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SUMMARY

Get ready for an enlightening episode of the Christy-Faith Show, where our special guest, Rachel Figg, shares insights that’ll make you rethink education! Tune in as Rachel delves into the magical world of enrichment subjects like music, art, STEM, and PE, revealing how they mold young minds in ways we never imagined. From sparking creativity to honing critical thinking skills, Rachel paints a vivid picture of how these subjects lay the foundation for lifelong learning. Discover the surprising connections between music and math, and how incorporating elective subjects into homeschooling can revolutionize the way we approach education. Join Christy and Rachel for an eye-opening conversation that’ll leave you inspired to infuse joy and curiosity into your homeschooling journey. 

TAKE-AWAYS

• Homeschooling is not about filling children’s brains with information, but teaching them how to think, learn, and function in the real world.
• Incorporating art, music, physical education, and STEM into homeschooling helps develop critical thinking skills and fosters creativity.
• Enrichment subjects like art and music can be taught in a low-pressure, exploratory way, allowing children to have fun and learn new skills.
• Connecting subjects to real-world applications and interests helps make learning more meaningful for children.
• It’s important to curate educational experiences for children based on their interests and strengths.

ABOUT TODAY’S GUEST

Learn more about Rachel Figg, Sparks Schooling, and The AMPS Learning Library here… 

• https://hub.sparkschooling.com/p/lp
• https://www.instagram.com/spark_schooling/
• https://www.youtube.com/@thehandsonhomeschool
• https://www.facebook.com/groups/thehandsonhomeschool

TRANSCRIPT

Our kids brains are not a computer we're not filing information into our kids brains we're teaching them how to think how to learn and how to function in the real world welcome to the Christy Faith show where we share game changing ideas with intentional parents like you I'm your host Christy Faith experienced educational adviser and homeschool Enthusiast together we'll explore ways to enrich and transform both your life and the lives of your children hello hello everybody Welcome to the Christy Faith show where again this week we are going to bring you game-changing ideas to transform both your life and the lives of your kids we have a special guest here today A friend of mine Rachel Figg she is a homeschooling mom of four and the creator of spark schooling she developed the amps learning library offering self-paced classes in art music PE and stem to homeschool families Rachel is dedicated to partnering with parents to provide a well-rounded education and she lives with her husband Chris and their children in upstate South Carolina Rachel fig I am so glad that you came here today to spend time with us and one thing I love about what you do is you do all the stuff I don't want to do in my home school right right I mean that's how I initially found you was where can I find electives for my kids we were kind of I found you first because we were between co-ops I still you know co-ops are usually where we do the science experiments and the electives and the PE and the running around and we had a season where we were between co-ops and I found you and truly your program was a Haven for us we uh are doing art every Friday with your amazing art teacher which you offer so much more that I'm excited to talk about but the reason why I wanted on today was to talk about meaningful ways to connect kids and their learning with other things and to talk about how to cultivate a curiosity with our kids and even if they aren't curious naturally but first I want you to introduce yourself will you share a little bit about who you are and how you came to be this lover of the beautiful yeah well I am so happy to be here thank you so much again for inviting me to be on your show so I started my career my background is in music education and I grew up around music I grew up playing instruments grew up loving music class at school and all of those things that I just wanted to be a music teacher so I went to school and became a music teacher had several years that I that I taught in the public schools before I started to stay home with my kids and eventually start homeschooling and it was around this time when I started home schooling and started to really be you know Gathering all of the curriculum and all of the things that I noticed that there was a lack of the subjects of all of the things that I loved I loved music and I wanted art and I wanted you know this Hands-On stem you know application like putting together math and and Science and putting getting kids excited to move and play games those PE games and stuff like that so I that's where the idea came from that's where I started to start feel this itch like I just wish there was something like I wanted those I wanted art classes for my kids and I just didn't want to drive somewhere yeah so you know so I started to just have this whole thing like Milling around in my mind like I want more and I just felt like The Homeschool Community just wanted more and could have more and could have of this beauty like you were talking about and and eventually I just made something like that myself that's that's how so many things start like I had someone on I had another person on and they're like well I needed it so I made it and then someone said you should sell it yeah exactly exactly and it really I mean I could teach my kids music and I was um teaching them like all these fun you know game songs and about composers and fun ways but I was like I really wanted art and I was like you know who I want to teach art to my kids I want Katherine strong to teach te art to my kids and so when I came around to to creating this I got Catherine strong to teach art to my kids and now she's teaching your kids too and all these other kids it's great yeah it is great and and she's so good at making teaching like the the theory of it but the product I I remember taking art classes in school and I would learn something like perspective but I wouldn't have a cool product at the end of the lesson it was just I learned how to draw the lines and but right off the bat her very first lesson they come up with this beautiful aquarium and they feel so accomplished yeah but I want to talk to you a little bit about you have really become an advocate for this stem bringing Beauty into the home schools and making making a voice for hey look I know all of us moms are obsessed with the core subjects of course we are we want our kids we want them to read we want them to have what they need now and we want them prepared for a bright future whether that be degree free or college we still want them prepared and one thing I love about your voice is how you say hey look the other subjects are just as important and enrich our lives and I would love for just for to take a moment I want to hit play on you where you just talk about your heart a little bit on how these other pieces are things not to forget in our homeschools and how they enrich our homeschool lives yeah that's so important and we you know you were saying that about the court subjects we we have to do that we have to include those and sometimes we get we get so busy with those that it's easy to say well we'll put that off until until later and the really cool thing about the enrichment subjects subjects like like music or art and stem and and even PE is that they do things in our kids' brains that we don't even know and and understand because they are using higher order thinking skills they're learning to evaluate situations they're they're looking at their art projects and and evaluating that they're they're listening to themselves play you know music or play musical instruments or read rhythms and they're analyzing what is being done in front of them and then they're evaluating their play you know they the way they're playing and and coming up with new ideas and creative ideas and all of these things are higher order thinking skills and those skills and the creativity that they learn through just through doing these fun things it doesn't have to be anything you know intense but just these fun activities in these enrichment subject areas can help our kids to develop these critical thinking skills these higher order thinking skills that carry over like that it's changing their brains and the way the pathways are being created in their brains in such a fun and low pressure way so that when they start you know getting into harder Concepts in their core subjects there those neural Pathways have been created and those critical thinking those higher order thinking skills that creativity comes into play and they they get it and they get those Core Concepts those core things on even on such a deeper level and they're able to think outside their Bo the box they're able to think creatively and they're used to not knowing it it's they're used to not knowing the outcome right away so they're curious and they let that Curiosity lead them down that path and being okay with not knowing that you know the very finite you know like one plus one equals to you know it's like Discovery and wonder so it's it's a really fun way to play with education and allow them to just experiment and and go in a different direction that all kind of leads back to just someone who loves learning somebody who just is is excited and curious and and always wants to learn more yes that's so vital and I think that because most of us did not experience a a non-traditional education most of us were probably put through the public school system or maybe a private school that looked very similar probably used the same curriculum as the as the public schools I think that one thing that is really hard to let go of as a homeschool parent is this piece that if it's fun it's not school and actually I think it's in Peter Gray's Book free to learn he talks about one he talks about one that when learning is done through play the retention is like incredibly higher like way way higher unbelievably higher which actually saves time right but also there's this piece of why do we feel like learning has to be work and it's not and by the way music is Hard music is hard but we consider it an elective and I always tell my kids they will always do something with music until they graduate but one of the re and I am not I regret my parents let me quit instruments all throughout because I would give them push back and they didn't have a lot of money anyway so they would just kind of let me quit I hold no fault to them but one of the I early on I read the research on what you were saying on this these neurological Pathways with musicians their brains are so differently wired than people who aren't musicians and this is why you get these musicians who are amazing mathematicians that's not an accident this is what happened in their brains can you talk a little bit more about this this piece of this play and the Brain development and why that is equal to math or another core subject yeah yeah so the way that you know math is very analytical it's very you know just it's out there you know it doesn't seem very creative but even through the research that they're doing in in math they're saying that if you can pull in the creative side of it if you can pull in that creativ into it and you can help kids visualize it and and play with it that they are going to retain it and learn these math concepts even faster so I know for my own kids and that doing math through play has been so vital for for them just learning about numbers and how number number numbers work just that has made it so much better for them to learn these difficult Concepts when they see it acted out or they're cooking in the kitchen or they're you know they're learning the fractions and my my son one of my kids just finished a unit in math on fractions he was like that was so easy well guess what he's my my Baker he is always baking and he's always M we always we have a larger family so we always are doubling recipes so he's you know he's doing this all the time he loves it and and it's just playing with it it's not something we do for school necessarily but it is you know it's that creative peace and those connections that we're bringing in from The Real World to make it make sense to to our kids so when you see something in the core subjects that's that are just laid out there and it's just words on the page to them and it has no meaning then it's really hard for them to visualize to visualize that and you know and going back to what you said about musicians thinking differently and there was one time when I was in school when I was teaching that we had this math of all things this this math seminar that all the teachers had to go to so as a music teacher I'm sitting in this math seminar and we were all I was sitting at the table with our art teachers and our PE teachers and all the other extra um type people and they gave us this problem to creatively come up with you know however many ways you could solve this problem our table had the most and we were done the fastest guys demolished we did we did but our brains are wired so differently because we are mus we were the music teachers and the art teachers and the like we think differently so it's just it just goes to show like there's definite you know this is a definite thing like this when we can be creative with our learning and we can be make it meaningful for our kids it just leads to such better outcomes before we continue I want to share with you a program that has been a game changer for our family at our Learning Center we instructed and helped kids through pretty much every program on the market so we know firsthand just how important a solid math Foundation is for our kids' Futures finding the right homeschool math curriculum that didn't compromise academic Excellence but also didn't put me and my kids through the ringer was a challenge until one day I found CTC math you guys the rest was history first off it's a Master based program which means your child gets a full grasp of the material it's also loaded with mixed reviews ensuring your kids don't forget anything they've learned the questions are adaptive too which keep students confident and progressing at their own pace but the best part all the teaching grading and testing done for you with CTC math there is no compromise on Excellence your child gets a top notot to education and you just made your homeschool life easy visit CTC math to get your free trial today whether you're newer to homeschooling or you've been homeschooling over a decade the fact is creating a streamlined successful home school is hard the pressure is high and the weight of responsibility often leads to self-doubt second guessing and feeling completely overwhelmed with the excessive amounts of opinions and ccul options out there we love our kids and at the same time the stakes are high we don't want to mess this up so how do we build a home school that our kids will thank us for when they're adults and one that you have 100% confidence in the first step to pulling all of that off is joining Thrive homeschool Community Thrive homeschool Community is where you learn The eight-step Homeschool success framework to build an undeniably successful H School each year and each kid presents us with Uncharted Territory but when you have a good plan the right plan you can rest in the security and conf confidence that you are doing a great job the path is easy join Thrive say a quick hello to your new friends start The eight-step Homeschool success framework and kiss anxiety goodbye it's risk-free no contracts you can cancel any time no questions Des go to christ-focused and you know one thing in my homeschool is I did what you mentioned earlier when I first started out homeschooling I was really just replicating what you know I wasn't fully deschool yet this is why I spent an entire chapter on I I like to phrase deschooling more as I like to call it restorative thinking because I want to restore what a true education is and I feel like you can't put things take something away without replacing it with like when you quit smoking or when you you don't lose weight by stop eating you lose weight by replacing the foods with healthier more nutritious Foods right so what's this restorative thinking piece to it but one of the things when I first started homeschooling is I was so anxious ridden with is that even a word anxious ridden is that even a phrase I had so much anxiety over finishing everything that by the time and I had I was my oldest was five six I had 2-year-old twins I had a seven-month-old baby when we finally finished those core subjects I was exhausted I and I didn't get to those things that I that were the reason why I was homeschooling in the first place and I knew that I wanted to get to Art and music and composer study and listening to classical music and doing art studies exposing our eles to the great thinkers of our time but I was too exhausted and the one thing that I had to realize was that there's only so many hours in the day and I am only human and so what it took though was I really had to deschool myself a little bit and say okay why am I why is the entire day packed with all these core things how important are they really and is my kid falling in love with learning and that's a really great qu great question for our listeners to ask themselves right now evaluate your homeschools for a second are your children falling in love with learning and I know that's something Rachel that you're passionate about how can incorporating these Beauty subjects and stem into our home which you could I would consider stem all of the stem Beauty subjects how can we incorporate these to really ultimately build the home schools That We're Dreaming of anyway but we're not able to accomplish because we're too ding-dong tight right yes and and you're not alone with the whole like it took a long time to reframe that and and for me as well and I was very even from the beginning very passionate about including music in my home school and I was having a hard time getting that making time for that so if anyone is listening and thinking the same thing like if yes you are not alone and I've had I have had art teachers and music teachers sign like sign up for my program because the same thing like former art teachers former music teachers sign their kids up sign their kids up for for our membership and for our programs because they value it but they don't have the time so it's a very common a very common thing but I think that the key to getting these things in and to making it make sense for your kids is to is to connect it like to have resources that are available things that you can just plug in that it makes sense and it helps your kids to go you know take it a level deeper to become a little bit more curious about what they're learning because it's connected to something else so for for example there are a couple of art classes that are that that we offer in our program that are connected to ancient Egypt so there's a a beautiful lesson that's that's the Egyptian star night and it's drawing the pyramids but putting it kind of into Van Go Star night so you can so you're learning geometry you could plug that in with you know if you're learning geometry you could plug that in drawing the pyramids plug it in to ancient history and also art history learning van go so we're we're learning all of these things and even if you aren't you know doing ancient Egypt right then you know there hear about ancient Egypt eventually and it's going to or maybe you did a few years ago and it's going to connect that learning and it's going to make it so much more meaningful to your kids and then they might say well what else can I draw or what else you know maybe they want to learn more about van Gogh or maybe they want to learn more about drawing three-dimensional shapes or maybe they want to learn more about ancient Egypt you know so they that could spark that love for learning in any of those areas or something or oil pastels because that's the medium that's being used so maybe we want to learn more about oil pastels and do more oil pastel projects so there's so much that can be sparked from just just something like that like and bringing it in maybe you've connected it to ancient Egypt but now they're on an oil pastel you know Journey so it's it's bringing in these new things that are connected in some way and allowing them to take whatever they're curious about out and run with it after that I love that and you know what brought what was brought to my mind when you were saying that is I think that a lot of us feel like we have to do these units like we're now doing an ancient Egypt unit and everything we do has to be every art project all that I just want to give mamas the freedom right now who are listening it's more beneficial to have the random popups okay so for example my we've done that star night ancient Egypt one yes yesterday we were at our science museum in downtown Denver and they were begging me to go see the mummies and then they were it was reinforced again there was a gentleman that had the cart and he was going over the mummification process at his little cart and that reinforcement you know that is where the retention happens it's not when you've spent three weeks covering one thing and then you move on and never revisit that again doing that retention piece of revisiting things so yeah and that's the beauty about doing a more interest Le homeschool with some subjects is that you can take that little bunny trail and it's not a wasted time at all if anything it's going to spark a new interest and maybe give you an idea for something else and then circling back it's just all this our brain categorizes things beautifully it does a lot of work for us and our kids and so it took me a while because I was you were two teacher I was a teacher in the classroom where it was like I did and I taught history and literature and language arts writing and so it was like we are now doing our unit on World War II and it was everything had to be related to that and then we never visited it again well how are those kids going to retain what they learned they're not they're not it's when you keep cycling back and revisiting really cool things that interested them is you know so the last I've changed the way I do things like we are not currently in World War II history but our read aloud this last month was The Hiding Place with Corey ten Boom because there it doesn't matter it doesn't need to fit tightly in a box right no and it it can for some things and it and you can and then other times it doesn't have to you know so you you can do it however it falls and just be care or just be thankful that it did and be thankful for these learning opportunities that came up that time at the museum with your kids like that's that is that's a delight when that happens when you see your kids that get excited over something that you covered you know a while ago like that's and it's so much more freeing because we know that when our kids are curious and love learning we don't have to worry that they're going to you know like be bored ever because they're going to want to find out more and if you had tried to cram all of that ancient Egypt stuff in together and it was ancient Egypt okay let's go to the let's go to the Science Museum now or let's go let's go to Egypt I mean like let's do everything Egypt that we could possibly do you know they might be like okay Mom gosh Egypt you know like and and then not want anything else to do with it but when they come back to it and we're not stressed about it we're not pointing out every little Egyptian thing we can they can start to develop those interests on their own and see things and and be like wow that was so cool I mean we do this as adults we do this outside the classroom this is how we learn and I was explaining that to my kids the other day because you know they were talking about like when are we going to be done with school like when how long do we do school for you know all of these things and I was like well guess what you never stop learning because I'm still learning and he's like oh yes and it was kind of an exciting thing not like oh but you know it was like oh yeah like you are always learning they see me learning they see me reading and looking things up and and learning new skills and I think that that's you know super important for our kids to see see us be curious and and always wanting to to learn new things well isn't that fascinating too because I am always learning new things but I got to say 10 years ago if you were to ask me the types of things that I would need to be learning to do what I do for my job I would not even have fathomed like you're going to be learning video editing for example things like that and I feel like think about that with our own homeschools what is the world going to look like in 10 20 years we can't even fathom it so rather than trying to prepare them for a world that won't actually exist you know with AI and all this stuff the computer programs that I have had to learn it they did not exist when I was in college it's so funny my husband has a degree in business marketing and he's like even the the philosophy of business marketing that he learned in undergrad is like debunked actually yeah you know what I mean like the way that you sales messaging and marketing and things like that they they're it has completely changed from when he was in school he has he said I've like earned three master's degrees over and over again MBA you know basically having to relearn my own industry and so when we have that perspective with act which actually is reality we do not know what the world is going to look like in 10 and 20 years but we still want our kids prepared for anything they want to do how does embracing more than just the the core subjects embracing and getting that F fostering that love of learning how does that prepare our kids better because I think it does and I think you do too yes absolutely this is where that activating those higher order thinking skills and teaching our kids to think and to like to think for themselves and to really evaluate what they are learning and how they're learning not just telling them the answers or or what the answers will be on the test or you know any of that just this equals that our kids brain are not a computer we're not filing information into our com our kids brains we're teaching them how to think how to learn and how to function in the real world and and this is what is going to prepare them for whatever career is out there for them when when they get there when I was in school like you were saying I wasn't being prepared for you know doing anything that I'm doing now I was not prepared for for this but I've learned it over the years and I've learned it because I had a growth mindset I was able and willing to put in that work to learn what I needed to because I was taught how to think and how to learn so it's it's very big distinction there we don't want to just teach our kids information they're not computers they are living breathing humans that need be taught how to think critically how to you know use these skills to use these higher order thinking skills to really deeply learn and be set up to be learners for Life the show will resume in just a minute but first I want to share with you an incredible resource that is totally free to homeschooling families everywhere have you ever felt like you were on trial for your homeschooling Choice when visiting a doctor or another service provider it's unsettling especially when someone misinformed has the power to threaten your family unfortunately we have heard countless stories of parents who have felt trapped in offices and met with suspicion rather than support simply because they were homeschoolers I've been profiled and interrogated myself and I'm sure many of you have as well enough is enough it's time we proactively vet service providers before giving them our business and our money enter Christy fath list a directory 100% free to homeschooling families connecting you with homeschool friendly service providers who promise to support you in your homeschooling choice we want every homeschooler in America to know about and be using this list so here's how to make Christy Faith's list a household name one tell all your friends about it let's show the market just how powerful The Homeschool movement is number two check Christy face list website before stepping foot into any service providers office to make sure they are on on there and number three if your favorite service provider isn't on the list make sure to refer them there's a button on the homepage of the website it takes only 30 seconds and that way we can send them a lovely invite if you're listening and you are a homeschool friendly professional we want you on the list we're eager to connect homeschooling families with you shout your name from the rooftops and bring you tons and tons of business we have plans for every type of business both small local Nationwide and worldwide check out Christy list.com today hi mama if you like my social media content and my show I'm pretty sure you will love my book homeschool Rising shattering myths finding courage and opting out of the school system my book is for homeschool parents both veteran and new and the perfect book to hand any homeschool Skeptics in your life so they can better understand why you've chosen this amazing lifestyle this book will challenge you Empower you encourage you and give you solid Mindful Answers to all those questions you get about your homeschooling Choice grab your copy and maybe an extra one for your mother-in-law today homeschool Rising is available wherever books are sold mhm absolutely what should we do when I have a kid like this doesn't really love the Arts not really into it not naturally inclined one of my kids even has an eye tracking issue that makes even writing on a line very challenging so I actually enrolled this child in an art class and had to unenroll because the and it it was it was simply because it was too advanced it wasn't an appropriate challenge M and now that child feels like they don't like art they don't and and you know so we have that but it's not just that it's any parent who's like well this sounds all great Rachel but what if my kids's not really interested in art music PE you know amps type stuff that you guys do I agree with you this is so important but what if they're just not interested that's valid and especially the eye tracking problem it's hard and one of my kids also was not one of my kids is very artistic and his older brother isn't as artistic as he is and he felt really less than and didn't want to do art because he felt like he wasn't good enough and I had to we had to work work through some things but everybody has their strengths and this is what I told I told them now opposite it for my for those children is their athleticism you know one is great on on the field he loves playing sports and the other one doesn't want to ever play on a team sport you know never just please no I don't want to play on a team sport you know we tried when he was very little and he just ran off the field like he was very very little still so he just was like no I can't and it's anxiety for him like it's that you know that anxiety behind it but I want my kids to have the skills that those that those things bring and it's just like how you said you want your kids to be in music be involved in music because you have chosen for them to to do that and and I feel like that is super important that we think about what is important to us as the parent as the educator and keeping in mind what our interests of our kids are and so the way that we've put together spark schooling and all of the classes that we offer is that it's so low pressure and just exploratory based like like just do what you can nobody's looking over your shoulder to see if you did that exactly right or in this music class if you can't keep the Rhythm with us nobody's going to be chiding you for that but you were exposed to reading rhythms and you can play them on these instruments or on our buckets you know we use buckets for drumming and you can experience these things my kids have learned the like dribbling skills you know for socer and shooting skills and all of these things my son is still not going to go and play on a organized team he's not going to but maybe when he's in college and the guys in his dorm want to go and play a pickup game of soccer he'll know how to play soccer and you know and and my other son who you know doesn't feel like he's super artistically inclined he has gotten actually so much better his and and I just told him it doesn't matter what it looks like in the end just just do it just enjoy it see what you can learn this is not for there's no pressure here and so his his art skills have improved his handwriting has improved it's keeping the expectations love if they love art if they love a sport put them in something extra put them in you know that on that team or in that special art class that advanced art class or in piano lessons or you know an instrument or something like that if they have the interest and they have the desire and they have you know done all of that but if they if they aren't sure or they've never been exposed or they're not you know super excited about it but you still want them to be exposed to it in a little bit of you know in a little way then do some things that are low pressure that are easy for them to just sit down and do with no expectations other than having fun and learning new skills and and doing your best I ask everybody this and it's not to be negative it's because when I have experts in their field on my podcast it's very and usually they are people who are doing something like you you did something about this homeschool issue that you saw to solve a very real problem and that is homeschool moms are struggling to incorporate these beautiful things that should be in we all want them in our home schools but we feel taxed we're too busy maybe we work we we maybe you're a little bit like me and I really struggle with art projects because my house is a mess and so and me planning them I don't want to go to Michaels and spend $300 and don't want to be searching on Pinterest for three hours you know trying to find a an art project to do so that we can make sugar cubes out of you know with whatever medial medieval castle out of sugar cubes I so and the reason why and I'm gonna ask you what is something in your particular field that you just can't get behind is there any messages out there that you just wish weren't there you know I've had reading experts on where some of what they're saying you know there's advice out there that's downright damaging to children I don't know if that would necessarily be be maybe but I always ask this because we always need to be evaluating on a higher level what is an education a lot of us are on social media and anyone can say anything on social media and they probably a lot of people don't have the credentials to even be saying those things so is there anything in your industry in particular that you just can't get behind that frustrates you yes um I really it's not everything but a lot of what I see for composer studies and even picture studies bother me and it's it's not it's the approach to them it's look at this picture like you were saying about onepoint perspective look at this picture look at the onepoint perspective cool you know I mean can we do something with this information that's more fun and more engaging you know what is the point of of looking for one point perspective in a painting if you're not going to use it and composer studies when we get too into the composer's life that can be problematic and I don't think that we need to be going deeply into these composers lives or even really focusing on just listening to their works until we can name them because what what does that do like I listen to Buck I listen to Buck and we're just gonna listen to this Buck CD over and over and then whenever they hear it they can say B like what does that do that does nothing for our kids and you know now I do in my music classes I we learn about the composers we learn a little bit about their life and we listen to their music but then we always go and do something with it so if we're listening to Beethoven's Fifth Symphony and we're you know listening to the [Music] D we learn that that little short musical piece that little musical section is called a motive then I have the kids actually go and play that motive on a digital xylophone that I created that they can access online but it's they are playing this motive over and over and that's going to help them understand what motive is what what a motive is and how to you know recognize that later if they hear if they hear it they're gonna be like oh that's Beethoven and that's you know I remember playing that on the digital xylophone or if we're listening to you know another piece of music and it's we we're following the Rhythm well they're going to hear it later on and they're going to do the little rhythm pattern we did with our clapping in and stamping and you know whatever it was that we came up with and maybe they'll remember who the composer is maybe not but it doesn't matter because they they have done something and learned something that was meaningful and and activated those higher orders thinking skills and didn't stop it just like yep that was that was Bach I can recognize that now so that's the problem that I have with with with composer studies and and picture studies and even you know when it comes to stem it's just like learning if you're learning math or science and not applying it that that's another you know form of this it's just learning about things and doing nothing with it it doesn't do it doesn't do our kids any any good and it really just wastes time if you're enjoying the show and you don't want to miss out on future episodes hit that like And subscribe button and show us some love with your comments those five star reviews really do make a difference yeah and I one thing that I was hearing that I love is naturally you are incorporating all different learning modalities which is great you know one thing I was a curriculum writer we have written sat AC all sorts of curriculum and one thing that I think can be a trap is moms are really insecure and they want something to do and they want to and so they think oh Charlotte Mason I should be doing picture study I'm going to go buy a picture study and because this is what I'm supposed to be doing and then they go go and they do the picture study but what what people need to realize is they really need to always be asking themselves why why am I doing this what is the benefit for my kid in doing this because the thing about curriculum and curriculum selling and curriculum making and curriculum writing is that often they are delivering what parents want because they need to sell it and they're neglecting what they actually need right and I think this is a really important thing to recognize especially right now we're filming this in February this will Air during curriculum buying season what a great message to say actually is that you know be careful they are they tickle your ears they sell you what they think you want they sell you what they know will sell and and and well- meaningly so well meaningly so because those things can be a fit for you but never feel guilty if it isn't right like picture study could work really well if your kid is just a dominant visual processor and eats that stuff up but what if you have some kids like mine who are bouncing off the walls getting them to sit to stare at a picture for five minutes isn't GNA happen you don't feel guilty because you couldn't do it that particular way basically is is the message and the benefit of homeschooling is we get to curate the educational experiences for our kids that is also a Charlotte Mason Philosophy by the way is this atmosphere peace but you know and and just I think we do a lot of that with a lack of confidence we want a structure because we don't want to mess up none of us do with that I feel like your program has helped me not mess up because I want I want my I'm not artistically gifted like I said my parents let me quit all my all of my instruments and so this is an area that I really wanted to reclaim for my own family can you take a minute to explain exactly how amps works yeah of course so we have our amps learning library and amps stands for art music physical education and stem and this is our our membership where we include everything that we've created that are in these like Library resource formats and it's a video library so you can go in and search for these these classes that that connect to anything you're studying or you can go just in order follow our guides anything any way you want to do there's no wrong way to do it we also offer each of those libraries separately so if you just wanted art you could just do you know just do our art library with with your kids and then we break it down even further as well and we've got smaller little bundles of little just samples or or little collections of classes that go together in some way way so we have like a spring collection we have a summer a whole summer camp that you can that you can get for the summertime and the or just some art things that are just art or just the you know so it's a really great way to try some things out for maybe you're doing a different like a unit we're going to have a planets unit coming out that has music and that has music and art so oh we're doing that because my kids were loving the planetarium at the at the science museum yesterday yeah did you do the watercolor planets with your kids I don't recall I don't know if we've gotten there yet well you'll have to tr do that one and then there's also in the music there's um the Hol planets so you can go and and check that out as well now when someone joins so they have access to everything so if you join the membership the main the amps learning library membership you will have access to everything if you just want one subject then you can then you'll get everything from that se single subject and then the smaller little things that we've pulled from that you can purchase those separately as well okay oh that sounds great well everybody you heard it here amp's homeschool is a great way to incorporate all those things that you want you want for your kids but maybe you don't have time for whatever season you're in or maybe it's difficult for you to plan I had you on I had you in Thrive too and the feedback on your Workshop was amazing it was just so me so that was such a blessing that you came and and poured out even more of your heart and soul and knowledge and research in our community and at the end everyone's like I don't know if you saw those comments but they said you need her on the podcast too and so we quickly made sure that you that you came so we're going to put some links in the show notes you can do some sample classes and try this out before you buy anything I'm really thankful that you're in the homeo space you're one of the people that is making homeschooling easier and better for us thank you so much for coming on the show thank you so much for having me this has been a pleasure.