August 2024 Monthly Newsletter

August 1, 2024

The following post will be a blog archive copy of Build Your Library’s August 2024 Monthly Newsletter. If you missed the email, subscribe to our mailing list here. [Scheduled to be sent by 8/1/24 8:30 AM EST]

[August 1, 2024 ] – Welcome to our August Video Newsletter!

If you subscribed, you should have gotten our regular monthly e-mail newsletter in your inbox. But you can now watch the video highlights and read the full details below or watch the BYL August 2024 Video Newsletter on Facebook.

Hey everybody, it’s Emily from Build Your Library! If you are going to skim the beginning, here are the main topics in this month’s newsletter:

Now that I have your attention, I have the details on those items and more for you.

Monthly Newsletter

“The Pond”August of another summer, and once again
I am drinking the sun
and the lilies again are spread across the water.
I know now what they want is to touch each other.
I have not been here for many years
during which time I kept living my life.
Like the heron, who can only croak, who wishes he
could sing,
I wish I could sing.
A little thanks from every throat would be appropriate.
This is how it has been, and this is how it is:
All my life I have been able to feel happiness,
except whatever was not happiness,
which I also remember.
Each of us wears a shadow.
But just now it is summer again
and I am watching the lilies bow to each other,
then slide on the wind and the tug of desire,
close, close to one another,
Soon now, I’ll turn and start for home.
And who knows, maybe I’ll be singing.”
― Mary Oliver, Felicity

It’s August! The summer is still going strong, but every now and then, there’s a crisp breeze to remind me that fall is on the horizon! I love this time of year, when I’m knee-deep in planning and dreaming about the coming school year. August is for squeezing the last drops out of summer vacation, shopping for school supplies, and dreaming up your best school year ever.

BYL Summer Sale!

I hope that you are all having a wonderful and relaxing summer! I know it seems like you just finished, but the new homeschooling year is just around the corner.

If you missed our Independence Week Flash Sale, you are still in luck! We kicked off the savings just in time to prepare for the next school year!

summer sale

Take 20% off your entire purchase using the code SUMMER24 at checkout until AUGUST 17! This code is only good for all secular, literature-based products listed on our BuildYourLibrary.com website and used books in our newly revamped BYL Online Used Book Super Store (now with a SEARCH feature!)

We hope you will try out a program and join the Build Your Library family – building young minds, one book at a time!

Build Your Library Updates

In an attempt to answer when the next level update will be ready, we have compiled our projected schedule into a post for easy reference. We will periodically update the chart when we make progress or have any changes to our tentative schedule.

The Level 11 update was completed at the beginning of July, and I’m taking a hiatus from updates to work on some fun new projects! Stay tuned for more information about what I’m working on in the coming weeks!

I just updated our Election Unit Study!

In the next few months, our nation will elect a new president. Our children are not too young to learn about the ins and outs of our election system. This is a very exciting time, and they should be a part of it! Who will be our next president? How did these two candidates get chosen to run for president, anyway? What are political parties? What is a campaign? Our children are full of questions, and this unit study will help them find answers!

The 27-page Election 2024 Unit Study takes three weeks to complete and will answer all the above questions!

There are 12 activity pages in total. This unit is aimed at upper elementary children (ages 8 – 10) but can easily be used with a wide age range. I include an optional booklist with titles that you could add for a younger child tagging along.

The 2024 election is coming up very soon, so you don’t want to miss out on this wonderful opportunity to study the U.S. Government and the election process with your children. May the best candidate win!

Happy Birthday Build Your Library!

12th anniversary Can you believe Build Your Library will be 12 years old this month? We kicked off on August 22, 2012, with just two levels. Look how far we’ve come! Time does fly! I started Build Your Library because I was frustrated by the lack of a secular literature-based curriculum. I knew I wasn’t alone in this frustration, so in the late summer of 2012, I released Levels 1 and 5, with the plan to write more levels down the road.

Twelve years later, I’ve written levels for K-12 (and updated almost all of them at least once!), 16 unit studies, and 15 Lit Bites… it blows my mind! I have customers all over the world using BYL to teach their children; I wrote a book and created a massive database for history and historical fiction books at History Book by Book and started an Online Used Bookstore – I can honestly say I never even dreamed that Build Your Library would grow this much. Thank you all for sticking with me all these years. I can never express what it means to me.

Build Your Library Reviews and Testimonials

We have always needed to improve at keeping up with trying to compile reviews and testimonials. Over the past 11-plus years, we have gotten a few here and there, but we really should get on top of them. We would love to hear about your experience with Build Your Library! Your review could be as short as a few sentences or as long as you’d like.

Google reviews make up a significant component of the SEO algorithms. We are told it is as significant as ~1/3 of the equation. With that said… We would really appreciate it if you clicked the link below and showed your support by leaving us a Google review, Facebook Review, or testimonial for our website. Our growth has been focused on customer interactions and building long-standing relationships. Thank you all for everything and for making it so easy to love what we do.

August Giveaway

Congratulations to our winner of last month’s Giveaway!

good-luck

This month, we’re giving away a free level of your choice! Have you been wanting to try out Build Your Library but are not sure where to start? Or maybe you are just planning ahead for the new school year—either way, this is one of our biggest giveaways!

Each action gives you entries into this month’s drawing, with some allowing for daily clicks. The odds of winning depend on the number of entries received.

Check out the contest page for more details, and come back each month for new opportunities!

Collab with Soul Sparklettes Glitterbombers!

I’m excited to announce that we are collaborating with Soul Sparklettes Art! They have many fantastic art projects that blend incredibly well with Build Your Library. You can sign up for Glitterbombers membership through our affiliate link. Check the downloads on the Purchase Pages for Levels 0 – 5 to see what projects align!

The membership includes hundreds of art projects, videos, and resources designed for homeschoolers and art teachers BY a homeschooler and art teacher team. There are three completely DONE-FOR-YOU curriculums: Global Art Hop, Elements & Principles (PEP), and a USA Curriculum. Everything is included when you join – there are no surprises and no waiting.

There’s a reason kids love these projects – Glitterbombers is the only curriculum out there that is 100% kid-tested, kid-approved, and developed with kid input. All projects are cross-curricular, match with other homeschool curriculums, and offer standards and differentiation. It’s a full art experience for kids – so they can learn THEIR way.

Glitterbombers HIGH is a brand new art membership for grades 7 – 12. It offers so much more than just “how to draw” – your child will explore paint, pastels, sculpture, digital art, and so much more!

Every single lesson has a video AND a detailed PDF with step by step instructions, so kids can choose the way they learn best. Tweens, teens, and adults have all loved learning with Glitterbombers HIGH!

Teens and tweens love the monthly magazine, and there is a monthly art class that features techniques, concepts, and working artists. Kids are given a monthly challenge to complete that enters them into a prize drawing!

Sign Up for Glitterbombers Here!

August Bookish Holidays

August has a few fun book-related holidays, like National Coloring Book Day (August 2) and National Book Lovers Day (August 9).

We have Suzanne Collins (August 10), John Green (August 24), and Mary Shelley (August 30) for author birthdays.

While most of you do not need any extra encouragement to pick up additional reading material – we have plenty of excuses for you here! Or an excuse for cake.

BYL Online Used Book Super Store

We are pleased to announce our newest, most requested feature: an Author or Title SEARCH! We have also incorporated the bookstore into our regular website and consolidated shopping carts so you can purchase both used books and homeschool curriculum in the same place!

https://buildyourlibrary.com/usedbookshop

I have wanted to open an independent bookstore my whole life. A cute, cozy Hobbit hole of a bookstore with new books, used books, maybe tea… After many delays and setbacks, a brick-and-mortar store is currently out of the cards.

However, since I have a storage unit (and house) full of books I’ve been collecting for a store, we have decided to try to set up the BYL Online Used Book Super Store! We are so excited to announce that we are open for business! So yay! Happy book shopping!

We are adding new books almost daily, so keep checking back. We have something for every reader!

2024 Build Your Library Reading Challenge

Are you looking for a fun reading challenge for the whole family? Well, look no further! We had so much fun with challenges the past four years, so we’re continuing the tradition! For 2024, we created a new list of 40 reading prompts to help you and your children stretch your reading muscles. This year’s theme is Reading Through History! It’s no secret that I love reading about history, and historical fiction is one of my favorite genres. So this year, I’ve created 40 prompts to help you dig into history! Need ideas for the prompts – I’ve got you! Just head over to History Book by Book!

It will be an amazing reading year filled with fun challenges and lots of historical reading! Visit our blog and download your checklist today!

As of now, I have completed 33 out of 40 prompts! I’m slowing down a bit, because there are only a few left, but they are the hard ones! I’m not worried, though; there’s still plenty of time for me to hit those last 7 prompts!

Back to “Home” School Series (B2HS)

Every year, we update and re-feature our Back to “Home” School series towards the end of August, right before we all get back to business. But I decided to turn this series into Homeschool Tidbits last year for something different! It’s the same great information, with some new updates and a new fun video package! So stay tuned each Friday as I reshare these for some back-to-homeschool inspiration!

History Book by Book (HBBB)!

History Book By Book is our database of engaging, entertaining, and educational books about various historical topics. Whenever possible, we have cross-referenced topics, internally linked additional suggestions based on like subjects, and created helpful, categorized lists for you to search and browse. Hopefully, you will be able to glean a vast amount of information and find as many history-related books as you would ever want to find. We discussed it in depth during a recent Tea With Emily Livestream on Facebook, you can view the recording here.

As a long-time homeschooling parent and the author of literature-based homeschool curriculum, we designed HBBB to help:

(1) homeschooling parents looking for additional resources to read to their children,
(2) homeschooling parents looking for more historically based books to give their children to read themselves,
(3) any teen or adult looking for categorized historical reading material for their own enjoyment and knowledge.

Reading your way through history… one book at a time.

History Book By Book Main page

We have recently started to create some blog post articles on HBBB! You can check out our first couple on our HBBB Blog.

Homeschool Tidbits Blog and Video Series

We have an ongoing series on both our blog and YouTube channel called Homeschool Tidbits!

In this weekly video series, I will briefly discuss a homeschooling-related topic. I will share some of my knowledge and expertise as a long-time homeschooling mother of four children, three of whom have graduated high school and one who is a college graduate!

This series will include an approximately 10-minute “quick-bit” YouTube video and a corresponding blog post article.

I’m taking a break from my Homeschool Tidbit series for the rest of the summer—I’ll be back in September!

Most Recent Episodes:

“Tea with Emily” Instagram Live Stream

We hope you all enjoyed our last “Tea with Emily” Instagram Live Stream. If you missed our June “Should I Homeschool Through the Summer? Or an Ode to Summer Break,” you can find a recording by scrolling through our Instagram feed.

Our next Instagram Livestream will be on Friday, August 9, at 1 pm (EST), where we will have a Build Your Library/Back to Homes School Q&A! During this live stream, I will hype you up for the new school year by answering all your burning questions!

I host a 30-60-minute Build Your Library homeschooling chat every other month. You can ask questions about homeschooling using the Build Your Library curriculum, book recommendations, etc. We will announce the date beforehand, and you can submit questions you want to cover. Additionally, you can also ask questions during the interactive Livestream. Grab a mug of tea (or coffee) and cozy up with our virtual hangout!

Build Your Library Support

Are you looking for help or advice on your homeschooling journey? We have compiled our helpful resources into one blog post for you. From the many BYL-related Facebook groups to my book A Literary Education, there is a treasure trove of information and helpful parents to help guide you along your homeschooling adventure. If you have any questions, ask!

For a comprehensive, everything you ever wanted to know about homeschooling with Build Your Library, check out our “Build Your Library University (for Parents).” We have collected the definitive list of articles, videos, and books about Build Your Library, Charlotte Mason, and general homeschooling, all categorized logically for you to peruse.

BYL Social Media Shout Out

We always have our Social Media “chicklets” at the bottom of our newsletters and web page, but we wanted to ensure you follow us on our other platforms. The Build Your Library Facebook is our go-to social media site, and we post there frequently with excellent Amazon products and book recommendations we think you would like, as well as all of our Read Aloud Book Club announcements, blog posts, full-year and unit study product releases and updates, and more.

Our Build Your Library Instagram page regularly posts pictures and insider info about projects I’m currently working on or what I’m doing with my kids.

Although not 100% exclusively Build Your Library related, our Arrrgh Schooling YouTube channel has videos about books and homeschooling, but let’s be honest, it’s mostly books. If you want to see what I’m reading, join my Arrrgh Booked Book Club. This year is especially exciting because I have a new co-host – Tanya from Project Happy Home! This month, we’re reading Ordinary Monsters by J.M. Miro

You can also subscribe to our email list and browse our monthly newsletters.

Wrap Up

I hope you have a wonderful August! I can’t wait to see what this new month brings!

“This morning, the sun endures past dawn. I realise that it is August: the summer’s last stand.”
― Sara Baume, A Line Made By Walking

“August rain: the best of the summer gone, and the new fall not yet born. The odd uneven time.”
― Sylvia Plath, The Unabridged Journals of Sylvia Plath

If you are looking for some more inspiration, here are some articles you might find helpful:

We have well over 100 blog posts on various homeschooling and book-related topics if you want to browse for more.

That is about all for this month. Again, please follow us on whatever social media you frequent, there will be periodic updates posted there as well, but we will try to keep everyone in the know wherever you are surfing!

Thanks, and Happy Reading! Emily

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August 2024 Monthly Newsletter