HELP ME with Reading!! September Homeschool Update

hey homeschool friends welcome back to the channel in this video i'm going to chat a bit about what's been happening in our homeschool this past month so september and i really enjoyed making the update for last month for august i'll link it above if you're curious about it but i think these are just really fun to put together and if you saw my august update you'll know we made a number of changes and there are less changes in the september video it's been going smoother we have been settling into more of a routine which has been wonderful although although i do have something that i am trying to figure out like it's been kind of on my brain and i've been trying to work through this one issue i'm having in my home school and it's a really big one and so i'll include kind of my thoughts and feelings on that because i haven't really done anything about it yet i'm just still thinking about it so i would love your guys's thoughts the whole collective homeschool mom brain here on youtube and anyway i'll get to that but first let me talk about september [Music] hi my name is angie welcome to my channel if you are new here and welcome back if you've been coming for a while so welcome to my september homeschool update video so i'm just going to hop in because i might be rambling a bit more in this video but for general life update what has been going on not too much we are in the process of fixing up our backyard and i want to put in a lot of garden boxes we have this space i've had garden boxes in the past and i've loved them but i really want to get my kids into it so that's a lot of our weekends as we're kind of outdoors and trying to figure out some of that stuff otherwise some of the stuff that's been going on i've been having some health issues some kind of like gi issues i feel like it came from the twin pregnancy which was just so hard on my body and i just haven't figured it out or had the time so i'm kind of starting that which has made life a little bit more busy and so hopefully i'll still be able to post here often that's my goal at least but anyway that's kind of what's been going on personally generally in our family and so homeschool uh family subjects maybe i'll start there so family subjects have been going really well again i love sunlight i've been really enjoying it it's funny because this month has actually been a bit more science and hardly any history and if you tuned into last month it was because the science got shipped late so i kind of doubled up a bunch of weeks of history and now i'm kind of doubling up a bunch of weeks of science and catching up on science and it's been really fun and i was just so unsure how i would like sunlight science i just love science i can link a lot of videos that i have talked about my heart for science and sometimes that clashes a bit with some christian homeschool curriculum but so far i have felt very supported within the sunlight platform for science and just their instructor's guide and how they word things and explain things and very much uh like some people say this some people say this please discuss it with your kids kind of how you fall out and i just really like that so that is like a plus plus for sunlight science but as a scientist how is the science that's a good question right it's really good it's good for this age again my kids are seven and six the ones i'm using this for not my twins but they have been really enjoying it we've been using a lot of the usborne encyclopedia the one with the quick links and they love those because then we get to watch a little video after every reading on every page and i love it because i don't have to go find any little documentaries or go search youtube and find one that's appropriate i just click on it and we watch the little five minute two minute whatever video it is that's associated with that usborne page and it is a big hit for my kids the second thing that we're loving about science is the experiments oh my gosh they just redid their science program and i think i probably should have a totally separate video about this where i can gush about how they set this up because i feel like at this age the goal is wonder the goal is to just like expose kids to a lot of really cool things about the planet about our bodies all the things right and their experiments are really well set up they're set up in ways that really pull out critical thinking from the kids like for instance i'll just give you an example we just did the experiment about oil spills we read about some things in the usborne book and one of them was oil spills and so in the experiment the kids are in charge of coming up with ideas for how to contain and clean up oil spills and what i like about it is there's not just a list of things to try it's like what do you guys think wander around the house and come up with some things that you think could either clean it up or contain it and keep it from like spreading further and so they kind of get to act as like almost engineers like here's a problem it's a real world problems engineers actually do this what are some of the steps they go through how do they brainstorm ideas of materials how do they test it how do they then take that information and come up with a prototype how do they improve their prototype and that's how this experiment's set up it's like okay try that how did that work all right well maybe tweak it and try it again okay how did that work all right did that work better to clean up or contain and so they're getting to kind of act like little mini engineers and it's just really cool i've been really impressed with the way their experiments are set up so i won't gush anymore because maybe i should just make a totally different video because this is my september update video not my science update video but i'm really liking it i'm so far big thumbs up from us but as for read aloud so we're not doing the history part of the hbo but we're still continuing on with the read-alouds we read this book it is the world according to humphrey by betty g bernie and there's like eight more books my kids love this book i loved this book i believe i talked about it in last month's video because it took us a while to read it but it was so cute it was laugh out loud cute there was a lot of good lessons about how to treat each other and how to be kind and how to help each other out and it really made us want to get a pet probably not a hamster but i loved it i loved it my kids want to keep going in the series and i'm like oh i'd love to but we have all these other books to read so i highly recommend that the world according to humphrey and then like i said we tend to read at night as well and it's not usually the books that are written into the sunlight program but i did pick up the level a the hbla for sunlight not for my big kids but for my twins eventually because there was a really good deal so anyway so i have a lot of the read-alouds from level a and my big kids are not going to go through that level so it's actually kind of nice so we can pick up some of these or we can switch out some of the ones like that we have already read which you'll see in next month's video but we picked up in grandma's attic by arletta richardson this is a really cute book it is very christian so if you are using sunlight and are more on the secular side this probably isn't for you but we loved it it was full of just such great little stories about this girl and her grandma and the grandma was telling stories about when she was younger and they were just really funny stories some of the stories my kids just laughed out loud others were really good lessons and the grandma used god and church a lot in her stories and in the lessons she learned and i just really appreciated that i thought that was a really helpful tool for me to kind of hang stuff off of and help the kids and be like do you remember in the story when she did that was that a good idea stuff like that so we really liked that book and currently we couldn't decide on which book to read so we're reading two read-alouds at night we're reading half magic by edward edgar very common popular book as well as little house on the prairie also love it so we're about halfway through half magic and my kids love it they want to keep reading some of the other ones which i don't know if everybody knows there's like seven books total in the series and it's just really cute it's about a story where there's like this magic token they find and it grants wishes but it only grants half of the wish and then you see kind of what shenanigans this set up siblings gets into and it's really funny and my kids have just really liked it and i i think it's just delightful so i've really enjoyed half magic we're not as far in little house on the prairie but i love these books there's something about just that time frame in history that these books just capture so well like what it would have felt like so we're at the beginning of this so this is like where they leave the woods and they're moving to the prairie and trying to set up a homestead and getting in the covered wagon all that stuff and it's just really good i've really enjoyed it and even though it's the slower story i feel like the kids get a lot out of it and the reason i'm not pushing this book on them but highly suggesting this book is because we're going through american history in sunlight and this is very american history it's very like what was it like to live 150 years ago 200 years ago so we're enjoying all of those books so those are our read-alouds and our family subjects except for one thing i did mention i was going to do an enrichment loop when i put out our family subjects video i have officially decided to drop that i don't have the space for it the mental space for it at this junction and maybe just because we're switching a bunch of other things and in our home school i just can't i can't handle it i can't handle the idea of having to plan that or get that going or find the space for it in our schedule so i'm shelving it not permanently hopefully but right now it has to go because right now it's like do you know what i mean like where it feels like it's on your shoulders you're not doing it you're not doing it you're not doing it and so for me i have to like move it totally off with the option to bring it back when it's a better time so that's a family subject that we're completely ditching all of those resources which is sad and i did like all those resources but i can't do it so those are gone okay as for my big hits so first and second grade i'm gonna combine their update a bit because they're using similar curriculums and so saxon so their math curriculums and so i switched that early on so we talked about that last month i have a video about that i'll link all that stuff for you to go back and watch if you are curious as to why we switched to saxon we are loving it it's a really good fit i actually just filmed a video about how we're liking saxton and how exactly we're using it and i believe it's the next video coming out on my channel so stay tuned for that and hit the bell notification and all that stuff if you are really interested in saxon because there's a video coming we are really loving it i'm loving that it's set up with fax sheets so they're math fact sheets they're learning it so much better than they were in our previous program i love the spiral approach i love that it just keeps ringing it back and initially i was like no spiral doesn't work it's too confusing now i'm like spiral works for my kids or at least my son for sure my son the video coming will dive more into my thoughts there but i'm just really enjoying it i think it's a good fit for right now i'm holding all things loosely these days so language arts um we're currently using all about reading all about spelling well all about spelling only for my older child for my second grader not my daughter but all about reading for both of them as well as sunlight language arts where we're using like the grammar and the creative writing so none of the phonics are spelling from there so we're kind of only using like a third of that program but those are what we're using all about reading all about spelling and sunlight so let me talk first about what's working so i'm enjoying the sunlight i'm enjoying the sunlight language arts i think it's a nice gentle approach to creative writing and it uses a lot of copywork and then it has grammar built in there's really one day a week where there's a grammar component to the program but it always kind of segues off of either their readers or their copywork and so it's just nice they learn about like the apostrophe s or homophones or there's all sorts of things but it's it's just a gentle introduction to it as well as the creative writing i feel like that has been a very gentle introduction to creative writing like where i am able to kind of type out their little stories and we kind of work on things and all the assignments are different some are real imaginative some are more straightforward like write an invitation some are more order this story so you're kind of thinking logically chronologically all those things so i've enjoyed that i think it's an appropriate amount for these ages so we're really liking sunlight language arts which i'll do an update on that as i get a little bit more into it but so far so good so now the area i'm having a little bit of problem and it's not terrible it's not a terrible problem so reading my gosh if you've been on my channel for a while you know like reading's been a bit of a struggle for my oldest especially even my daughter a bit she's not really taking off or feeling that comfortable with reading at this point yet which is fine but we are using all about reading and i do like it i do like i think there's so many good things about the program and it was really what he needed when we switched out of logic of english he needed a program that was slower paced that had a lot more practice involved so all the fluency sheets and all the word cards have been really helpful for him now where my train is slowly falling off the rails is review and kind of almost like a spiraling review of some old concepts he doesn't remember so i've been trying to monitor his fluency and the best way i found to do that was to do kind of a word fluency chart and i'm testing him about once a month to see how his fluency is going in his reading and in those procedures for doing that usually you pick a book that is very much on their level if and i've picked mostly books that are behind where we are currently so he should be good with those books but not books that he has memorized by means so it's not like a recent read so those are the types of books and then you let them read and you time them for a minute and then you add up all the words that he read and subtract out any words that he had problems with things like that and so what kind of started derailing me on this is he's either stayed the same or gotten worse and i do feel like in general his his reading's gotten better but then the hard thing is is we we go back to some old stuff and he stumbles across it like he's never seen it and then it made me think well either i'm not utilizing the review of the word cards well enough which i feel like i am but i'm only working within the current level because we're in level two not level one and he's struggling on some level one concepts currently and so i'm not sure if i'm just not using the program as it should be used that's the problem or like or i have to put in some extra review so all about reading is great at practice but it's not spiral if that makes sense it's almost more mastery but then i realized as he's like 20 lessons into level two he's struggling with some level one concepts and so i as a teacher have to start figuring out how to spiral back in that material to keep it fresh enough for him so i don't know that's my problem i feel like after switching to saxon and seeing that he does well with the spiral i almost feel like would he have done better or would he do better with a reading program that spirals or do i have to make a mastery program a spiral program does that make sense do i have to put in the time to figure out how to spiral some of the review which is always hard for me i've learned that about myself that i am not very good at that i am much better at taking a program that has too much information and weeding through it than i am um inventing how to do something that i need it to do but it doesn't do if that makes sense i hope that makes sense but anyway that's my question right now i'm still going on with all about reading but i'm trying to figure out how to either supplement him help him in these areas how to put review in so i'd love any thoughts or comments below on this because i am not sure i'm not sure what to do i'm not sure if i should switch programs which i'm not inclined to do or use a different program kind of a little bit like supplement it in a bit and i'm thinking like programs sort of like a becca which teach reading in very much a spiral approach of lots of practice lots of blends things like that so oh my gosh i don't know let me know you guys if you have any thoughts on that because i have been thinking about it and just not sure i hate being in this spot where i'm just not sure what to do or if i'm doing the right thing for him and his learning style all right so moving on so my twins my three-year-old almost four-year-old twins are doing really well they're just lively playful boys who get into a lot which was why we put them in preschool for two mornings a week and they love preschool so they're doing really well there they love their teachers they're doing songs and the alphabet and letters and arts and science and all sorts of fun things just lots of crafty things that are hard for me to do so i'm really happy with that decision and then at home we're really not doing very much we're doing a little bit of the alphabet friends cards from rebecca and we're also doing the sunlight preschool program but mostly just the read-alouds and occasionally some of the like arts and crafts stuff but those are very easy like roll out a play-doh sort of idea so it's quite fine i mean they're three almost four and we're doing a little bit here a little bit there and so i'm really happy with where they're at and then they're mostly just playing and learning some stuff but i'm not too stressed out about where they're at so yeah that's my home school for september so far i feel like we're in a good spot i've got some things to think about and figure out or maybe not change i'm not sure but i am happy with where we are anyway let me know down below how did your september homeschool go what were some wins what were some struggles share it all below i would love to hear it i love when you guys share what's going on in your homeschool as well so anyway that is what i have for this video i hope you liked it if you did like subscribe all that stuff and otherwise i will see you in the next homeschool video all right have a wonderful day bye [Music] you

Channel: Science Mama

Views: 1,577

Rating: 4.9550562 out of 5

Keywords: Books, Booktube, Reading

Id: G4WtyiWauXM

Length: 18min 52sec (1132 seconds)

Published: Tue Oct 05 2021