What I've Learned From Homeschooling This Year & Our 1st Grade Curriculum | Kendra Atkins 

This video is for all you homeschool parents or those considering it in the future! Talking about what we are using this year for curriculum and some things that I've learned along the way.

Homeschooling content is great to watch as a homeschool mom as well as homemaking content.

Would love to see an updated kindergarten curriculum choice based on what you’ve learned! Thank you!

Love exactly what you’re doing. Homeschool updates, day in the life, grocery hauls, organizing. So relatable as I am a homeschooling mom and my kids are similar ages to yours.

This is our 5th year homeschooling and can still relate to feeling burnout and just needing a break. But the pros and beauty of homeschool is what always keeps me going year after year.

Hello! I have been so busy I haven't stopped to watch your videos for a bit, so I was glad to take the time to watch your update. I think the last video I saw, you were just starting to homeschool. We just finished our 8th year homeschooling. I think your first two years experiences are very common for homeschoolers- and I think year 3 is when most of us start to finally hit our groove with what truly works for our families. So be encouraged that the best is yet to come :) Of course, sometimes we figure it out and then it morphs and morphs and morphs since our kids (and ourselves) are constantly growing and changing. Keep in mind that you will not cover everything that a public or private school covers- but at the same time, you will also teach them many things they wouldn't have learned in school. Have you read the book Teaching From Rest? It's a good one, if you haven't. Homeschooling definitely challenges us and forces us to get to know ourselves more than before, but it's also the best education for us parents too. I think I learn SO much through teaching the kids. Subjects like History, that might have felt boring to me in public school, are so exciting to teach! Yes, being a part of a homeschool co-op is a life saver. We joined our second year of homeschooling- and it felt like a breath of fresh air- to have found an amazing community of parents who pour into my kids. This coming year I will have a 10th grader (!!!), 6th grader, 4th grader, and kindergartener. (sorry this is all over the place, I was commenting as I was listening) One idea for science in the future- is look into Mystery Science. It's an awesome online resource that has engaging videos and simple but educational crafts to go along with the subject. They have units of topics that each have maybe 4-6 lessons for each unit. I just discovered it last year and just renewed our membership (they have a lower cost membership for homeschoolers, they charge a lot more for school systems) Where did you print the tgatb math and literature at? I'm using that program for my K student but know that it's SO much paper and ink. Keep us updated on the math with confidence book- I haven't heard of that one but it seems neat. We have tried Math U See, Horizons, the good and the beautiful, and teaching textbooks. I have been eyeing all about reading. One of my kids has dyslexia so we had to try a ton of different things before we found what worked for him to learn to read (Toe By Toe ended up being a life saver) but for my daughter (the youngest) I have been eyeing the program. Right now she is about half way through the tgatb preK program and still learning letters and sounds. Overall, this video was very helpful! Your girls are about a year ahead of my daughter, so the input is very relevant. Even with having homeschooled a while, I am always tweaking what curriculum we use depending on the kids' needs. Have a great summer and I'm glad I checked in and that everyone is doing well. I can't believe Owen is 4!!!

I've been following you since before you got pregnant with Owen and have truly enjoyed seeing how your growing family has changed over the years ❤️ I homeschool our 5 kiddos and can relate to the burn out as well as the curriculum remorse! We landed on Math with Confidence for two of our kiddos and I'm so excited to dig in. :)

That was super helpful! I have 2 kids the same age and have been thinking about all of these curriculums also. I’m hoping you do an updated version of how it all worked and what you plan for this next upcoming year

Love the homeschool content! We love MWC and AAR! We just add handwriting without tears. Adding Build Your Library for World Geography, Spanish, and Mystery Science this year. Loving everything so far!

Love homeschooling videos!

Ok so I’ve been looking into Evan Moor for geography too. The “daily” version isn’t available on Amazon. Is the “skill sharpeners” like curriculum? Alsooo we didn’t do geography last year. Do you think we could skip first grade and go to 2nd grade? ❤😊

I started following you when I was pregnant with my twin girls. They're 5 now and we've been homeschooling, so when you announced you were going to be homeschooling, too, I was thrilled! We use Math with Confidence and are loving it so far. I plan to switch over to Math Mammoth after kindergarten is done.

Homeschool was on my mind this morning. It can be exhausting! I really enjoyed listening to this video! I always enjoy curriculum reviews as well. 😊 Thank you!

I would love more homeschool contest 🧮📚

Oh that math looks nice, I agree with the good and beautiful. I don’t want to read while doing math… with 4 kids a lot.

I’ve been really pleased with the Simply Charlotte Mason Elementary Arithmetic. It is very practical and really helps them to work on mental math and eases them into word problems without them even realizing it. It’s not a workbook and has you reading and working with them one on one.

I want to love Math with confidence but I don’t have that much time to focus on one subject when I have multiple ages :(

I would love to see a video on Physical Therapy as a career. My husband is thinking about a career change. Thank you so much for all you share!

This was our second year homeschooling. My oldest daughter is finishing up 4th grade and my middle daughter is finishing up 1st grade. We used TGATB math last year and they both loved it so we did it again this year. Still love it. This year we did TGATB language arts too, and I have to say - I didn’t love the first grade level for teaching my 1st grader to read. I feel like it was going at too quick of a pace for her and therefore frustrating both myself and her. Next year we’re going do all about reading level 2. BUT, since your girls read well now, I think TGATB language arts will really be enjoyable for them. Also, thanks for sharing your feelings about homeschool. It’s so rewarding in SO many aspects - but it can also be hard and have its own challenges. Bringing light to the idea that we don’t have to stress about ‘keeping up’ or that we aren’t meant to do this without a community of support was encouraging to me. I love all of your content - especially all things homeschool and curriculum, grocery hauls, vlogs, GRWM, life stuff. I’ve been subscribed since you were pregnant with the twins, and now we both have 3 kiddos. It really is cool to think how we’ve virtually grown through this stage in our life together 😂🥹

Homeschool, quick recipes.

I know this is an old video, but I started watching you years ago and recently found my way back to you again. I love all of your homeschool content! We just started and my son is in first grade and my daughter is Owen's age ❤

Thegoodandthebeautiful Math and LA is so good. Too bad you didn't see that, but print is different. You need actual curriculum to be able to enjoy and see. Math comes with a wooden box full of stuff for games and so on. You can't see it without purchasing actual physical course set. It is amazing curriculum.

I would look into Christian light education for math. We use math u see and LOVE it but I am very curious about CLE but I have heard it’s thorough and mastery and spiral together. There’s good videos on YT about it. Black and white. Not overwhelming. I did TGTB and was over it in a month haha . Side note MUS has a streaming service rather than the DVD. I have learned so much from Mr Demme and it sort of changed my whole approach lol. I bet you’ll love math with confidence. You might even enjoy simply Charlotte masons math. It seems your style for sure.

Yes to more of this!

Did you use TGTB LA Level K along with AAR?

We do Sabbath Homeschooling which is homeschooling for 6 weeks and take the 7th off to refresh, organize and deep clean the house. We also homeschool year around thanks to that approach so that way I can “catch up” on other subjects such as history & health etc

I am a homeschol mom of 19 years and counting😊. We are fairly new to TGTB curriculum but we are really enjoying both the math and the language arts. We have mostly done ACE in the past with some Teaching Textbooks which has worked for my older three children who are now all graduated. I ran into trouble in math with my fourth child and decided to try TGTB for my youngest 2 kids. We used pre k and 3rd last year. This year is level 1 and 4. One thing I have noticed is even though it seems like there's not a ton of practice, because it's a spiral approach, if you gathered all the problems into one place on any given concept you would find lots of practice. Both of my kids love their math. We were experiencing burn out with our other curriculum but this seems to fit their learning style just fine. I have heard a lot of positive feedback about Math with Confidence too and hope you continue to enjoy it. 😊

I may have missed it if you’ve already done this… but I would love to see how you actually structure your day! Like how much time devoted to subjects and how you work in housework, play, quiet time etc into your day!

Yes, We can't do it alone! I resonated with that big time after this Kindergarten year with my twin boys! It has been way harder than I thought it would be!

Yesss we did math with confidence for kindergarten and we both loved it. I got 1st grade but we haven’t started yet. We also did level 1 AAR. We didn’t finish it in kindergarten so we will continue that and start level 2. I was on the fence and considering switching to LOE. Happy to see you still like it.

We don't live in the US and home schooling is nearly illegal here, you need to get an exemption with strong justification of why. So our kids do go to normal school but I would like to supplement their English class and possibly a few other subjects if necessary. So I'm curious how easy it is to get a hold of a curriculum for only 1 or 2 subjects. It's very expensive to receive packages from the US so preferably something totally digital to avoid high costs.

I love cleaning and homemaking style videos… I homeschool as well so I am always up for watching those. I really don’t want the beauty product or empties style videos anymore. I have loved following you for many years now!

3rd Grade Math with Confidence is such an upgrade from 2nd grade. Im so stinkin excited to dive into 3rd grade. It’s different in that there is an activity page for the teaching part of the lesson now in the student book. (Which makes total sense!) So everything I "need" for the lesson is visually there in the student book. I'm so excited!

Have been a follower of yours for years but lost you around when I stopped watching the old type of content but recently found you again when searching for homeschool videos and I’m SO HAPPY I did!!! LOVE this video and am so excited that you’re homeschooling too because we have kids the same age and it is SO helpful to see what you are doing and what you’ve tried!

I had so many aspirations for my 1st grader and I had to pull way back, 😆 It was good, because now I think she can handle more. I also decided that we would go through the summer, but in laid back fashion. My son turns 5 September 1, but I am going through the pre-k lessons before we dive into kindergarten.

Oo im usually watching RU-vid after the kids go to sleep. I love all the homeschool type videos! 😊 our girls are the same age and then I have a toddler who is like Owen and wants to do what his big sister does.

LOVE all your homeschooling content and have been stalking waiting for your next vlog! Would love to see more of your day to day homeschool rhythm.

Love you and your channel! I’m starting my second year of homeschooling and I’m nervous! Preschool didn’t go as expected and now we’re moving onto kindergarten. So i love your homeschool videos! As well as day in the life and meal ideas for the kids!

Love all your content! I started watching YEARS ago for natural beauty and vitacost recs, and now we both have twins, homeschool, and like to go antiquing. I feel like we're old friends 😆

We did all about reading for second grade and then for 3rd and 4th we’ve used the good and the beautiful language arts and would add writing. Evan moor daily writing is really good! We also started using night zookeeper and my son really likes that

Love homeschool content, my twins are almost pre-K age and I’m trying to decide if we want to go the homeschool route or not. Your burnout feelings are what I’m most concerned about in myself!

I would definitely like to see more homeschool content! Updates on how things are going. My son is starting Kindergarten this year (we did Preschool at home last year) and are using the Good and the Beautiful Math and LA and Sonlight.

I'd love to hear what your favorite books are so far your girls love to read. ☺️ You're doing great!

Thank you for this video, Kendra! It’s a huge blessing!

Omg yay ive been waiting for some homeschool updates

Thank you so much for sharing this 🙏 May God bless you and your family 🙏❤️

We are doing Math with Confidence for our Kindergartener and it’s soooo good 👏🏻

I love this! Thank you for sharing!!❤

Math u see has a teachers guide. I don’t use the dvds

I remember feeling like I should finish things or push through but really… once you find what works you’ll realize it’s not worth holding onto the other stuff. We have used so many things… master books, TGATB, sonlight, well trained mind and now we are in a sweet spot with ambleside online, AAR, MUS and some well trained mind stuff. Not sure when I’ll stop for AAR. We are doing level 2 but we are CM so we don’t do grammer until year 4/form 2 and dictation. Again I tried a lot and realized less is more and Charlotte mason knew what she was doing because it has worked so well for my oldest. Love your videos. All of them haha

So happy to see this video!!! My first grader will be using MWC for math. For reading, AAB Level 1 and The Good and The Beautiful Level 1. Can you suggest or perhaps do a video on how you combine those for reading and LA. Also, did it take a full year to complete AAR Level 1. Thank you ❤

Thanks for continuing to share your homeschool stuff. I would love to see more homeschool. Also, maybe share about the Bible studies your group does and your take aways from it. I love new devotionals or Bible studies I can dig into.

This is our 5th year homeschooling and I highly recommend that every homeschool mama read “teaching from rest” by Sarah Mackenzie! It is a beautifully written book on how to keep peace in your homeschooling.

What is your week like going into your second year in terms of groups/activities for the kids? I know you mentioned something for the girls that was 5hrs and something for Owen that was 3hrs. Do you keep the other days open, or do you have other activities, etc. Excited to hear how you end up liking TGTB ELA. Do you have any “back to school” traditions? How did your family react when you decided to homeschool? Love how you are finding your groove now with the kids! Been watching since you had twin pregnancy updates with the girls. :)

Math With Confidence changed our lives. It’s literally so good!

How do you become part of a charter school? I’ve heard other homeschool moms talk about that but don’t know the process.

My twins are starting 1st grade in the fall and we will be using TGTB for Math and LA because they will be attending a hybrid co-op and that's what they use :) TGTG Level K seemed to work well for both of my kids though I have the same reservations about the math (mastery vs spiral). But the proof seems to be in the pudding - they both really enjoyed it and by the end of the year, I thought their skills were right where they needed to be. We did try and nearly complete MWC Level K before starting TGTB and they just did not like it or all of the games. Similarly, AAR did not work for us and they would cry every time I brought out the yellow box with the flash cards or tried to have them do something from a fluency sheet LOL. The booster cards/reader books for TGTB were much more bite sized and doable for them.

Oh man does your printer not do double sided printing? Ahhh I would cry.