also like to supplement with the not consumed Bible studies for their morning time
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devotionals. You guys, there really is so much good stuff out there. I found a curriculum from
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BJU Press. It's called Basics for a Biblical Worldview. I'm actually going to be doing a flip
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through video about this soon that I want to try to incorporate into our studies. I'm not sure
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how that's going to look if we're going to do it every other day, once a week. We simply may
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just read through the lessons as we're able to. There are eight units, and it's geared towards
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sixth grade level. So I'm not going to stress about it too much, but if we can get to a lesson
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or two a week and just take our time through it, I think it's going to be a great study for
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our entire family, really. All right, for art, there is an art component, an art and music component
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included in the Exploring Countries and Cultures, but I'm honestly not sure how much we'll utilize
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them. We've really been loving creating a masterpiece for our art lessons, and we try
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to do at least one project a month. Sometimes it's every other month, but I continued our subscription for that this year. So we're going to keep it at least one more year and continue
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doing those projects. I do have a review of that program up on my blog that you should go check
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out. We've really, really loved it. Okay, for foreign language, we participate in a homeschool
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co-op that meets once a week, and I actually teach a Latin class there. We use Memoria Press
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their Latin curriculum. So we have already completed Prima Latina and Latina Christiana
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and this year, well, the end of last year, we started First Forum Latin, and we're going to
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continue that this year. So that's going to be our foreign language component. We meet once per week
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and then my kids have a short little assignment each day that they will complete at home to do
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on their own. And just a couple additional subjects or notes. I feel, you know, really
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fortunate to live in an area where we have so many great opportunities available to us as homeschoolers
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So through our co-op, my kids will not only take Latin, but they participate in a drama program
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there, and they'll typically take one other class. Not sure what that is going to be yet because we
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don't have the full schedule posted, but we'll do that. We also meet once a month with a sweet lady
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who teaches these quilting classes out of her homes. My kids love that. They're just learning
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how to hand sew, some different techniques, and I love the skills that they're picking up from that
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class. For music, my kids do take lessons. They each play a different instrument, so they'll do
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lessons for that. And then we do a sport, which I've been counting for their P.E. I'm not planning
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anything extra for a P.E. or health curriculum for this year. That may change, but for this year
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nothing extra except for their lessons. And this is just something extra, but at lunchtime, we like
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to turn on World Watch News and watch their 10-minute segment. I do have a subscription to
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them, and we get our daily dose of news from Christian Journalists. It's a great program, so I
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highly recommend you check them out if you aren't familiar with them. All right, so in addition to
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curriculum, this year I'm going to be continuing to use Homeschool Hall to keep track of our
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homeschooling state requirements, and I also use Homeschool Planet for my lesson planning. So my
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kids can log into Homeschool Planet each day to see what their assignments are, which is really
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helpful. So I do use two tools for that. I thought about just using one, but Homeschool Hall doesn't
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have a great planner yet, even though they are working on implementing one. And I don't love
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Homeschool Planet's functions for keeping track of the hours that I need to do. I just prefer
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Homeschool Hall's functionality for this. So maybe in the future I'll consolidate and just use one
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but for now, I've got a good rhythm going, and I like the functionality of both of those tools
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So that's what I use for my planning and my state requirement records keeping. So there you have it
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my curriculum picks for my fifth and sixth graders, the changes we're making, and why we're making
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some of them. As I mentioned earlier, every family and every child is different, has different needs
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different state requirements, and different resources. So your curriculum choices might be different than mine, and that's okay. Will we complete all of this perfectly? Will I get
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every subject in every day that I plan it? Maybe for the first month, but keep in mind that even
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with my ideal choices for now, things happen and we do the best that we can every day. I can't see
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the future to know that all of this will work for us, and I may need to make changes mid-year, but
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that's the beauty of homeschooling. I say that just as a gentle reminder that one way is not
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better than the other. And as you're making your own curriculum decisions, just take what you see
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from others with a grain of salt. But I do hope that maybe you found something helpful and useful
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here, that you heard something that could benefit you, or that you want to check out, look into a
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bit more. If you did or didn't, feel free to drop a comment below with any questions that you have
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or anything else that you want to know about. Thanks again so much for watching. Don't forget
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to like and subscribe, and I will see you guys next time
