WHAT HOMESCHOOL CURRICULUM WE CHOSE AND WHY!

okay you guys i am so excited to be going over our home school curriculum with you if you are considering homeschooling i know how tedious the decision is there are so many different options out there so much to choose from different styles take your time look through everything and pick what fits your family best so the curriculum i chose i feel like is going to be amazing for our family um we're not like super structured we really want the kids to focus on learning through doing um being together and just we really want them to enjoy it and for it to not feel so much like a task and a chore and things that they have to just like check off a list and memorize but really be engaging so i'm really excited we chose we chose something that is pretty new it is called gather round homeschool i am so excited to explain why um it's a little bit different i think it's gonna be the perfect fit for us and maybe some of you guys too especially if you have a lot of kids so this in here are two out of ten units in the first year the way that this curriculum works is it's broken up into years so year one year two year three and year four once your child goes through all four years they start back at year one but with harder work so in each year there are ten or so different unit studies i'm going to show you what that looks like to kind of explain it a little bit better i think it's safe to say that they're going to be a lot of new homeschooling families this year so they are a little backlogged with printing they went ahead and sent us our first two units and then they will ship the rest as they catch up okay so here is how unit studies work um this is the teacher's guide for our first unit it is called north american birds and then the girls will each have their own workbook what's cool about this curriculum is that we can sit all of our girls down together tyler elena jude and even adeline um and teach them the same thing at the same time they will each have their own workbook geared toward their skill level and what they need to learn and be challenged on we've got early reader that's for jude there is a pre-reader also which is what i will print if we want to do this with adeline and everly and then there's early elementary which we got for tyler and elena so they'll have their workbooks i'll have my teacher guide we will open it up and go over the teacher reading lesson for the day it takes like 10 to 20 minutes and then 30 to 60 minutes is them working in their workbooks okay so each unit is gonna cover um history science grammar social studies art bible copyworks spelling like all the things will be worked into the unit so you don't need a whole bunch of different stuff the only thing that's not included in gather round is math which we have separate math books for so i will show you guys that okay so the first unit we're doing the north american birds you'll go through like the bald eagle and it has their habitat their diet their life cycle um there is science notebooking in here it has an assignment and it lists a bunch of references where kids can learn more um and then you see it's broken down into like copywork and spelling what they do i love this early reader their memory verse is they shall mount up with wings like eagles isaiah 40 31 okay and then for like your early elementary it says they who wait for the lord shall melt up with wings like eagles um and then it's like even a little bit more for upper elementary middle school but they who wait for the lord shall renew their strength they shall mount up with wings like eagles so i love that bible is incorporated into it and i love that it's all in one you guys like this for our family is going to bring so much more structure without being overly structured to the point where i can't keep up with it and i'm overwhelmed by it like i am i like organization i see the value in it i'm just not naturally organized or inclined toward it so for me the idea of sitting all of our kids down at the table being able to teach them the same thing at the same time and then they have their workbook to challenge them and help them grow based on their skill level is a dream okay so then we also got the asia unit study ready to go um so this will be the next unit we do unless they send more and we want to go out of order it's really up to us um there are 10 units total so once we do that that's year one and then next year they will start on year two which is ten totally different units once they get all the way through to the fourth year they'll start back at year one but instead of the girls doing the north american bird study with the early elementary books they would be doing it more in the high school range so if you have more than one kid or you're planning to reuse it buying it the digital version of this homeschool curriculum is great because then you can just print out the workbooks yourself or you could um go to staples and have them print it for you you'll get everything digital so you can save it and reuse it later on or for other kiddos i am so excited so this is like most of our homeschool curriculum and again that's only two of the units um there's gonna be a lot more but because i bought them pre-printed i just have to wait for them to catch up with it um they were doing a really cool special when i bought it too if you bought three of the printed books you got the digital for free so if we do decide to add adeline into this i'll be able to print hers out too um okay so in this box i'm trying this is me making strides this website is called wellplannedgal.com look how cute um i bought this cute little thank you card i'm very excited about it i'm hoping that i will use it and i'm hoping that it will magically make me more organized i know that those are a lot of hopes okay but this has i bought this whole little bundle of stuff i'm really excited to see what it looks like the well planned day this is a home and school all-in-one planner this is my homeschool planner to kind of plan out if we're going to do field trips or crafts i have a lot of homeschooling friends in the area so we're actually going to do a co-op where we get together one day a week and take turns with who is leading um everybody that day whether it's in a field trip or in a craft um so i'm gonna plan everything out in here it came with some little dividers some stickers for organizing everything so cute book reports do crafts lessons i don't even know and then some elastic bands that are to keep this closed good idea good idea these all came in like a little kit and then some pens and what's at the bottom some file folders which would be really cool because i can save anything important over the year and here's some coupons super cool so if you guys use a homeschool planner let me know your tips and advice on how to how to make the most out of it if you're looking for one these were super cute well planned day it's the well-planned gal though is the website um i'm gonna link everything in the bottom so you guys i'm gonna link everything in the description so you can go check everything out for yourself okay now we're on to math because remember math is the only thing not included in gather rounds um so math is separate we decided to go with the master books math lessons for a living education books we may need something more challenging depending on if our kids like really love math or not we'll see when we get there but basically the way that this curriculum works i got two these are level three books um we've got level four i'm not sure if tyler will be in level three or level four i'm not sure if elena will be in level two or level three so i just got them all that way they can kind of go at the pace that they need okay so here's the kindergarten one there is a level one level two the cool thing about this for math is that it uses very practical applications and learning so like you go to the store and you're counting out your money and you talk about how much things cost and you talk about you know paying and change and addition and subtraction and all those things it is very much like how you use math to apply it to your real life it's super simple i've heard some people whose kids like really love math like to supplement with something a little more challenging um but we're gonna start here keep it simple keep it practical and help the girls grasp just the concept of math um as they move up i've heard a lot of really good things about the master books mouth so i'm very excited if you guys are using it let me know in the comments if you love it um what you use maybe to supplement it with or what kind of manipulatives you love but i think the girls are gonna really like doing this because this is a book too it looks like they will be able to open up and kind of figure out not totally on their own obviously like i'm here if they have questions but at least tyler and elena i think will really be able to run with this um and do a lot of that work without really needing like that guidance and that like walking them through each step okay so we do still need to order some like manipulatives those are like the hands-on things that help with counting um tracing different stuff like that so that will be another video but um one of the other things that we are investing into and have invested heavily into already for our kids learning is usborne books i love their books like one they're really good quality but two i feel like just the way that they're written and put together is so intuitive for kids and for their learning um their educational books are very like bite-sized bits of information which i think kids didn't just like digest more because you know kids are like on to the next and the next and they just like so much excitement um let me show you some of the ones that are in here we have like a ton upstairs i need a bookshelf once i get like a bookcase up there and put them all up i can do a little book tour i don't even know but they always like are coming out with new ones so um we will be getting a lot more i already have like a wish list made if you want to grab some books um i actually signed up as a consultant to get a discount on our own books because i know we're gonna be using them and with six kids like buying a bunch my kids are avid readers they love to read um seriously they love to read so if you guys want i will link in the bottom too and you can shop right from there um or if you have a friend who sells usborne go support your friend because that's amazing to me anytime somebody can build their own business or do something that allows them to stay home with their children um to help out their family like is a win in my book so if you have a friend who does usborne connect with them if you want some of the books but if you don't you are always welcome to use our link um okay so some of the ones that we have understanding money elena has been through this book several times already she loves just like the weirdest thing she loves like mature topics money and government there's a government in politics one there's a business one she's all about it and i'm like hey if it interests you go for it um so this is kind of cool to help give some of those like real life lessons you know and teach them about these things here is the usborne illustrated dictionary which is just like beautiful but i love it it's got pictures in it it's a dictionary obviously spoiler alert um but then it's got these cute little illustrations in it and so i just figure while we're homeschooling and learning if they come across a word they don't know i'm going to teach them how to look it up and figure out what it means that's the biggest thing with learning i think is you don't have to memorize and know everything you just have to know where to look to find the answers and so getting that principle to them while they're young you can learn anything you want you can learn how to do anything you want to do you can learn information about whatever you want to do you just have to know how to research how to look it up where to look for answers um and if you come across something you don't understand how to figure out you know like where to look for that understanding and to get that understanding you guys it's the information age that we live in and i'm speaking to adults too like if you want to know more about something there is literally nothing holding you back from learning everything you want to learn i think it was elon musk who said he said college shows that you can do your chores but you can learn anything for free and i thought that is coming from a billionaire like really brilliant um so that's what i want to teach my kids is that you can do and learn anything that you want to for free um all right so not that college is bad if they want to go to college they go to college full disclosure if you guys love college go for it you do you um there's nothing wrong with that i'm just saying that you like we're free to learn we're free to learn it's amazing okay these books are super cute my first reference book about nature so there's like my world there's the earth um there's one about food just teaching these like important topics but i love that it's just broken down so kids can understand and the cool thing about usborne is they have like different series of books that that tailor to different age ranges um like these are really great you can tell this one has like just been so loved look inside your body and so this is cool because it has all these flaps that you lift and you can learn all about different body parts um different systems and structures in your body and kids obviously love it because it's interactive the fact that they can lift up flaps and learn about what happens when they eat food where does it go what type of foods fuel their bodies all the things so so this is something we're going to rely on heavily having a lot of really enriching books and obviously teaching the kids to read up until the age of seven the most important thing you can do for your kids and helping them learn is let them play let them learn through play and using their imagination and then read to them or teach them to read and let them read books bam two biggest things and that's something that we are striving so much for um look at this oh i didn't show you this one the usborne science encyclopedia is super cool again it breaks these topics and these studies down into like bite size things that kids can just grasp a lot better it's cool there's qr links in these books too so you can like scan that and look up more information on the computer um so i'm just so i'm so excited i'm so excited to be like there while they're learning and like get to be a part of that with them and help them to just like feed that hunger for learning because again if you are passionate about learning and if you are willing to learn and look for answers and figure out what things mean if you don't know what they mean you will be unstoppable um you can do anything and so that's what we're really trying to instill and that's like the whole goal with homeschooling them is just to give them that desire and to nurture what they are naturally interested in um i think it's gonna be a great year i cannot wait to share more of the journey along the way with you guys all the links to these things will be in the description um let me know what you're doing if you're homeschooling what you chose and why if you are also doing gather around let me know i would love to connect in the facebook group um and just share ideas i'm already talking to jude about like what home school will look like so with our north american birds i'm like we can make snacks and lunches that look like bird's nest and all these ideas are already turning in my head so i'm really excited to get to pour my own creativity and passion for learning and into my kids i think it's gonna be so great all right that's it love you guys and we will see you soon hey thanks so much for watching if you want to make sure you don't miss any of our videos click follow follow again and then tap see first to make sure you stay up to date on what's going on with our family