The Johnson Crew!

We did it we made it to the halfway mark high five friend if you're new here my name is Sarah and I have four kids from the ages of ten to four the purpose of this channel is to empower other homeschool moms to have the confidence tools and encouragement to homeschool your children well and know you're doing a great job so be sure to like And subscribe and let's get into it I am super excited to update you guys today if you missed my video from back in September where we were just like a couple weeks into school

And I was giving you a homeschool update definitely go and check that out I'll leave a link to that in the description box below and that way you can see the main things that we changed from last school year to this school year the 2022 to 2023 school year what's really great about this video is I'm actually joining a whole group of ladies in a big playlist that are all updating you today on how their homeschool is going this is really cool because you get a lot of different perspectives

So if your home school looks a little bit different from mine you may get some even better tips from somebody else whose homeschool does look a little bit more like yours or of course there just might be different ways that each of us do things that might inspire you and give you new ideas on how maybe you could make some changes in your home school to make it that much more efficient productive Pleasant all those things so a big shout out to davine over at com in the chaos homeschool she's an awesome mom to four who shares all about her homeschooling experience including curriculum flip throughs

And reviews so definitely go and check out her Channel and also to Shauna over at homegrown homeschool she's also a mom of four kids ranging from ages 1 to 18 and she talks all about the struggles and successes of homeschool and motherhood and share so many wonderful tips so definitely go and check out her Channel as well so this is a great opportunity to hear from a bunch of different homeschooling moms so definitely take advantage of that and click on the playlist link that I will pop up at the end of this video

And you can check out their videos next before I dive in I do want to say that I have made videos about all the different curriculum choices that we made for this year I'll also leave links to those Below in case you want to see more about our curriculum and more detail more than what I'm going to be saying in this video so I'll leave that below so let's first talk about our home school as a whole and then I'll kind of break it down into each kid

And how things are going so the first thing I want to update you on is I think I might want to be an unschooler if you haven't heard of unschooling before I don't know that I even fully understand it so if you are an unschooler and I am defining this incorrectly forgive me and correct me in the comments below basically instead of going by a curriculum you're having the kids let you know what their interests are and you're sort of following those more so than a curriculum is that right the more that I hear people talk about this the more I think that that's probably the whole like cool point about homeschooling is that you don't have to do what anybody else is doing

You can do whatever you want to do so I'm really liking that now I am one that feels a little bit nervous about that I am like a like a box Checker so I like to know that they are accomplishing things that they should be for their age now there could be a whole lot of debate on what those things really are like who's to say what those standards really should be so anyways um but I do like to have a curriculum as like the backbone of our homeschool

So I feel like I can track their progress and it also keeps me accountable keeps me on track and I know that we are really learning things but I am trying to be more lenient this year more flexible and encouraging them to find more things that they're interested in and having the time to like let them pursue those interests so that's what I mean by like really wanting to do more of the unschooling thing that's kind of what I mean by that but let me know down below what kind of homeschooler you would Define yourself as if you have a category you feel like you fit into just curious I think I would call us an Eclectic homeschooler because we don't follow one particular

Style or curriculum program like we mix and match a bunch of them in case you're curious the second thing I want to update you on is that we have changed what history we're using and we just like did this a month ago which is really crazy for me like if I get a curriculum we're gonna finish that puppy or like you know we're going to use that all year if you've heard of the Tuttle twins they're awesome if you haven't I'll leave a link below to their website

But basically it is children's books all about principles of freedom and teaching kids about economics and government and it breaks it down into such an easy way to understand that even the kids can get on board with it but I'll tell you I have learned a lot from those books as an adult oh man they're good so the Tuttle twins came out with a history book last year and so I purchased that but we had already made our curriculum choices for the year so I was like oh maybe we'll like get to this eventually

So anyways I finally decided a month ago I was like all right let's set aside our other history curriculums for now and after breakfast and devotions we all sit down the couch and we read this history book together and it is about a American history it starts back in like the 1200s and it gives you this really this world history view because obviously people came from other countries to start America so it's giving you that like backstory and people's reasons why they even went out in search of new land people's reasons why for starting the colonies that they did

And fighting for certain types of government that they wanted to have in self-government and freedom from the King and all these things and so instead of it being a history book that like I'm used to from public school where it's just a list of facts and events and names and you just memorize those things for a test and move on it's giving you more of the why which I feel like is the most important thing that you could study about history is people's reasons for doing things

And the history book is written similar to the rest of the Tuttle twins short books where it's about these twin brother and sisters learning these things so it's just a more relatable way to share this information with your kids rather than just reading some facts to them and it really helps to put it into some context which I feel like definitely helps with retention but also just understanding why do we need to learn history I always wondered that why do we need to learn history it's just grueling

But this book makes it make more sense of why we need to learn it and shows that importance to the kids so highly highly recommend this book it's been awesome we started a month ago and we're like a third of the way through because it's just that good so I will leave a link to that below would highly recommend you checking that out the third update that I have for you is that we are working on a schedule change in our house if you don't know my husband

And I run a wedding photography business here in Savannah Georgia and he's the photographer I mean that's his full-time gig is is that and he does other types of Photography but that's the main bread and butter for us and I do a lot of the behind the scenes stuff the scheduling and managing the emails communicating with our clients and the books and stuff like that so I really love that we get to do that together and so if he's not shooting he is able to work from home

And over Christmas break he came to me and was like you know I really would like to be more involved with homeschooling our kids which is like music to my ears right like really because I'd love that and he felt like sometimes it's easier to get distracted when he's is just working alone in his office and so he was trying to work on a new schedule where we would homeschool the kids together in the morning like two or three days a week that way we would actually finish up school earlier in the day because we're both helping everybody

And then we could start working and then the kids can have independent time they can play they do have chores and then we also give them an hour of iPad time or like video game time every day and then throwing in some TV time here and there outside time we kind of have made like a list of ideas for them because I really hate it when kids say that they're bored and like oh I got a lot of cleaning you can do so we've we've tried to help them out by giving them a list of ideas of here's some things that you can do you know there's four of them they can all play

And hang together don't need Mom and Dad to entertain them all afternoon am I right and so so we we were like we can get school done we can do lunch and then we can start working while they're playing and if they need us they can come get us but the understanding is what we're trying to do is say like this is mommy and daddy's work time this afternoon so like you know as best you can you guys just just play and we're in the house

So we're available if they need us and you know we've got ears to hear if there's some trouble going on so we are literally like a week and a half into testing out the schedule so it's brand new I don't know if we will stick with it um I feel like pretty much our whole lives has just been like figuring out the schedule right I'm sure you can relate I mean your kids go through different seasons if you and your husband have changed jobs like it's all just changing along the way

And you just kind of have to figure out how to adapt but this time what we're trying to do instead of adapt is like be proactive what do we want our schedule to look like what's the ideal schedule where we can and get the amount of work done that needs to get done but also have really good quality family time where we're all together and my husband just really wanted to be more involved with the homeschool time which is awesome so we are trying this out

And he was figuring that he could be more productive if he and I were working together in the afternoon that way I'm like able to keep him accountable it's less likely that he'd be distracted then we can kind of like bounce ideas off of each other more often than we normally get to so I'm I'm for it I'm I'm all about it and I'm really thankful that he had that idea and wants to do that and then like one day a week he would have the whole day to just go

And work like go to a coffee shop or go out in the garage or something and just have time for just him to work and then one day a week I would also get to do that so I'm sure I will do another update in a couple months and let you know kind of what our schedule has shaken out to be how this has gone the fourth update for you is about our Behavior system called the star system if you haven't seen me talk about that before again I'll leave a link below

And you can check that video out too but it's how we do like consequences and rewards in our homeschool and we really started this like years ago and for like the first year or two that we tried it it did kind of fizzle out and it's because I didn't do a good job tracking it so if you saw my planning video this past summer I said I am printing out a sheet where I'm going to track all of their stars on for each day and each day of the week

And then another where it's like a Star Bank is what I call it where I'm tracking each week's worth and how much they spent at the Star Story tweaks every Friday we do the star store and it's a little box of goodies that I've gathered from the Dollar Tree so it's cheap for me but like a big win for them and they love it if you want to know more about that system definitely check out out that video because it has worked really well for us

And the Really the key for us having it still work at this point in the year is the fact that I have these sheets on our board on our homeschool wall where we're tracking everything because it just it means so much more to them when they can see it before I had like a notebook in my desk and I would sometimes forget and they would definitely forget so it kind of loses its potency so since they can see it it has a lot more power

And meaning to them and it's worked really well and it's been a great motivator they love earning up for these prizes highly recommend if you don't currently have some type of consequence and reward system in your home school and you know bad attitudes or not getting work done on time or staying focused if you have any other issues behavioral issues like that going on in your homeschool highly recommend instituting something like this it's been huge for us to have something that's different than like our normal throughout the day type of discipline

Okay now just briefly go through each kid and kind of how they're doing this year and the updates on their curriculums so for my oldest he is 10 and he's actually doing the Ron Paul Curriculum for history and loves it so much that even though I said hey we're going to do Tuttle twins for a while you can pause your other history he was like oh that's okay I'll just do both because he loves it so in his history it's the fifth grade history he's learning about inventors

And their inventions and that is just so intriguing to him he loves us and I do have my affiliate link below to the raw and Paul Curriculum so if you want to check it out I'd love it if you used my link down there sends me a little commission helps support this channel so thank you in advance he's also using the Ron Paul Curriculum for English if you're not familiar with that at all if you haven't heard me talk about it it is an online curriculum that is video based which is super helpful to me he can watch a video print out the worksheet or do whatever writing assignment they sign

So all that's left for me to do is check his work and we discussed what he learned that day but it just takes so much off of my place and he does love their English program still his one complaint is that he doesn't love the books that are being assigned and they're like Classics back when he hated to read like in second and third grade I did not make him read those books I would let him listen to the audiobook version of those but still have him do some reading

But it would be from like a fun chapter book that he was interested in and I will say if you have a struggling reader I really think that is a huge reason why he doesn't still hate reading today is I didn't like force it down his throat like gave him some Grace there and now he is a ferocious reader he loves to read even though he doesn't love these classical books he still reads them with like at least not any tears anymore and is faster at it

So it's not as much of a pain chain and then on top of that is reading other books that he loves so hopefully that's a little bit of encouragement for you if you have a struggling reader at the moment hopefully that will not go on forever the other update I have for him is for math if you saw our homeschool update from last September I told you that he hit a wall with long division like it just killed his Spirit he used to love bath

And so we took a break we took a break from his curriculum and not a break from math completely we would do like math games together flash cards things like that and then we started to pull the book back out and do like some of the systematic reviews from old chapters in the book and then finally came back to his current lesson and we were like okay are you ready to try this again and and this was a pretty long break and he was finally in a better headspace wasn't

So frustrated and was willing to be challenged again and he did great and it wasn't so hard anymore he understood it he had a better attitude about it and now is loving math again doing great with it again they've moved on to fractions and he's doing great with it so again if you hit a speed bump with your kid my advice is not to just like push through and kill everybody and just exasperate them sometimes it is better to step back you know pump the brakes give your child some Grace

And maybe do some like you know boosting of their self-esteem boosting of their Spirit by doing things that are easier for them you know some review stuff and get them back to a place where they're ready to learn something new again ready to be challenged again my eight-year-old daughter she is doing the good and the Beautiful for language arts this year and again if you saw my last video about this she was very excited at first when I said hey do you want to do a different curriculum this year

And she was like yes so that sounds great and then we started it and she was super resistant to it which was like really frustrating because I did a lot of research to try to figure out what would be a great program for us ah anyways so I you know gave her a lot of Grace with that and tried to be pretty gentle with starting that curriculum with her it took her a long time to finally be like you know okay with doing that program

And I had to keep reminding her why we switched from the old one like that one was way more time consuming you're saving time with this one anyways so thankfully I think we're to a place now where she is is good with it and likes it she does love crafts and like occasionally in the good and beautiful they have like an art project that you do or some kind of craft probably with my other kids sometimes we would skip those but she's like that's what gets her excited she loves those

So I feel like that's a pro to that curriculum at least for her for my six-year-old for language arts he's also doing the good and the Beautiful and we're still also doing Hooked on Phonics like once a week in the beginning of the year it was more often it would be like every other day we'd either do Hooked on Phonics or the good and the Beautiful and switch back and forth and I love the Hooked on Phonics app like we put it on his iPad

And so it feels more like a game for him they have games and then we read the book together and so it's a great way to teach your kids to learn huge fan I do have an affiliate link for them below as well where you can get your first month for just one dollar that's a great value I highly recommend we have had the Hooked on Phonics app since our oldest was starting to learn to read big fan all of our kids have used it

So we still are doing that like once a week and we're getting really close to the end of all their units so for the good and the Beautiful I got level one because he is in first grade technically so I got level one for this year and it's a little Advanced for him I feel like so we we're kind of like I said we do every other day we'd be in that curriculum and I just like a month ago was like I think it's probably time to look at level K

So I got on their website and they do let you download the PDF of all of their language arts curriculums for free so that's pretty epic so I downloaded the PDF and I've just kind of been printing off each lesson each day for now and I'm just going through and seeing like what topics do I think he still needs to work on and filling in those gaps so that's what we're doing and if we need to continue level one into his second grade year I'm

Okay with that I do feel like the good and the Beautiful compared to other language arts programs we've used is Advanced so I'm okay with that if that's what needs to happen and so we will just continue to go at his Pace again that's the beauty of homeschooling you see where your child is you see their specific needs and you can adjust to them so instead of just like pushing him through this curriculum where he's not understanding everything or it's just really it's so hard that it's exasperating

And I don't want to make him hate handwriting make him hate reading it gives me a chance to do what's better for his current pace and kind of what I've seen with my kids so far I have a 10 year old is my oldest is that they have different seasons of like really progressing quickly through something and then sometimes hitting a wall and like stopping completely or like kind of creeping through something for another season so don't be afraid of those Seasons where you might need to slow down for the sake of your child to really fully grasp a concept really have like mastered it before they can feel confident to move on to the next thing if you take the time to master

Concepts in language arts in math everything is going to go so much smoother because you're not having to battle with them over what is confusing to them or what is making them feel like they just don't know what they're doing so if you need to slow down don't feel bad about that my youngest just turned four last week it's crazy to feel like we don't have babies and toddlers in our home anymore excited for this new face that's that's for sure he has a little preschool workbook that we do with him a little every day

And sometimes we have the older kids go and do that with him when they're like on a break and I'm working with someone else and that's a good way to occupy both of them and then other times when I need him to be occupied I'll turn on a leapfrog video for them they have so many videos now and they're really great so educational like all of my kids have learned the alphabet and all the letter sounds from The Letter Factory from LeapFrog so if you haven't seen these videos yet I highly recommend them they're great

And it's something that I don't have to feel bad about like all right I'm turning this on it's keeping you from distracting everybody but you're also learning it's a win-win I'd love to know how things are going for you y'all this homeschool year you've made it to that halfway mark pat yourself on the back thank you so much for joining me here today if you're new here I'd love to have you join this community hit that subscribe button below and hit that little bell so you don't miss another video

And if this video was helpful to you hit that thumbs up that really helps this video get seen by even more homeschool moms and I super appreciate it if you're looking for more encouragement go ahead and click this playlist to see the rest of the moms and their homeschool updates for you and I'll catch you in the next video bye foreign