Thank you Tanya for sharing this curriculum. So exciting to see books by diverse authors/protagonists!! Finally!! Can’t tell you how much I’ve watched this video in past few days. I came back here to comment that I put a lot of books on hold at my library to pre-read I’m afterschooler/supplemental mom. I’m jumping over to Our Wild Way for more deets on level 1
I love her walkthroughs on Torchlight materials! We've been using them as supplements to BYL and as our nighttime reads this year. Thanks so much for watching!
I love that you had all the books to show and compare. We’re going on year 3 of using and being influenced by BYL, but I’m so curious about Torchlight. I’m full up on curriculum this year, but if they come out with more older grades I will probably ending up purchasing it in the years to come. I actually bought the book of goddesses after watching a Torchlight book haul over at Our Wild Way. We have been keeping the book out and open on a windowsill to look at goddesses throughout our day. Aslo, my kids LOVED The Last of the Really Great Whangdoodles. I’m excited to see your school year unfold!
So I'm debating the same thing for 3rd grade...how did this work out?! What were the differences as you were going through in the two approaches? How did the blending go? For instance, I really like your input about the picture books. That definitely helps me think about what would work for my family.
I purchase most of them secondhand from thriftbooks.com, bookoutlet.com, facebook resale groups for each curricula, and at my local thrift stores. And, of course, you can put books on reserve at the library! I'm sorry, I don't have a ballpark price point - but I can say that the Torchlight books are more recent so they tend to be more expensive. Hope that helps!
I can't wait to hear how this goes! I will have a first grader next year and was thinking of doing something similar. Love BYL (we are doing level 0 which is super duper gentle), but the book list from torchlight was making me swoon. I'm vicariously excited!
Thanks Tanya!!!! looks AMAZING!!! i love the all these BOOKS!!! 📚📚thanks for sharing both of these curriculum books! i need to look into Don't Forget to Write!!! torchlight is new to me, i like seeing all the different book selections!
Awesome choices! You are a great mentor.. I am so new to US style of learning. You inspire me. Thanks for sharing all this of knowledge. Can you advise on language/grammar too? Thanks in advance.
Are you using these two curricula in addition to Lightning Lit? I'm new to your channel and I just watched a couple of lightening lit videos, and I'm very intrigued. But now I see you use these two curricula as well. I'm sure there is a video explaining it all I would really appreciate you directing me to the right spot.
Hi! With my eldest, I did attempt to use all three. In the end, the winning combination for us turned out to be BYL and LL. For my less voracious readers, the combination was too overwhelming, so I pare down on the BYL list while using the entirety of LL. Hope that helps!
This is exactly what I want to do!! I couldn't decide between the two and love them both so I was going to pick and choose things and make them two week lessons. We are also all year schoolers so I am not afraid of running out of time lol.
Love the look of the Torchlight, however I only have a 10 year old and was advised that Level 1 would not be enough for him so we are waiting for Level 2 to come out. Looking forward to seeing your reviews on Torchlight, Build Your Library and all the other things you are using this year!
Hello! I've been following your channels for a while and love it. I love combining curricula as well. Do you ever feel overwhelmed with all the curricula you purchased? Do you feel pressured to go over them so that money is not wasted? That's me. You mentioned a FB group of those who combine curricula. Can you please point me to it? How do you combine Lightning Literature, Torchlight and other curricula? What's your thought of Curiosity chronicle? My 6.5 y old son just finished the ancient history one and we love it. Have you had any experience with Story of the World? If so how would you compare them?
Hi! I definitely get overwhelmed, but the secret for me is to acknowledge right at the beginning that I am not going to do ALL THE THINGS. Rather, I cherry pick books and activities from the curricula. The FB group for those that combine TL and BYL is called "Torchlight & Build your Library Families." Hope that helps!
Thank you for the review, how is it working out? I've been going back and forth on these programs to supplement my kid's (10, 8, 5) education since they'll be distance learning this year and I can be more hands-on with their learning.
To be honest, I vastly prefer the literature selections of Build Your Library. Combining the two curricula was a bit overwhelming, so we shifted to incorporating the Torchlight books as fun asides. Their science, spirituality, and art books were fantastic additions to the BYL curriculum.
Thank you for the video its super helpful. So excited to get all those amazing books and read them along with the kids. So what level is best for combined 2nd grade and 4th grade (almost 10yrold) regarding curiosity chronicles and Story of the world? Its confusing if one should start from ancient times or medieval times.
I think you can start with any period, but I preferred to start with ancients to stay in chronological order AND because ancients is such an interesting time to discuss.
Oh awesome! Thank you so much for sharing! I have been interested in both of those. Mostly just for the book list. Did you purchase all the books or are you getting some from the library?
Thank you for this video! I had a very hard time deciding between BYL Level 0 and TL Level K for my daughter. This is our first year homeschooling, our much older kids are in public school, and we ended up going with BYL, even though I fell in love with Torchlight first. However, I just LOVE some of the books in the TL book list, so I'll be pulling those in too. I do not care much for the Little House in the Big Woods books though - how do you feel about those? Do you have a recommendation for an alternative? I really like the idea of incorporating the two and doing a whole year!
I don’t mind the Little House books (I just use the racist comments as an opportunity for open discussion), but I have heard that The Birchbox House series is a fabulous alternative. I use BYL and TL as frameworks, but I generally do my own thing and pull what I like from each. The booklists are fabulous for both!
@@ProjectHappyHome Fabulous is one of my favorite words! 😂 I was thinking about that for the Little House books, especially since we're a blended, multiracial family. Those topics are unavoidable for us so it's actually a great learning opportunity not only for the kids, but for the entire family.
Wow that looks so awesome. How did your year end up. Did you prefer one curriculum over the other? I am thinking of combining the 2 for level 3. Have you finished your year? Thank you for the awesome video.
I should do an update. 🤓. I prefer the reading lists of BYL, particularly for literature. TL is a great program as well, but we stopped following the guide and just read the books at night or for activity fun on the weekends.
@@ProjectHappyHome thanks. Are you doing the next level of BYL this year. I saw your new post about Guest Hallows program. Looks awesome. Our kids are the same level. Did you use this with BYL. Or what else did you use. Thanks lovely. Just trying to plan our new year.
What was your final thoughts on TL and BYL level 1 after having used it? I am geared up for BYL but I cant stop visiting the TL page wondering if I'm missing something haha
I used their Reading with History in our first year of homeschooling for first grade, and while it is a very solid literature-based curriculum, I simply prefer the book choices (and price point) of Build Your Library. Their instructor guide was great, though! I wasn’t a huge fan of the literature selections in TL level 1, but I liked their extracurricular choices for art/culture/spirit. I like to look at the book lists from both when I purchase my own books for the year.
Thank you for replying as this is my first year of homeschooling what do you say for me bookshark or both torchlight and build your library if price is not a issue .I totally need guidance 😃What about Language arts of bookshark ? Sorry for too many questions . I loved the way you are handling homeschool 👍
I actually never did one! We will be doing this level again for the younger kids this year, so I will do a review video soon. 😄 We’ve decides that we like BYL best of all the loving literature curricula. 🥳
Hi! So how are the programs going? I am planning on starting a combo of BYL 1 & Torchlight 1 after the holidays, I would love to hear how your experience with it is going thus far. Thanks!
Hi, I'm sorry for the delay in responding. I had an accident over the holidays and that slowed my YT workflow considerably. We have settled into working off BYL as a spine and using TL as a supplement. I really like aspects of both programs, but BYL seems to be a better fit for our family rhythm/style.
I LOVE your monument of books!!!🥰😍🤩 I am interested in TL more for the history, I’m really interested in using Curiosity Chronicles. I think my daughter will enjoy very much the conversation style of it. I definitely can’t get both(TL & BYL) Do you find it’s necessary to do the literature part of it with history or can I just do history? My other question you kind of answer, so it’s ok to spend almost 2 school yrs in one curriculum? I’m using TGTB LA and probably their science units, maybe one that goes well with the whole ancient history. Thank you for your videos, I totally love them! *****Edited to ask you to please, please do a review/flip through of Don’t Forget to Write! I can’t find any reviews or even to look at the pages. How does it work?
Sure, I’ll add that to my queue. I personally enjoyed BYL far more than TL, especially for the quality of the literature selections. I am not a huge fan of the CC conversational style, but I bought the audio of CC ancients so we can listen in the car. 🙂 And it is totally ok to spend 2 years on a curriculum. Or to repeat it! We will be repeating this ancients year for the younger girls while my eldest does American history next year.
Project Happy Home , thank you so much! I will be looking forward to it, when ever you get to it!😉 I thought you would have love TL over BYL because of the books being more diverse, I appreciate you sharing that because I’m overwhelming myself..with which one to chose trying to make it diverse for my girl. But TL can cost an arm and a leg! We are multicultural, Puerto Rican(me) and Korean(my partner)... I want to bring color and truth to my homeschooling, specially to history. I definitely want to stay away from a religious history... I know Story of the World is used for some Christian curriculums...which is why I’m so hesitant to use it.. There are very few, too few, reviews on TL and even on BYL from diverse families... or ven honestly comparing the two. Anyways, thank you so very much for replying to me and for sharing your experienced opinion. I do like how involved the BYL creator is with her product and with those using her curriculum. 💗
I’m a little scared, I’ll be honest. But right now we’re reading the books as school readers, read alouds, and nighttime reads. And we’re making it through!
Oh such a hot topic! Thank you so much for making this video. We're gearing up for BYL 1 (we loved their K) and I've always been curious about Torchlight. May I ask what you're using for Language Arts?
None of us liked the format of Curiosity Chronicles as a read aloud, but we enjoyed listening to the audio version in the car. I liked the history/art/social books of TL, but the literature selections were not great IMHO. The selections from BYL were much better in terms of literary quality for the most part. We are doing ancients again this year for the younger two and we are focusing on the BYL revised list, using the Pandia Press History Quest Ancients as our spine.
I did that year, but the younger girls didn’t really absorb much that year (both under K), so I am redoing BYL1 foe them this year and doing level 5 with my eldest.
@@ProjectHappyHome thank you! I have a soon to be first grader and soon to be 4th grader and I’m going back and forth whether or not to combine or separate.
Thank you Tanya for sharing this curriculum. So exciting to see books by diverse authors/protagonists!! Finally!! Can’t tell you how much I’ve watched this video in past few days. I came back here to comment that I put a lot of books on hold at my library to pre-read
I’m afterschooler/supplemental mom. I’m jumping over to Our Wild Way for more deets on level 1
I love her walkthroughs on Torchlight materials! We've been using them as supplements to BYL and as our nighttime reads this year. Thanks so much for watching!
I love that you had all the books to show and compare. We’re going on year 3 of using and being influenced by BYL, but I’m so curious about Torchlight. I’m full up on curriculum this year, but if they come out with more older grades I will probably ending up purchasing it in the years to come.
I actually bought the book of goddesses after watching a Torchlight book haul over at Our Wild Way. We have been keeping the book out and open on a windowsill to look at goddesses throughout our day.
Aslo, my kids LOVED The Last of the Really Great Whangdoodles.
I’m excited to see your school year unfold!
Good to know that curiosity chronicles has audiobooks!
Sounds like a fun year you have planned. Hope y’all enjoy it!
Baby is the sweetest book! Definitely cried with that one as a child.
We’re using Lightning Lit for my second grader and we’re loving the read-alouds!
Us, too! So far, it’s been wonderful. I think we may have found a keeper.
So I'm debating the same thing for 3rd grade...how did this work out?! What were the differences as you were going through in the two approaches? How did the blending go? For instance, I really like your input about the picture books. That definitely helps me think about what would work for my family.
I love these literature based curriculums! Do you have a ball park price point for the book lists? Do you purchase all new from amazon?
I purchase most of them secondhand from thriftbooks.com, bookoutlet.com, facebook resale groups for each curricula, and at my local thrift stores. And, of course, you can put books on reserve at the library! I'm sorry, I don't have a ballpark price point - but I can say that the Torchlight books are more recent so they tend to be more expensive. Hope that helps!
Thanks for this video! I am gearing up to combine Torchlight and Build Your Library also so I am interested to follow your journey.
Thank you for this video! We are doing the same w/ TL & BYL. So so excited about the books!!
I can't wait to hear how this goes! I will have a first grader next year and was thinking of doing something similar. Love BYL (we are doing level 0 which is super duper gentle), but the book list from torchlight was making me swoon. I'm vicariously excited!
It’s a lot of books! 😂 a little crazy on my part. But I need all the books.
Thanks Tanya!!!! looks AMAZING!!! i love the all these BOOKS!!! 📚📚thanks for sharing both of these curriculum books! i need to look into Don't Forget to Write!!! torchlight is new to me, i like seeing all the different book selections!
Can’t wait to see your review as you go along, especially of Torchlight!
Hey do you need to have all the books to start with the Torchlight curriculum?
Wow, I love your ambition, and I wish I could do the same. This is going to be a great year for you guys!
It’s a lot of books. Gulp. 😂 But I’m going to enjoy trying!
Awesome choices! You are a great mentor.. I am so new to US style of learning. You inspire me. Thanks for sharing all this of knowledge.
Can you advise on language/grammar too? Thanks in advance.
Just posted a review of Beowulf's grammar!
I am so interested in how you will put these two together. I would love to see more on that. Thanks for sharing all this great info.
Will do!
Are you using these two curricula in addition to Lightning Lit? I'm new to your channel and I just watched a couple of lightening lit videos, and I'm very intrigued. But now I see you use these two curricula as well. I'm sure there is a video explaining it all I would really appreciate you directing me to the right spot.
Hi! With my eldest, I did attempt to use all three. In the end, the winning combination for us turned out to be BYL and LL. For my less voracious readers, the combination was too overwhelming, so I pare down on the BYL list while using the entirety of LL. Hope that helps!
This is exactly what I want to do!! I couldn't decide between the two and love them both so I was going to pick and choose things and make them two week lessons. We are also all year schoolers so I am not afraid of running out of time lol.
We ended up using the TL off schedule. It was ambitious but fun!
Did you actual make a spreadsheet to combine the two curricula?! Please, will you share? :-)
Email me at contactprojecthappyhome@gmail.com. It aligns them by weeks, and does not list books to preserve their copyright.
@@ProjectHappyHome Hi there, I hope you don't mind but I also messaged you regarding the spreadsheet
Love the look of the Torchlight, however I only have a 10 year old and was advised that Level 1 would not be enough for him so we are waiting for Level 2 to come out. Looking forward to seeing your reviews on Torchlight, Build Your Library and all the other things you are using this year!
Level 2 just came out! Thanks for watching!
Torchlight looks amaaaazing!!
It’s chock full of fun books!
You are my homeschooling kindred spirit💜 #allthebooks lol
Yay! All the books, indeed. I’m trying to cam it down a bit and actually get through everything I already have. Thanks so much for watching!
You always have such good recommendations for reading material.
I love this. I’m just learning about Torchlight and it sounds amazing!
There are def parts of it that I enjoyed (art/emotion), but I ended up preferring the literature choices from BYL.
@@ProjectHappyHome that makes sense. As I’m looking more at the book lists, I’m feeling similarly.
Hello! I've been following your channels for a while and love it. I love combining curricula as well. Do you ever feel overwhelmed with all the curricula you purchased? Do you feel pressured to go over them so that money is not wasted? That's me. You mentioned a FB group of those who combine curricula. Can you please point me to it?
How do you combine Lightning Literature, Torchlight and other curricula? What's your thought of Curiosity chronicle? My 6.5 y old son just finished the ancient history one and we love it. Have you had any experience with Story of the World? If so how would you compare them?
Hi! I definitely get overwhelmed, but the secret for me is to acknowledge right at the beginning that I am not going to do ALL THE THINGS. Rather, I cherry pick books and activities from the curricula. The FB group for those that combine TL and BYL is called "Torchlight & Build your Library Families." Hope that helps!
Lol... looks extremely similar to my history bookshelf 😂 ♥️ How fun that we’ll be doing the same as far as history goes this year! Yay!
Thank you for the review, how is it working out? I've been going back and forth on these programs to supplement my kid's (10, 8, 5) education since they'll be distance learning this year and I can be more hands-on with their learning.
To be honest, I vastly prefer the literature selections of Build Your Library. Combining the two curricula was a bit overwhelming, so we shifted to incorporating the Torchlight books as fun asides. Their science, spirituality, and art books were fantastic additions to the BYL curriculum.
Thank you for the video its super helpful. So excited to get all those amazing books and read them along with the kids.
So what level is best for combined 2nd grade and 4th grade (almost 10yrold) regarding curiosity chronicles and Story of the world? Its confusing if one should start from ancient times or medieval times.
I think you can start with any period, but I preferred to start with ancients to stay in chronological order AND because ancients is such an interesting time to discuss.
Oh awesome! Thank you so much for sharing! I have been interested in both of those. Mostly just for the book list. Did you purchase all the books or are you getting some from the library?
I purchased them.
Thank you for this video! I had a very hard time deciding between BYL Level 0 and TL Level K for my daughter. This is our first year homeschooling, our much older kids are in public school, and we ended up going with BYL, even though I fell in love with Torchlight first. However, I just LOVE some of the books in the TL book list, so I'll be pulling those in too. I do not care much for the Little House in the Big Woods books though - how do you feel about those? Do you have a recommendation for an alternative? I really like the idea of incorporating the two and doing a whole year!
I don’t mind the Little House books (I just use the racist comments as an opportunity for open discussion), but I have heard that The Birchbox House series is a fabulous alternative. I use BYL and TL as frameworks, but I generally do my own thing and pull what I like from each. The booklists are fabulous for both!
How many times can I say fabulous in one comment? 😂
@@ProjectHappyHome Fabulous is one of my favorite words! 😂 I was thinking about that for the Little House books, especially since we're a blended, multiracial family. Those topics are unavoidable for us so it's actually a great learning opportunity not only for the kids, but for the entire family.
Wow that looks so awesome. How did your year end up. Did you prefer one curriculum over the other? I am thinking of combining the 2 for level 3. Have you finished your year? Thank you for the awesome video.
I should do an update. 🤓. I prefer the reading lists of BYL, particularly for literature. TL is a great program as well, but we stopped following the guide and just read the books at night or for activity fun on the weekends.
@@ProjectHappyHome thanks. Are you doing the next level of BYL this year. I saw your new post about Guest Hallows program. Looks awesome. Our kids are the same level. Did you use this with BYL. Or what else did you use. Thanks lovely. Just trying to plan our new year.
I'm actually planning on repeating BYL Level 1 with both of the younger girls this year (ages 5/7) and jumping to Level 5 with my son (almost 11).
@@ProjectHappyHome thanks for your reply lovely.
I’d love to see inside the TL curriculum. I’ve been looking at the site for a few weeks and don’t really see any samples.
What was your final thoughts on TL and BYL level 1 after having used it? I am geared up for BYL but I cant stop visiting the TL page wondering if I'm missing something haha
Have you used book shark ? If yes how do you compare it with both torchlight and build your library
I used their Reading with History in our first year of homeschooling for first grade, and while it is a very solid literature-based curriculum, I simply prefer the book choices (and price point) of Build Your Library. Their instructor guide was great, though! I wasn’t a huge fan of the literature selections in TL level 1, but I liked their extracurricular choices for art/culture/spirit. I like to look at the book lists from both when I purchase my own books for the year.
Thank you for replying as this is my first year of homeschooling what do you say for me bookshark or both torchlight and build your library if price is not a issue .I totally need guidance 😃What about Language arts of bookshark ? Sorry for too many questions . I loved the way you are handling homeschool 👍
I love people getting excited about books 😍
How's your year going with these curriculum? We've been using byl level 1 but torchlight looks awesome too...
It’s been slow going for us, but we’re enjoying both! You can hear about it in my recent homeschool update video.
In regards to BYL, does the literature choices coincide with the history??
Several of the books do relate to the time period, but others do not. It's a blend of fiction in that sense.
Trying to find your video on BYL specidically, but didn't see it in your homeschool playlist or a link in the description? Can you point me that way?
I actually never did one! We will be doing this level again for the younger kids this year, so I will do a review video soon. 😄 We’ve decides that we like BYL best of all the loving literature curricula. 🥳
Hi! So how are the programs going? I am planning on starting a combo of BYL 1 & Torchlight 1 after the holidays, I would love to hear how your experience with it is going thus far. Thanks!
Hi, I'm sorry for the delay in responding. I had an accident over the holidays and that slowed my YT workflow considerably. We have settled into working off BYL as a spine and using TL as a supplement. I really like aspects of both programs, but BYL seems to be a better fit for our family rhythm/style.
Can you link the book labels?
Also combining TL1 and BYL1 this year!!
I LOVE your monument of books!!!🥰😍🤩
I am interested in TL more for the history, I’m really interested in using Curiosity Chronicles. I think my daughter will enjoy very much the conversation style of it. I definitely can’t get both(TL & BYL) Do you find it’s necessary to do the literature part of it with history or can I just do history? My other question you kind of answer, so it’s ok to spend almost 2 school yrs in one curriculum? I’m using TGTB LA and probably their science units, maybe one that goes well with the whole ancient history. Thank you for your videos, I totally love them!
*****Edited to ask you to please, please do a review/flip through of Don’t Forget to Write! I can’t find any reviews or even to look at the pages. How does it work?
Sure, I’ll add that to my queue. I personally enjoyed BYL far more than TL, especially for the quality of the literature selections. I am not a huge fan of the CC conversational style, but I bought the audio of CC ancients so we can listen in the car. 🙂 And it is totally ok to spend 2 years on a curriculum. Or to repeat it! We will
be repeating this ancients year for the younger girls while my eldest does American history next year.
Project Happy Home , thank you so much! I will be looking forward to it, when ever you get to it!😉 I thought you would have love TL over BYL because of the books being more diverse, I appreciate you sharing that because I’m overwhelming myself..with which one to chose trying to make it diverse for my girl. But TL can cost an arm and a leg! We are multicultural, Puerto Rican(me) and Korean(my partner)... I want to bring color and truth to my homeschooling, specially to history. I definitely want to stay away from a religious history... I know Story of the World is used for some Christian curriculums...which is why I’m so hesitant to use it.. There are very few, too few, reviews on TL and even on BYL from diverse families... or ven honestly comparing the two. Anyways, thank you so very much for replying to me and for sharing your experienced opinion. I do like how involved the BYL creator is with her product and with those using her curriculum. 💗
That looks incredible!!
I love books, but we use Sonlight and have a large library.
Sonlight is a great option for literature-based curricula from what I’ve seen - especially if you’re a Christian family. 🙂
Amazing books!
This sounds so good 😊 Would love to see how its used. TFS
I’m a little scared, I’ll be honest. But right now we’re reading the books as school readers, read alouds, and nighttime reads. And we’re making it through!
Oh such a hot topic! Thank you so much for making this video. We're gearing up for BYL 1 (we loved their K) and I've always been curious about Torchlight. May I ask what you're using for Language Arts?
Hewitt Homeschooling Lightning Lit - I recently did a video. It’s been amazing so far. And a great blend with BYL.
Oh thank you - I'm off to watch now ;)
How did you end up liking this torchlight level with Curiosity Chronicles??
None of us liked the format of Curiosity Chronicles as a read aloud, but we enjoyed listening to the audio version in the car. I liked the history/art/social books of TL, but the literature selections were not great IMHO. The selections from BYL were much better in terms of literary quality for the most part. We are doing ancients again this year for the younger two and we are focusing on the BYL revised list, using the Pandia Press History Quest Ancients as our spine.
Do you use one level for all of your children?
I did that year, but the younger girls didn’t really absorb much that year (both under K), so I am redoing BYL1 foe them this year and doing level 5 with my eldest.
@@ProjectHappyHome thank you! I have a soon to be first grader and soon to be 4th grader and I’m going back and forth whether or not to combine or separate.
Omgosh!!!! I want to do this!!!! Lol
Thank you!