November 2024 Monthly Newsletter

November 1, 2024

The following post will be a blog archive copy of Build Your Library’s November 2024 Monthly Newsletter. If you missed the email, subscribe to our mailing list here. [Scheduled to be sent by 11/1/24 8:30 AM EST]

[November 1, 2024 ] – Welcome to our November 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 October 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

“In November, the earth is growing quiet. It is making its bed, a winter bed for flowers and small creatures. The bed is white and silent, and much life can hide beneath its blankets.”“In November, the earth is growing quiet. It is making its bed, a winter bed for flowers and small creatures. The bed is white and silent, and much life can hide beneath its blankets.”
― Cynthia Rylant, In November

Welcome November! While I’m sad to see the end of my favorite time of year— spooky season—I’m looking forward to the cooler weather (finally!) and coziness of November. This is when we start breaking out the big blankets, cozy sweaters, soups and stews, and, of course, copious amounts of warm beverages!

Build Your Library Updates and New Products

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.

Looking for a little something for yourself? Have you seen our newest product, Self-Education: World Cultures Part 1?

“Education is an atmosphere, a discipline, a life.”

If we take that quote to heart, we should continue our education. I’m sure you’ve thought at least once that you are learning so much through homeschooling and maybe even wished to take it further. But knowing where to start in all the busyness of life and homeschooling can be hard.

That’s where our Self-Education units come in!

Because parent culture is such an important part of the Charlotte Mason philosophy, and I wholeheartedly believe in continuing our own educations outside of school, I have created Self-Education units that you can use to guide you through a topic of study.

In each of our Self-Education units, you will have a bite-sized way to learn alongside your children.

In the World Cultures units, you will explore cultures and people groups around the world while reading a piece of literature from each continent/region. Every week, you will read an article, watch several videos, cook traditional foods, enjoy beautifully written poetry and literature, and watch movies to help you get immersed in different cultures as you study. Each Self–Education unit will be similarly structured to help you build a routine and stay consistent with your education!

Self-Education: World Cultures, Part 1 will include the continents of Africa, the Middle East, and Asia. This unit will take 10 weeks to complete as written; however, as with all of our lesson plans, it is flexible enough to stretch it out over a more extended period if needed.

Check it out today and begin a life-long journey of continuing education!

I also have the first Morbid Curiosities unit in the works! I got SO MANY requests for the Morbid Curiosities curriculum I created for my daughter. I had no idea there were so many other morbid kids out there! Rather than wait until next year when we have finished, I decided to create individual unit studies as we complete them. These will be high school-level unit studies. The first unit – all about cannibalism – will hopefully be out by the beginning of December! So stay tuned for more information in the coming weeks!

Want to learn more about Morbid Curiosities? Check out this video:
10th Grade Homeschool Plans | History and Science: Morbid Curiosities

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.

November Giveaway

Congratulations to our winner of last month’s Giveaway!

good-luck

This month, we’ll be giving away a free unit study of your choosing!

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!

November Bookish Holidays

November is another huge month for bookish holidays, most notably National Novel Writing Month. Both National Authors Day and National Family Literacy Day are on November 1st. The first Saturday of the month (Nov 4) is Book Lovers Day. We also have National Nonfiction Day (Nov 6), I Love to Write Day (Nov 15), High Five a Librarian Day (Nov 18), and the third full week of November is National Young Readers Week and National Book Award Week. It’s also Non-fiction November all month long!

As far as literary birthdays go, there are a whole bunch in November! We have M.T. Anderson on (November 4, 1968), Bram Stoker (Nov 8, 1847), Neil Gaiman (Nov 10, 1960), Neal Shusterman (November 12, 1962), Robert Louis Stevenson (Nov 13, 1850), Margaret Atwood (November 18, 1939), Ruta Sepetys (November 19, 1967), C.S. Lewis (November 29, 1898), Louisa May Alcott (November 29, 1832), and Madeleine L’Engle Camp (Nov 29, 1918).

History of Thanksgiving Unit Study

We’ve all heard the story – the Pilgrims sailed to America on the Mayflower and landed on Plymouth Rock. After a rough start, they were saved by the Indigenous people who then celebrated with a Thanksgiving feast… But how accurate is that tale? With this unit study, you and your child will explore the history surrounding Thanksgiving. Why did those brave people sail to an unknown land to start their own colony? Did the Native Americans really save them? Who were the Pilgrims and why did they come to America anyway?

We also have a “Thanksgiving-themed” – Can You Teach Creativity? article from a few years back. This was a fun and interesting twist on an old holiday decoration project.

Is it time for NaNoWriMo again?

National Novel Writing Month (or NaNoWriMo for short) is a yearly write-a-thon that challenges aspiring writers from all over the world to write a complete 50,000-word manuscript in just 30 days. It is not for the faint of heart, and even some of the most gifted of writers still find themselves unable to complete the full 50k. But it’s a challenge that few writers can pass up.

For younger writers, I recommend checking out https://ywp.nanowrimo.org for their Young Writers program! It’s basically the same thing as the main event, but the final word count and stress level are lower. Additional resources are also provided, like workbooks for story planning and daily writing prompts to keep the story going if you get stuck!

I always try to participate, but this year I’ll be sitting it out. Perhaps next year will be my year to finally write that novel bouncing around in my head! Are you going to participate in NaNoWriMo this year?

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 a fantastic reading year filled with fun challenges and lots of historical reading! Visit our blog and download your checklist today!

Can you believe there are only 2 months left to finish the challenge?! As of now, I have completed 35 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 five prompts!

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.

After 70+ episodes, I’ve stalled out, so I’m taking the rest of the year off to spend some time brainstorming! Do you have a topic you want to hear more about? Send me a message, and I’ll add it to my list!

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 October “Should School be Fun?,” you can find a recording by scrolling through our Instagram feed.

Our next Instagram livestream will be on Friday, December 6th, at 1 p.m. (EST).

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! Book club has wrapped for 2024, but we’ll be back in January! Be sure to watch my channel in early December to hear what we’ll be reading the first 3 months of 2025!

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

Wrap Up

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

“November is usually such a disagreeable month…as if the year had suddenly found out that she was growing old and could do nothing but weep and fret over it. This year is growing old gracefully…just like a stately old lady who knows she can be charming even with gray hair and wrinkles. We’ve had lovely days and delicious twilights.”― L. M. Montgomery, Anne of Avonlea

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

Tips for Budding Writers from a College Creative Writing Student
Ah, critiques. Oh how I fear thee… (from our Tips for Young Writers series)
Favorite Fall Reads

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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November 2024 Monthly Newsletter