Helpful French Resources Our Favorite French Music on Spotify: ● The Kiboomers 'Favorite French Songs for Kids': open.spotify.com/album/7i147xXeVHKqInsRAxvwAY ● CoComelon en Français: open.spotify.com/artist/7v8RRIvobOTfhtGRCWFUs5 ● Gérard Dalton '100 chansons et comptines à l'école maternelle': open.spotify.com/album/0XsS5gvRNZ74iwGxAuCXrw ● Whistlefritz: open.spotify.com/artist/0DtXS2sF7QBOVIiwSihEEY Our Favorite French Localization Dubs on Disney+: ● Mickey Mouse Club House ● Ready for Preschool ● Little Einsteins ● Winnie the Pooh (movie) Our Favorite French Audiobooks on KZfaq: ● Histoires et Contes: www.youtube.com/@HistoiresetContes ● Le Petit Prince: kzfaq.info/get/bejne/orxdrKuQyZjSoJs.html ● Harry Potter et la pierre philosophale: kzfaq.info/get/bejne/m5pklrep0bGloWg.html

That’s interesting. My son started piano lessons just after he turned 5 in the fall, and his teacher didn’t use the Faber beginner books. She used a different book for theory and simultaneously she started him with the Faber preTime piano books. In three months he moved to the Faber level 1 books which he’s been on for approximately 5 months now. He still has a lot of work to do in the Faber level 1 series. She has also brought in an Alfred’s duet 1b book and an adult theory book for him to just read (he likes to read stuff like that). As someone who is not a musician and definitely not a pianist, i have no clue of the difference in progression between the similar but different books. It’s interesting to see what others use. Your books look more fun, but my son doesn’t seem to think his books aren’t fun, but maybe he doesn’t know any better lol.

I forgot to mention that we have also really enjoyed Little Einsteins! This show features a musical piece and work of art per episode. Very calm show, no violence! Big win for us! We will watch it throughout the year ❤

Eating my own words! We are trying Vol 1 again in the 2024-2025 school year 😊

Core knowledge pairs very well with build your library level 0. We are in week 8 now. You can see the background knowledge from core knowledge really shines when we are using build your library. ❤excellent choices!

Thank you for being transparent about budget downfalls. Being transparent myself, I brought too early and needed to reflect a little more to remind myself what worked. Blossom and root is also not a good fit for our family.

We love the guess in 10 games! We have animal planet and US states - I want to get a few more though!

This video really spoke to me. My downfalls are buying from excitement and buying too early. I really tried to hold off this year, but the big sales happen in Spring when I really shouldn't be buying until July. Also, I gravitate towards literature heavy curricula which means buying lots of books on top of the curriculum. I also tend to buy something if I can't get a good sense of it from the sample online. Like, I really need to see two months worth to know if it will work for us, not just a couple of pages or a week. And, being honest, all of the homeschool content creators on youtube make it look like they had such a fun and magical year and show the resources they used and of course I want to try those out too since our year is lacking in magic.

I get FOMO so bad when it comes to curriculum. I purchased both blossom and root and torchlight level k to see which fit best for us. We will spend about 6 months doing each (year-round homeschoolers). We started with all about reading. Loved it, and then I purchased the next 2 years of it used. (and all about spelling). Then I saw multiple people recommend Brave Writer and picked that up. Then someone else mentioned Ambleside Online, and while it's not secular someone in the comments section listed the secular version. Now I've added that on as well. Plus my daughter will go to a micro school 2 days a week. I need to stop watching videos. Then I would never know about all the amazing curriculum that's out there. And would spend a lot less money. 🤣

Ugh the Mega Bundles are my Achilles Heal!! I had to unfollow and unsubscribe from all of the creators before I bankrupted the homeschooling account.😅 We are going into our second year and targeting a $1,000 annual budget. I think we have it dialed in for this year at $705 for the core curriculums and memberships. We will see how it goes🤞🏻😄

8 years in I still do this 😂 but… sometimes it’s so hard to figure out if you actually want something until it’s in your hands and you can look through it. I look at it as like in business, there is always a percentage of the budget for waste (or at least that’s what I tell myself lol). Those “mega bundles” are 100% junk for sure.

I definitely did this my first couple years of homeschooling but I’m finally getting so much better - I still often buy way more than I need (as evidence in my latest used book and curriculum haul video 😅), but only when it’s used so I know I’m at least not spending a lot of money 😂 and I’m okay with buying a lot of books, but getting better at not buying tons of actual curriculum!

I love seeing people use BFSU. We're going to be using SCI next year which is built off of BSFU. I feel like it's underrated.

Oh man- this brings back all the feels! I did something similar and kind of combined Sonlight A, BYL, and Torchlight for my kindergartener. I have so many good memories from the great books we read together. That kindergartener is now going into 7th grade! 😭 I have some homeschool regrets, but the time we took exploring great books together is not one of them!

Would you be able to do a flip through of Jacob’s Ladder? I can’t find a video and their sample is short.

I've been searching for secular virtues materials, thank you for sharing!

The struggle with buying too many great resources and curriculum 😅

Great video!🤗

So many great resources!! Will have to check out some of these!

We’ve used Saxon for 4 years now and have gone through levels K through 6/5 so far. We love it. Just a heads up, level K is only 3 days a week so you’ll need to adjust your lessons if you’re trying to do them daily. It does go by the specific month. ☺️

Hi, can you explain when do you find time to read for yourself? I have 4 kids 14-4 and I have a stack of books I want to read, but I cannot seem to make time. How do you get reading done for yourself?

I reference How to Teach Your Children Shakespeare all the time. I first checked it out on our library's Libby app and then decided to purchase. I think it is a good one. I also want to purchase one of those visual timers for my kids, too.

For the blossom and root nature study: we liked just watching the video links and read alouds for the picture books on KZfaq. Super easy and my littles actually got a lot out of it 👍🏻. I found reading the Burgess animal book tedious after a few weeks (and we LOVE reading and Beatrix Potter…this one just didn’t land in our house).

A visual timer has been a must in our house. Outside of homeschool as well. Great for little ones to visually see the time allotted since they can’t grasp actual time until they’re older.

My library has How to Teach Your Children Shakespeare, so I check it out when I need it. It's a guide to memorizing passages from the plays, and it provides some background info. History Quest Ancients suggests those Gilgamesh books for one of the hygge weeks. We really enjoyed them! Again, we got them from our library. Oh! I had that States and Capitals CD as a kid. The songs are really annoying, but I can still sing a lot of them, so ymmv. You can probably find audio samples somewhere. I thought those composer CDs were really boring. I prefer the Classical Kids CDs and the Maestro Classics CDs.

Hi i think the timer is quie useful and as for the CDs you can easily get the pieces and more from youtube and other free sources. The math picturbooks seens quite intersting. For the bags i think you can use something that you already have at youe home

And I am so with you on the board games!! I actually just filmed a video of favorite educational games for the family and am hoping to post it in the next couple days 😊

I also love reading and read a wide variety of genres - my favorites are historical fiction and classics like Little Women and Anne of Green Gables. I haven’t read LOTR in years but I absolutely loved the books as a kid!

For religious reasons we don’t listen to music, but I think we will go with this curriculum and just switch out the music for something else. Thanks for sharing your thoughts

My dd's favorite games in K were Sleeping Queens and Outfoxed. My ds is going into K, and his favorite game is Pandemic (he likes games with lots of rules, haha). My husband and I usually play Wingspan or Dominion (the Prosperity expansion is our favorite). Oh, and everyone likes Splendor!

Thanks for sharing about yourself! I didn’t grow up having a lot of board games but my husband did so now we are starting a collection in our home. It’s been fun teaching our son to play with us! The open mindedness when it comes to world religions is another pro to us as well! Same as social justice or just introducing philosophy in a child appropriate way to help understand things in the social justice. 😊 We are secular homeschoolers.

Not to be a multiple commenter, but I also realized the homeschooling world is bigger than I ever thought. My husband and I were both public schooled. I believed a lot of stereotypes about homeschoolers before we began. I still find myself worrying strangers will think we are like the Duggars when we say the word “homeschool”. 😂 I find myself saying “we homeschool, but not like the Duggars” 😬 but I do think the events of 2020 brought a lot of light to homeschooling and did a lot to normalize it in the eyes of American society. Also, love the cat in the background. YT videos are always better with cats in the background 😂

A game you might like to play with your rising Kindergartner is Rat-a-Tat Cat (if he/she is on the older side). It’s very fun & available on Amazon.

Book reviews would be great, and maybe some flip-thrus too 😊

I think the Well-Trained Mind is really helpful, but it can be a bit overwhelming, imo. Ignore the schedules--no one follows them (SWB's publisher made her add them). I'd love to see your roadmaps! They look lovely. I also plan everything out, but I just use a spreadsheet, haha.

Your planned roadmap is beautiful! Can’t wait to see it more in depth.

Hi sweet mama...you provided so much great information in this Q&A. I do appreciate the French resources! 🙏☺️💗💗

I have the same issue with buying books, I love them so much for my son & myself 😅 you have a wonderful library of books!

Thank you so much for these Q&A! It was really helpful since we are just behind where you’re at (age of our first) and seem to have a similar approach or mindset about school 😁

I wish I still had all my Berenstain Bear books. My mom got rid of all of them. But I have purchased quite a few, as they were my favorite as a young child. So are you guys atheist or agnostic? I’ve seen other secular families teach Bible for cultural understanding or because they feel it teaches a lot of important values.

I didn’t know about all of these! I do love PBS resources, we have been enjoying them over our summer break 😊 thanks for sharing!

Thanks for doing this!!!

Thanks for sharing some great resources! Definitely gonna try incorporating some of these for my littles 😊

So love using games to help little ones learn! I just posted the curriculum and resources I’ll be using for my preschooler this year (to my brand new channel!), check it out if you have a chance 🥰

New subscriber here! So many good books 😍😍 also, I love seeing how you organize them!

Such a great video about homeschool essentials! You mentioned so many things I just don't hear talked about by other youtubers. New subscriber, wonderful to have found you!

I love that it’s clear and zoomed in enough to read the titles. My favorite thing is going through other shelves to find ones I haven’t seen before and to put on our wishlist. Love this!!

Lovely collection of books! I am also currently building our home library.Really enjoyed this video! 🙌☺️