Episode 29 The "Extras" That Aren't Really Extra: Enriching Subjects We Love

In this week's episode of Homeschooling and Life Unfiltered with Court and Jess, we're talking about the subjects that don't always make it into the core curriculum lineup but add so much richness to our homeschool days. From poetry and Shakespeare to logic, nature study, foreign language, and more, we're sharing the "extras" we teach, why we make time for them, and how they help create a well-rounded education. Whether you're looking to add something new to your homeschool or simply curious about what we do, this episode is full of ideas and inspiration.

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Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:02

Welcome to Homeschooling and Life Unfiltered with Court and Jess, where Real Talk meets real life. Court and Jess are two friends, fellow moms, and business partners who live in different time zones and juggle homeschooling alongside motherhood and entrepreneurship. Jess is a mom of eight and Court is a mom of seven, and together they're raising 15 kids and navigating the wild, wonderful world of homeschooling, each in completely different ways. Every week we invite you to pull up a chair for honest conversations, practical tips, and uplifting encouragement. You'll hear from moms across the country who are homeschooling in a way that works best for their families. Whether you're a veteran homeschool mom just getting started, or somewhere in between, this is your space to feel seen, supported, and inspired. Because no matter how different our past may look, we are all in this together. Welcome to homeschooling and life unfiltered with Court and Jess. All right, we are wrapping up our series on different subjects, right? We've done language arts, we've done math, science, social studies, and today is all the little extra ones. Um so I think one of the perks of homeschooling, right, is we get to do all kinds of things that we don't, you wouldn't normally get, right, in a normal like brick and mortar setting. We get to do kind of a lot of children's interest things. And um they call them, I mean, I've heard them referred to often as like heart subjects, right? They're gonna be your um, you know, like your fine arts type things. Um, I don't know, the foopy stuff, but that's not a right word for it either. But it works. Yeah. All right. What do you do you want to start? What do you want to do?

SPEAKER_00 1:40

I will let Courtney start. And I will also apologize if there's any background noise or anything. This is real life. Our internet has been out. This is day two. So I am in town at a coffee shop outside. And of course it's windy. So um, but I'm so excited that we get to make it work. But I'm gonna let Courtney start because I suspect that she dives way deeper into the extra subjects than we do. So I'm gonna turn it over to her first.

SPEAKER_01 2:07

So I I brought like show and tell today, right? Because like to me, this is like a show and tell. Hey, that's perfect. Okay, so one of the things I will fully own, I I I even hate to say this, but I I really don't like poetry. Like it's not my favorite thing. I don't love it, like at all, even a little bit.

SPEAKER_00 2:23

I thought you liked it.

SPEAKER_01 2:24

Oh, I hate it.

SPEAKER_00 2:25

I I did not know that because you do it, and we even did a venture family um poetry night event, yes. And you said I was like grinding inside because I cannot stand. So I don't know how you did it.

SPEAKER_01 2:41

I have very good friends that like love poetry, right? And they're great examples to me. And so we've done a poetry night, like where we met once a month, and everybody recites something and shares something, and it's great, but it's just not my default. Like I would never do poetry unless it was like the super easy button, right? So I found the easy button, you guys. It's called Sing a Song of Seasons. It is a poem every day of the year. Here, you've got um May 25th and you know, June 16th. Like, it's it's so easy, it's beautiful, it has pretty color. They're all kind of nature-y things scheduled. So, like, hey, can I pull this out and read a poem every day at family school? Absolutely. And am I gonna check the box that we did poetry? Absolutely. I do love like you know, learning about haikus and like having the kids write haikus or limericks, or I can't even think of any other ones what we've done, but we have done that, and that's part of family school. But as far as like reading a poetry book, like torture, but this is super simple and it's big and it's easy, and it just sits on my forward-facing bookshelf so that it like stares at me until I do it. Do I do it every day? Absolutely not. And do you have I done it like one year yes, and then one year no? Absolutely. These are not subjects, the things that I'm gonna share are not things that we do every single year. Like we might rotate through some of these things. Um, nature journaling is a really fun one. Like, I mean, it's kind of a science-y thing, but like I have a bunch of really good nature kind of like textbooks. Obviously, sometimes you want to go outside, but in Arizona when it's 120 outside, I'm not doing nature outside. We're gonna look through a window maybe, or we're gonna break out some of these, or we're gonna break out a nature video and we do these fun.

SPEAKER_00 4:19

Show that show that book again. We didn't see the title, it was too quick.

SPEAKER_01 4:22

This one's called Slow Down, uh, 50 Mindful Moments in Nature. It's it's just a beautiful book. Um, but then we'll do nature cup pages. Each kid has a nature notebook, and they'll do, you know, like they'll draw whatever it is we're learning about, and then there's their facts that they did when we did turkeys at Thanksgiving one year, and um, we were doing botany, and so there's the flowers and then the different things they've learned. This has to be Delaney's notebook because it's beautiful. So she's super artistic. Mine doesn't look like this.

SPEAKER_00 4:53

So do you incorporate this into your so like when we because we've done botany, we've done some of the nature journals journaling um in certain grades, but we always incorporate into our science. So do you keep them kind of separate?

SPEAKER_01 5:05

So nature, the nature journals, it's typically something we do on um like a Friday. Like if we don't have a co-op or we have a or I'll do it more like in the summertime. Sometimes, like if we're doing botany, that kind of leads to natural journaling. So that one kind of did go in our nature journals, but but like when we're learning about turkeys for Thanksgiving, or let's say we're learning about humming, we did hummingbirds like up at the cabin. There's hummingbird peters and there's hundreds of hummingbirds. So we drew hummingbirds in our things, and then we looked up facts and things. So it's just it's kind of organic to wherever it is that we're doing and what what we're seeing. Um, I don't have a set like this is nature journaling time. It's more like, hey, we haven't done our nature journals in a while. Let's get some stuff out. And I have a whole bunch of like books, kind of like this one where it has like like the watercolory nature pictures, right? So it's pretty to look at and it has some facts. Like these, I didn't hold on, let me grab these really fast because these are really great for nature journaling. This whole series, have you ever seen these? These aren't the nature journal ones. There's like oceans and there's animals, like this series um is really good. The Julian Rothman. There's a whole bunch of those, right? So those are the things we're gonna get out, and it might inspire the kids like, hey, look through here, what do you want to learn about? Let's, you know, and then it might inspire like, oh, let's watch a video, or let's go to the library and get some more books, or let's look it up, or stuff like that. Um musical theater or not musical theater, music appreciation. I think I've shared these before. There's like 10 of them, and I've only opened like three of them. Um, but they're great, like just having there's there, so there's um a podcast that was um I actually recently just learned that they turned it into it's a YouTube channel too, and I didn't even realize. Um, but it's all about music appreciation. Let me just scroll through here really fast because it's really good and I want to share it. And it was the one thing that I didn't get a chance to classics for kids. They're super short, you know, like I don't know, they're less than 10 minutes, and they go over an um, I think it's like a week's worth. It's the same, there's like four episodes of of um like a composer, and it you learn about their life, you get to listen to their music and they're like little 10-minute things. And so we would do that as family school, which I haven't done it in a really long time, and so I probably should like bring it back. This is one that that I should bring back because it's been a hot second since we've done it. Um, but it's such a simple thing, like it's something I can turn on while we're we're making breakfast, right? Like just even those little bits of you know, something is more than nothing. And I don't really have super musical children, like we sing choir, but nobody really plays an instrument. My kids have dabbled in piano. We played, we've taken piano lessons, but it's not like a huge priority for our family, like at this time. It was before we moved, and then I got lazy and I never found a new piano teacher when I moved. And sometimes like something's gotta give. Um, something um that I like to add in is journal writing, right? That's a skill that we're gonna use forever, right? And so I have different things depending upon their level. So sometimes my kids really like these kinds, especially when they were younger, where like the words go at the bottom and then they can draw a picture. Um, I have like those journal prompts that I put up. Um, I actually have I went through one summer, it was one of my projects that I made journal prompts for the year. And so there's like four journal prompts for every week because we don't school, we only school four days a week. Um and they could choose from, you know, what do they want to journal about? They could journal whatever they wanted, but sometimes it's that like an empty page, it's too overwhelming, right? What do you what what would you want to do, or what, you know, like it's just too overwhelming. And I agree a hundred percent, like it's very overwhelming to look at a blank page and be like, well, just journal something. And my brain goes, Well, I don't have anything, but um, so just having those prompts just kind of lets the kids have an idea or a guidance. And there are things like, um, you know, if you had a thousand dollars, what would you buy? Or that's um, you know, what is one goal for this month, or what's your favorite thing to do in the season, or what's something you did yesterday that you didn't like, or I don't have no idea, but just things like that, just little short things. Um, I like to do that.

SPEAKER_00 9:11

Have you seen oh sorry, just really quickly. So I was just trying to see if I could find it. But we did a um, we're we got and we're going to be starting a three-year journal where have you heard of this? So it asks you the same question, the asking question, and then you write an answer for three years. And so I got them for us, and we're gonna each do one, so then it tracks for three years, like, well, what is your like what's your what do you want to be when you grow up or whatever? That might be one. And and so then you're gonna see what their answer was in 2025 and 26 and 27. It's kind of cool. Kenny, do you have anything of that? I don't know.

SPEAKER_01 9:48

She used to be my one kid that like was the average journaler every single day. And I will fully own it, I have been terrible my whole I always think it's a great idea, and I like to collect journals, like just the few things.

SPEAKER_00 10:00

You have the first couple pages, and all of them are filled out. This journal is gonna be different.

SPEAKER_01 10:05

Yes. So I actually have been doing this challenge with some friends, and my thing I challenged myself last, like, so this was like 10 weeks ago now, I think, was to journal every day. And so I found one of those notebooks that I had only done the first page, and I started with like gratitudes in 2025, and I think I got to like 13 things and then I never picked it up. But I forced myself to not write, just started on the next page. I was like, okay, we're starting this, and it just um um I I read a book, shocking. I read a book. Um, it was called The Frozen River, and this it was like about a midwife, and she journaled every single day. And and she would always, and sometimes it just said I stayed home. But like that was all she wrote. Like she would put the weather or something like that. That was the date, the weather, and then she would journal like who she delivered or who she talked to, or you know, whatever. It was just anyways, but I was like, I can do this, like this is silly, like I'm gonna try it. And so I challenge, and I've done it almost consistently every day for the 10 weeks. And I kept it up even after the challenge was over. There's been a few days that I've missed, just I was sick and I was like, I'm just not doing it. And I wrote in one day, I was like, I am sick. That's all I wrote. Like, but I journaled that day. Um, and then I just finished the book, The Gap in the Gain, and it talks about a daily journal um prompt. And actually, this is what I want to do with my kids. And it's um every single day you write a gratitude three things you're grateful for, and then you write three wins for today, and then three wins for tomorrow. Oh, that's cool. So good. Yes. And so I've been doing that for the last like week and a half. I've been like journaling just kind of like, hey, what happened today? And then I do that at the end, and that's kind of fun to see. And then I go back the next day and I like because I have to keep track, I like checkmark the things that were actually that were the wins that I actually did accomplish the next day, even though yeah, I I sometimes overachieve shocking, you know, like hey, I'm gonna do all these things and I don't. But yeah, but three things is totally manageable and I love it. And it also like I wake up because I do this at night before I go to bed. I wake up the next day and I was like, oh, okay, I know what I'm gonna do today because I wrote down my three wins. Sometimes I have to go back and look because I was like, what did I say again? I don't even remember. Um, but anyways, I love it. So it's been kind of fun. So that's actually what I'm gonna do for my kids this next school year. That's gonna be our journal prompt every day. It's three gratitudes, three wins from yesterday, and three wins for today.

SPEAKER_00 12:15

So you find yourself, I'm gonna digress a tiny bit with our journaling talk because I think this is so relatable to other moms too, and I think it's hilarious that we have the same pattern. I find myself when I'm journaling that I get stuck because we're like a big, I don't know if this is the reason why, but we're a big like family history family. So like I treasure anything that I would get from like a grandparent. I would like I'm always shocked when I go to thrift stores and I see like the family Bible there, and I'm like horrified. Like, how did this not get saved and cherished? Right. But so I every time I'm journaling, I feel like, okay, this is a family heirloom. I can't, I can't be real. I what if what if I you know get hit by a truck tomorrow and my kids read this? It has to be all positive and all sunshiny, and I it really like makes me stall out.

SPEAKER_01 13:04

But that does a disservice to your future generations if everything is sunshine roses.

SPEAKER_00 13:09

Okay, that is such I needed to hear that. See, it's a good thing I asked it. Um because yeah, I really struggle with that, and I don't want to put anything negative because you know, if it has to do with like, oh, this kid smashed a window today on an accident with a with a baseball, like I would feel bad.

SPEAKER_01 13:30

Three granddaughters from now, and they're like they have this crazy child that they don't know what to do with, and they look back. Like, I wish I'd have kept a journal when the kids were younger because I think they would super appreciate knowing like yeah, what was my day-to-day life back then? Because it's a lot different than what they see now, right?

SPEAKER_00 13:45

Um that is true, that's very true. I'm glad I brought this up. This is very helpful. And if I was reading my grandmother's journal, I would want real life. I would want to know, like, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 13:55

You relate to my normal, right? Right, and it makes it interesting.

SPEAKER_00 14:00

That's true, that's very true. Okay, good. I love it. Maybe I can get into it. Sometimes I'll report back.

SPEAKER_01 14:05

Yeah, half the time I say, like, we couldn't even make this stuff up. Like, I couldn't even like come up with this on my own brain, right? But like something like this would happen. Yeah, it's very true. So, okay, what else do you do? I love the idea of journal, right? So, do journal. Okay, um, so logic thinking. So there's like this one, and there's like the fallacy detective um doing logic puzzles, like those are so fun. And then my other one that I have like more hate than love, right? But I still think it's necessary, is we do Shakespeare. And we'll normally do like two a year, and we kind of rotate. We'll might do it one year and we might do it next. But we have a Shakespeare theater that comes through, like does really good plays, right? Because Shakespeare is meant to be seen and said out loud and like, you know, like performed, right? That's what I'm looking for. But Shakespeare's heart. So I have I I think it was probably a thing, something from Read A Loud Arrival or something from maybe better together with Pam Barnhill, but it was how to do Shakespeare, like how to teach your kids Shakespeare, no matter their age, right? So we start with like a little YouTube video that's like a little four-minute clip. And I really like the ones where they draw them out, like there's quite a few done like that. So it's just an overview of like, hey, what what are we doing? Like, what is this play about, right? Because it's so hard to understand. And then I found this at Costco, and it's um oh I have it. So it's like this super tiny, right? With pictures, little thing. So we're gonna watch the video, then we watch this or we read this out loud, and then I have this beautiful, it's just so pretty. The Osborne Shakespeare. Yeah. So then we're gonna read this, right? And then we talk about the difference. Like we really talk about like, you know, they're condensed versions, right? They're abridged, right? It's the word I'm looking for. Um, like what was in this one, and then what was in this one? Um, and then we will go. Oh, I don't normally like read the whole thing, right? Because it's just sometimes really dry or boring. But then we go watch it, right? So, but they know what they're gonna see, they're gonna understand what they're seeing because we've had all these experiences of learning what the play is about and who the characters are, and um, so that that's been the easiest, most fulfilling way, I think, to do Shakespeare. And I have taught Shakespeare. Like, I like I don't know if you're familiar with like the TJLA um like framework of like I've taken the class to like teach Shakespeare, and we taught Shakespeare with the kids, and they like my older girls read like 27 Shakespeare plays, and they they took this like massive Shakespeare course. Yeah, um, my younger kids have not done that because they have zero interest in it, but my big girls didn't, and it included like a play that they put on, right? Um, but this is just a much more reasonable because I want my kids to be exposed to it, but like yes, they don't have to love it. Like, I don't really love it, like it's yeah, some of the stuff is more familiar than others, but we normally just kind of do it on whatever play it is that they're cut bringing that year, and that's the play we study. Um, there's a few that like you don't want to do, right? And so when the plays come, I'm like, oh, it's not. And so I've been able to find like you can watch um like plays on YouTube, right? There's hundreds of them of different performances.

SPEAKER_00 17:08

I know you have at least one kiddo that likes graphic novels. Have you found any of the Shakespeare graphic novels? Oh, I haven't even looked. They're really good. I know I was trying to look quick since I'm not home. Um, but um Osborne has um some of them, and I can't remember some of the other ones, but if you just Google them, I found some just recently at a uh bookstore. I found these really big books, and they're graphic, but they're more they're less is right. There's a difference between a graphic novel and a comic book, uh in my opinion. I don't really understand the difference. What is the difference? Could you tell me yeah, for me, right? Yeah, I think it's but I think that's really what it comes down to is like it's it's length, the way that it's laid out, it's telling a whole story. I and I could be I I don't want any hate for this because I am not a comic book. I have nothing to do with comic books, but this one felt more comic booky, like it was much shorter, um, but very well done. They're and they're really large, um, but thin like a comic book. But um and I guess for me when I think comic books, I don't think like classic novels and like classic works. So maybe that's where I'm differentiating more.

SPEAKER_01 18:18

Um I feel like comic books are just like little chapters of like a whole, like you could put 50 comic books together and yes at a book, right?

SPEAKER_00 18:25

Yeah, yeah, for sure. But anyways, look for those graphic novels.

SPEAKER_01 18:28

They're actually really good. Um, okay, so the last subject I think I probably add in, I'm probably forgetting some too, but this this is like off the top of my head, like these are the ones that I need to rotate back in because we haven't done in a while. Um, is art history, art appreciation. Oh I love these simply Charlotte Mason ones. So it has like the picture, and you do the picture study, and then it has the description and it talks about it. So it's very simple, right? I'm all about, I want the easy button for some of this stuff, right? Like my brain cannot come up with all things. I don't want to recreate the wheel. I want to spend 20 bucks and you know, get this and be able to stick it up. And normally, um, what I do with these is I used to have like a little um, I got it at Ikea. I do a lot of things at Ikea. They have a lot of really good things. It's one of those, um, it's actually, I think, a curtain, like a metal, like um, like flimsy curtain. It has like hooks on it. Like we hung pictures from it, like we hang on it, but I think it's actually made for curtains. Um, but anyway, so just having them out. And they just look at them and they talk and and you know what I mean? Like it's just exposure, right? We're exposing our kids to something, something good, something they wouldn't normally be exposed to if we didn't make effort. And we have like some coffee table books and like Norman Rockwell is like my favorite artist, so I have like some Norman Rockwell stuff in my house, but um we normally will do some kind of like make our own art, or I found a bunch of really good, there's coloring books for almost every like artist, and it's just like black and white copies of like their work, right? The starry night one, and then um, you know, they can color them while we're we're learning, just have them out that they can color while they're listening to an audiobook or just things like that. Just it's exposure, right? It's just and if they're more interested in it, then we're gonna dive a little deeper. But um, I don't know, that's pretty much it.

SPEAKER_00 20:15

I love it. I think it's great. Um, so I won't repeat all the ones that you said. We do a lot of very similar things than that you do as well for our extras. Um some of our extras happen through our extracurriculars, like our fine arts. Like we have dancers. I know you have dancers too. I have kids who are very heavily into musical theater. We've done a ton of musical theater, so that's a big part of who we are. Um, music is a big part of our life. Um, you know, piano, violin, harp, like we've we've done it all. We have some kids who are very talented in music. Um all of my kids sing. Um, so we do all kinds of you know, singing showcases and just different things. We just we do a lot of a lot of musical things, choir. My kids are all in choir, um, guitar, that kind of stuff. So music's a big part of our life. Um, but aside from that, some of the things that we do that are kind of a little bit different, we do art history too. And I just want to mention that because I never at the start of this journey never thought art history would be something that I would do with my kids. I only did it because it was part of our co-op. Um and I now have a child who is taking art history classes for fun at college and considering a minor in art history. Like it is such a rich experience. Um, we love to go to art galleries and go to art um museums and things like that. It's fun when you're consistent because like at a certain age, all of my kids draw star, they learn about the the different we have a whole year where they're learning about um artists, and then they do some of the work like Starry Night. So I have a picture of Starry Night drawn by my children all at the very same age in a flexion of. So it's super fun. Um, and um we do like the spart that we do ever have the spot the difference in the art books. Oh yeah. Those are really fun. So like there's just lots of ways to make it really fun. It doesn't just have to be like reading about the artists, make it interactive, do have them redraw the picture. Um, you know, learn about the a lot of the artists have really colorful stories, I guess we'll say, that are really interesting. Um for kids. I mean, you might have to preview some of the information, right? Because some of it's a little too colorful. Um, but there's a lot of just really interesting um stories and lots of um lots of it can spur lots of good discussion. Um, we talk about composers as well, um, some of our favorite songs and hymns, um, like the It Is Well With My Soul song and the history and why that was created. If you don't know, please go and research um about that composer and and this tragic story of his family. And I mean just gives so much power and meaning to that that song. Um, so we do some of that. I also have a really good um classical music curriculum that was almost untouched, it remains almost untouched. Um, so you just do the best that you can. But some of the other things we do, we do a little homemaking class with my daughters. Um and it's only it's with my daughters because my sons are not too old, but we put a lot of intentional effort into homemaking skills for all of our kids, cooking and laundry, all of those things. Um, all my kids have been really grateful for that um that part of their education. Um uh the other we do some logic, the fallacy detective is one of our favorites. A lot of times I'm following the needs of the season, right? So we might, like right now, we're going through um a goals challenge with my kids based off of one that Courtney got me connected with, which is really good. So we're doing it with our kids, and there might be a time where we need a little bit of extra care uh character development if we're dealing with some pride issues or some some sort of behavior issues. So sometimes just our season um and the needs of the family drive um the extras that we do or holiday, right? We've got the big 250th anniversary coming up. Um and so we're gonna be doing a lot of American history in the month of June and kind of a countdown for that. So that's pretty exciting. Um, we also you mentioned this in one of our other podcasts here recently, but like games and puzzles are kind of an extra on its own, right? And we try to make some of them are educational, some of them are just fun and strategy and working together and just family time, but they're they're still great. Um, we do a lot of civics type government work. So Institute on the Constitution is one of my favorites that we've done, really good. We've done classes um through Hillsdale, which I highly recommend. They're free, they have such good, such good uh course offerings, and you can see um both of those that are just mentioned, Institute of the Constitution and Hillsdale. You can see if your kiddo is progressing, how far they've gone, all of those things. So it's and it's all well, Institute and the Constitution is not free, but the Hillsdale one is so many good specialty classes, especially for your middle school to high school high schoolers. Um, and then the other thing that we do, the last one I'm gonna make well, I guess two more. Um, three more. So one uh we do is scripture study, which I know that you guys do as well. We just feel it out there. We try to do a lot of fun things, just different things of scripture study. I have little like um one act plays through the Bible and like little finger puppets and things. So we just try to make it fun and interactive and be consistent with it. Um we have a daughter who wants to be a cosmetologist, so we bought her a bunch of like hairdresser stuff, and like she'll do that for some of her school time sometimes and pull out her mannequin and test new techniques and watch some videos and things like that. So we're really just supporting their passions and interests as well. Um and then we we do um Latin with the kids through classical conversations, and so that starts when they're pretty young, and then that's our second language that we take through. Uh, and then the last thing I was gonna mention, I'm so interested to know if you've heard this. We do driver's ed at home. So we do a homeschooling version of driver's ed. It's called Drive Safe, Ride Safe, and we've been so happy with it. We went to their courses and got certified in it. You don't have to get certified, but you can get like certified to have less driving hours required. We still make our kids get all the driving hours that are required, and they still have to go drive with a driver at a school, but they take the classes at home, and it's all video based. It is so excellent. Um, they talk about how the little book that they have, everybody wants to follow that little book. And I don't actually don't know if it's different state by state. Um, so this could only be relevant for Minnesota, and I can be giving bad information. But in Minnesota, there's like this little tiny book you have to follow, and it's super out, like it's not necessarily outdated, but it's never been updated for many, many years. And so they just take this guy that runs the and we are not affiliated with them, so we're not getting anything for saying this. But um he was a crash uh crime, a crash scene investigator for a ton of years. So he has he really teaches how kids how to be defensive drivers. Like he has seen the worst of the worst accidents, and his mission is out to you know basically prevent those for our children. So really good course. Um it's called Drive Safe, Ride Safe. So I highly recommend it.

SPEAKER_01 27:53

Yeah. As permit drivers, is there a book that they have like they're required to go through?

SPEAKER_00 27:58

So the they're the course takes them through that little book.

SPEAKER_01 28:04

But is it required by the state of Minnesota to go through that book?

SPEAKER_00 28:08

I don't know. I think so.

SPEAKER_01 28:10

I'm like, I've never heard of that. We don't have that in Arizona. I don't know.

SPEAKER_00 28:12

It's just a little companion. Are you guys required to do driver's ed?

SPEAKER_01 28:16

No.

SPEAKER_00 28:17

Oh what? You don't have to do driver's ed? It's not required. You can just go in and get your license.

SPEAKER_01 28:23

Well, you have to do your hours, but like your parents, like there's no requirement to take a class or have driver's ed.

SPEAKER_00 28:29

You don't have to drive around with anybody or anything?

SPEAKER_01 28:31

Yeah, you have to have so many hours, you know, whatever the hour like with a person. With a with uh somebody over the age of 25.

SPEAKER_00 28:38

Oh, so not a certified instructor.

SPEAKER_01 28:40

No. Uh-uh.

SPEAKER_00 28:41

Okay, so here you are required to take a class. Yeah, that's okay. So first you you take your you take your um your uh permit test permit test. And then you have to take a class to get a certain card, which then gives you permission to drive with a certified instructor for a certain amount of hours, and you have to have a certain amount of hours with your parents or you know, somebody older. Um, and certain amount of nighttime hours and daytime hours. Yeah, so interesting my state. Yeah. So, but I really appreciate it. So, but even for a state like yours where it's not required, this drive safe, ride safe is I highly recommend it, right?

SPEAKER_01 29:18

I I have my kids, my kids do drivers up because I require it. Yeah, like it's not something that the state requires.

SPEAKER_00 29:25

I read somewhere that the most dangerous, like, leave it to me. Courtney's gonna roll her eyes because she knows this is how my brain works. Like the most dangerous day of your life is the day you're born, right? That's the most likely day that something is gonna happen to um, but then it's your 16th year, and because we have all these kids that are, let's be honest, not probably mentally mature enough to really be driving around this massive like vehicle that is potentially very dangerous. Um, and so uh, and I'm a little biased too because I was in a really severe accident um with a teenage driver, not me, a reckless teenage driver when I was young and was really severely injured. And so I'm just a little extra sensitive to, but truly this course is so phenomenal and so well done. And I feel like my kids are better drivers because of it. So again, not a pitch for them, but it kind of came out that way.

SPEAKER_01 30:23

Sorry, she came in to get the baby bouncer, so it's noisy over there. No, you're good. You're right. I was gonna say the one thing you guys do more is uh language, right? Like I have dabbled in Spanish. We've dabbled, like we've done Pimbler. Um, we did that for a long time. It was it's it's you know, like it says something and you repeat it. Like we did it as part of family school when like the girls were younger. Um, and then like my kids have done Duolingo, oh yeah, things like that. But um, we've never done a formal like Audrey took French because that's what that was her choice, right? Um, through power homeschool, she took French. Um so they've kind of dabbled, and I had to had kids do like um a sign language in my fingers, and like, what is that one called sign language? But not um, we've never done it as like a full-on like course as a family.

SPEAKER_00 31:09

Those are more like high school things, but we we also did Mandarin for several years. Um and that was one of my favorite. I mean, I had two little girls that speak pretty well man in Mandarin, um, and we did it throughout school, and it was expensive, but really good. Um, and so eventually they switched to just um just uh mostly Latin is the only thing I require, but they do they love to explore languages with Duolingo and things like that. So they do some of that. But why I love Latin so much is because it's like a it's like a 5k for the brain, like it really does help make new connections and just it it just really is a great exercise for the brain, but also lays the foundation for learning other languages and actually can help with your English grammar as well. So it's awesome. We love it.

SPEAKER_01 32:00

Yeah, all right, I love it. Okay, I also wanted to hear like what other people do, right? Especially the extras, because these are all you know the fluffy extras, they're not anybody's required, but um, I the only thing we did talk about is actually doing art, right? Like art is also one of our subjects. Yes, learning the art techniques and like actually, you know, learning a new skill and things like that. We'll do um, you know, so I I kind of haven't done it this year because it's part of Good and the Beautiful, like they do art techniques throughout, so I haven't taught it separately this year, but we also do art a lot of co-op, like those are really good co-op classes, yeah. Um, to bring in those art because it's somebody who's passionate skill. Like I think it's fun sometimes, but I'm not great at it, you know what I mean? Um, but I can do a drawing video. I love those, those are fun, you know, like learning little, just all kinds of things like that. So, and it's if the kids are super passionate and interested in it, then it kind of inspires everyone to be because they're gonna be like, Hey, I want to do more of this. And I have like my son who's the most non-art is that a boy thing, like he's very not artistic, like he doesn't he hates it really, like it's torture, but we make him do it sometimes, anyways. But it's the kind of culture getting him to do art.

SPEAKER_00 33:11

Yeah, we do an art curriculum through our co-op, and so we do get a a good amount of art, but you can also incorporate art into like I just bought a book the other day from a thrift store um drawing Bible characters, like drawing through the Bible, like you can do drawing through history, drawing drawing through um geography, like there's all kinds of cool things you can do as well. Yeah, I have a whole shelf full of things like that.

SPEAKER_01 33:37

Like these are all the different things. Yes. Again, it's just exposure and again, pulling those out so they're forward-facing, just randomly bringing them out. Like the how to draw books, just randomly bringing them out. They're like, oh, I forgot we had that. And then they sit down and do it. So I think oh, go ahead. No, I was just gonna say there's a lot of value in just like re-rotating your stuff out. Things that we haven't like when I was going to do this, it made me remember like all these things that I was like, oh, we haven't done any of these things in a long time. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 34:02

I think you just hit on something that's really important and you said it's about exposure. So it's kind of like sports for us. We put our kids in a ton of different sports when they're little, little, so we can see what they're drawn to and where they have some natural ability and skill, and then we can, you know, focus as they get older into one sport. I don't expect that every sport that my four-year-old plays, or five-year-old or six-year-old, that they're gonna play it as a sixth, seventh, eighth, ninth grader plus. Um, it's the same thing here. You expose them to Shakespeare, and you might have one daughter who loves it. You expose them to art history, and you might have one who majors in college in art history. Um, but I wouldn't force any of them. I think we want to be clear to our audience, we're not saying, you know, if your kids also hate Shakespeare, I don't think you should force it on them repeatedly, right? Give them enough to be exposed. Give them enough. In my so I always talk about preparing my kids to be a part of the great conversation. Can they contribute something meaningful to almost any conversation that they step into? Give them just enough exposure to Shakespeare that they can have an intelligent conversation on a surface level with somebody who wants to talk about Shakespeare. Um, and so that's that's kind of the approach that we take.

SPEAKER_01 35:09

That's funny. I always say that they have to have enough exposure to be able to give an educated answer as to why they might not like it. You know what I mean? Like you have to be able to explain like you know why, you know, in a anyway. So all right. I love it. This is so fun. Okay, next week we are um gonna talk about summer, like what we're doing in summer. Like, what does summer mean? Are we schooling? Are we doing special schedules? Are we doing whatever it is that we're what our summers look like? Which I swear our summers keep getting shorter and shorter and shorter.

SPEAKER_00 35:40

In Arizona, like they start school like the end of July. Our summers are so short. I'm glad that we don't. We start at the beginning of August, and that feels soon enough.

SPEAKER_01 35:49

I'm boycotting. I'm not starting. I'm like, we're gonna do a slow roll, and we're gonna like the schools can go back, and like my kids like take some religious education classes at the school, and like we can't change that, right? So you can go do that, but like we don't have to start our our real school type stuff that's it that early. Like, we're gonna do a slow roll this year. So love it, love it. All right, this is yeah, we can we can. I love the ability to can't, like we can we can start as we although I always get anxious and excited when school starts. Like right now, I'm like I do too. I was like, ugh, I can't even think about it. But I know once I get there, I'm like, okay, let's start. Let's go. I've come just ready for a routine by the end of the summer.

SPEAKER_00 36:26

But yep, amen. All right, great conversation. Thank you. Thanks, bye.