BUILD YOUR LIBRARY Level 0 Review Series || North America || Charlotte Mason Inspired Curriculum

[@natalieoconnell3399]

Thank you so much for this upload, I’ve just this second purchased this curriculum after watching this, really excited to start ordering the books and hopefully I can get started next week if I can. 😊

[@MaryBarfield]

Oh how exciting!! I hope y’all enjoy it and have a wonderful journey around the world this year! 🥰

[@JessieTBRoverflowing]

I love this curriculum. We did a modified version when my twin girls were in K, but would like to do it more fully now that they’re in 2nd and their brother is in K. Enjoyed hearing and seeing what y’all did in this section!

[@MaryBarfield]

I love the way you are approaching the curriculum! Such a good idea!

[@avah.4659]

We are doing byl0 this year too! Just finish week 3 and we love it. Thank you for the “what’s on your plate” recommendation too! Will check it out in library website right now!

[@avah.4659]

And we have Spotify premium that has the very very far north audiobook, we sometimes listen to that instead of I read it, it is more engaging than my flat dull tone. 😂

[@MaryBarfield]

Oh I need to look into that! I know we have a family Spotify account but I wonder if ours is premium! I’m starting to appreciate audiobooks more and more with all the read alouds we do 😅 - it saves my voice! 🥰

[@BrekkeEl]

We are doing this too, and we are going slow with it bc my twins are just five this month. We did a whole week with Me on the Map (oh hey fellow NCian!), and we are skipping Very Far North and instead adding a few extra Canada picture books. We also added a compass craft and memorizing the continents. So we’re in week 2 and doing a gentle start to North America and Canada this week and will do all of Canada next week. We are also adding a whole week on Native Americans/First Nations and reading several picture books.

[@MaryBarfield]

I love the way that you are approaching the curriculum! I’m type A to my own detriment, where I always forget that I can modify a curriculum to fit our needs 🤦🏼‍♀️. I plan to be more mindful of that moving forward and will modify by skipping or adding other things in! 🥰 Yay for North Carolinians! 💕

[@BrekkeEl]

@@MaryBarfield have you listened to the Homeschool Together podcast/YT Channel? They gave me the idea about adding in a Native American week (they're doing this curriculum for the second time and have a TON of book recs!). We also are doing some *light* US history over these weeks and are almost finished with 'Meet Felicity' (Kaya was too hard for my almost 5yos), and then several picture books on colonial America, George Washington, Abe Lincoln, Betsy Ross, etc. Just trying to offer a little bit of background knowledge, not full lessons so those ideas/touchpoints (or "pegs" as Susan Wise Bower calls them) are floating in their minds. We are mostly skipping the animal study-- not really my girls' jam, but we're doing a separate science curriculum 1x a week (the Good and the Beautiful Little hearts & Hands "Wind and Waves" unit, which is super chill and perfect for us,). I had a total meltdown about doing everything and then watched a video of another homeschool mama being like "the point of homeschool is that you can do what you want, within reason" and I was like "THAT'S RIGHT!" and then threw out all the animal study, haha.

[@MaryBarfield]

I have! I love their KZbin channel! 🥰 they are actually the ones who gave me the idea of doing BYL 0 for this year! I may have gone on a binge watching tirade when I discovered their channel 😂. I decide to keep the curriculum as is over 30 weeks because I was racking on the 6 week Pre-history unit at the end of this year to make a full 36 weeks, and also because I did torchlights geography component last year and we did her Native American week and we had just finished up week 4 of Kaya (also went over my newly 5 year olds head but my 6’u year old loved it!) I need to catch up on Homeschool together a most recent videos talking about their second run through this curriculum level! I haven’t seen their new videos yet so thank you for reminding me!

[@Tbaker3790]

This looks like such a great curriculum! Definitely want to try this next year! Thanks for sharing!

[@MaryBarfield]

We have had so much fun and learned a lot these first couple of weeks! 🥰

[@heathercox5801]

I love Build Your Library! We are on Level 2 this year. We will continue to use BYL in the coming years too.

[@MaryBarfield]

That’s awesome! We are thoroughly enjoying it and will most likely use it in some way each year moving forward! 🥰

[@with.Marlena]

Love it 🙌 we are doing the same for Geography this year and will skip the bigger books to due to my little one ❤ Have fun with the rest of the curriculum x

[@MaryBarfield]

Yes! That’s one of the things I love about BYL, that we can use what makes sense for us and leave the rest! It’s easily customizable! 🥰

[@shirleysoeth]

This was great! Thank you for sharing!

[@MaryBarfield]

You’re welcome! 🥰🥰

[@jessicaprochno7932]

I'm debating adding this in! My kiddos are newly 4 and almost 7! Would you do it or wait a year?

[@MaryBarfield]

So I think your almost 7 year old will love it and your newly 4 year old can be a tag along. You can always do a “light” version of it (pick and choose the bits you know your kiddos will like) and then do it again as a full curriculum once your youngest is 6 or 7! 🥰

[@hannahhensley8497]

I felt like BYL 0 lit content was too mature for my Kindergartener last year, which was such a bummer. I never felt like I could make the scheduling and content make sense in my brain for some reason. We're doing Me on the Map from Little School of Smiths this year, but I might add in some light country/continent study as we get through it. My now first grader loves geography though, so it's more of a child-led study anyway 🤣

[@MaryBarfield]

Aww that’s exciting! We love Little School of Smiths! BYL0 is definitely more advanced than just kindergarten level, which is probably why my 2nd grader is enjoying it so much! Lol if I only had my kindergartener I would probably skip all of the chapter books (she has a shorter attention span) or hold off on doing the curriculum until next year. ❤️

[@hannahhensley8497]

@@MaryBarfield Little School of Smiths is so good - I feel like her stuff is made for my brain! I'm hoping maybe we come back to BYL 0 one day, but maybe I'll just move on and find something else ha.

[@MaryBarfield]

@@hannahhensley8497 i know what you mean lol I love her stuff too!

[@BetzyCarmona]

The chapter books go over my daughter’s head. She is a young first grader so we have skip them.

[@MaryBarfield]

If I was only doing the BYL 0 with my newly turned 5 year old, I would do the same or I would have replaced them with an on-topic picture book. But since I have my 7 year old doing it too, I’m keeping them in our rotation (for now as long she she continues to enjoy them 😊).

[@jaimewolf9036]

How do you feel about this vs. torchlight

[@MaryBarfield]

If I had to choose one over the other, I would choose Build Your Library because it’s more cohesive across all the subjects, specifically in the way it’s written for this level. I can’t speak to the other levels yet. I also love how she lays it out for you over the weekly and daily schedule, but it’s still easily customizable and adaptable to different schedules 🥰