Episode Transcript
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(00:00):
Okay, so many of you are new here.
Many of you have only begun
to dip your toe into the waters
that is home school.
Many of you have started your journey.
You could be a year, a couple of years
(00:20):
into your journey,
but I doubt that you have left behind
the feeling of pressure and overwhelm
that comes from being responsible
for your children's educational journey.
(00:40):
Welcome back to Making Everyday Magic.
My name is Shanna and if you are new herewe are a homeschooling family of four.
We are in our eighth year of homeschool,nearing the end,
and we have a current seventh graderand a current third grader.
Today I want to talk with you
about small doses of commitment.
(01:08):
Before we go any further, pleasescroll down.
Hit the big red subscribe button,
turn on the bell for notificationsand give this video a thumbs up.
If you noticed, we are in a
different place in my house,so I apologize if it's echoey.
I'm just going to keep moving arounduntil I feel like I found the right spot.
(01:28):
Maybe there will be a little
less of those mysterious voicesin the background.
Let me know if you hear anything.
If you don't know what I'm talking about,go look at a few of my recent videos.
We've been talking, kind of at nauseum,about this weird voice that pops up.
The lighting hereis at least pretty decent.
However, it is kind of like a bigopen area, so it could be quite echoey.
(01:50):
I won't actually know until I startediting.
So, cherry,let's talk today about commitment.
I am guilty, and I've talked aboutthis many times before. I've
feeling
overwhelmed by the idea of commitment.
I am guilty often of
(02:10):
feeling like I have to make this big,
you know, large gravity decision
and wanting to get it rightand wanting to get it so
right that sometimes I kind of get stuck
and I get stuck in that perfectionparalysis.
The idea that I'm so scared of not makingthe right choice and what happens is I,
(02:30):
I kind of don't make any choicewhich isn't better.
And so when I get to this place,
something that I find worksreally well for myself,
because I do
I don't love commitment.
So like when we're, we're talking aboutsigning up for classes for things or,
(02:53):
things that will be kind of like recurring
and a big obligationgoing off into the future.
I don't love it.
I don't love commitment.
The idea of the whole piece is scary.
It's intimidating. It is overwhelming.
It is not desirable.
It is not palatable. I don't care for it.
(03:14):
So what I try to do is
Microdose commitment.
And this is something that I think
could be really helpfulas it pertains to homeschool,
because you've made these decisionsor you're thinking about these decisions
and you understandexactly what I'm talking about,
which is the idea that you have to get itright.
The idea that, you know,let's say you're thinking
(03:37):
about a curriculumand it is a $500 investment.
And what if you don't like it?
What if you don't like anything beyond,
you know,what other people have said about it?
What if you don'twant to make this big commitment?
What if we just went ahead and microdosesome of these commitments?
(03:57):
Now, this is something that works for me.
I don't have an entire running listof chores that I need to do every week.
I have themed days for me.
That is a microdose a of commitment.
I try really hard to not focuson the entire being.
Try and picture.
I break it down and go one day at a time,one week at a time.
Also,I would like to point out for myself,
(04:19):
this does actually also help mestay on track
when it comes to our homeschool lives.
So that is really helpful for me.
But ways that we canMicrodose homeschool commitment
are that you can.
More often than not,homeschool curriculum pieces will have
some sort of a sample that you can getyour eyes on your hands on.
(04:43):
More often than not,homeschool pieces will have
some review videos like you will find hereon my channel that you can go search out
and look for, and get a better idea
of what you are signing up for.
You can also whittle down your options,and I talked about this recently
in like a whole dedicated videoabout perfection paralysis.
(05:04):
I'm not going to dive too hard,but if you know what works for you,
you can absolutely kind of
start narrowing your options. Now,
when it comes to the upcomingplanning season,
I want you to consider waysto microdose your commitment.
(05:25):
And maybe it's as simpleas starting with 1
or 2 things that you knowyou feel really good about.
So it is easier to build upon a foundationthat you feel is strong and solid.
So if you have a math curriculumthat you know you love, start there.
It's easy to commit to thingswe know we like.
It's easy to commit to things that we knowwe enjoy.
(05:46):
It is easy to commit to thingsthat are already a proven winner for us,
and then you can build upsome of that momentum.
You can build up some of that resilience
and decrease some of that fearof commitment going forward.
So as it pertains to homeschool,
I do have a list that I'm going to sharewith you in just a moment of
(06:10):
what I thinkis probably the best places to start.
If you are fearingthe commitment of homeschool,
if you are fearingthe curriculum commitment.
But let's talk about other ways
that micro commitmentcould be good for you in real life.
If you are somebody who is on a journeyto become healthier,
it is a lot easier to win the daythan it is to win the week.
(06:32):
It is a lot easier to win the weekthan it is to win the month.
So if you can start small
and focus on those little wins,you're going to build that momentum.
You're going to be more proud of yourselfgoing forward.
If you can get through one chore todayand another chore
tomorrow, it's going to help youincrease your consistency.
When you are ableto increase your consistency,
(06:53):
it is a lot easier to follow through onsome of those commitments, and all of
that is a lot easier if you are taking itin small, tiny, manageable bites.
So stop thinking about the whole stopthinking about the full year commitment.
What if we just startwith the little pieces?
If you are fearing the commitment,
(07:13):
if you are nervous aboutwhat is ahead for you
when it comes to your homeschool journey,let me tell you that
everything that I am aboutto share with you is either
100% free
or incredibly low cost and high value.
(07:34):
So if you would like to know.
And I did actually just this morning hadsomebody ask me, you know, you talk about,
the Dinos 101 course on Courserafrom the University of Alberta, Canada.
How did you find that?
You talkabout the American Chemical Society free
middle school chemistry curriculum, like,how are we finding these things?
(07:56):
What is the magic formulato find these really high quality, really
high value,really low cost, low commitment options.
And so I'm going to give you the secret
I go hard on Google.
That's it.
I go hard on Google One.
Somebody out there somewhere has alreadyfound it and used it and talked about it.
Or two it is availableif you just find the right way to find it.
(08:21):
So a search by grade levelI am looking for ninth grade
subject name geography
ad free in there I am looking for
eighth grade language arts.
I am looking for free
physics options that include Legos.
(08:43):
I am looking for and Google hard.
Google so hard.
And if it doesn't work for you,change up those key phrases.
And if that doesn't work for you,go to Reddit, Google, Reddit,
YouTube, all wealth of information.
Now these are a few placesto get you started.
If you want something that again, is free
(09:04):
or exceptionally low cost available,and therefore
because of being free or virtuallylow cost, very, very, very low commitment.
So these are in no particular order.
Khan Academy KhanAcademy has an amazing huge
wealth of resources,completely free for you online.
(09:25):
You just create a little profile.
A Khan Academy, Coursera.
Coursera has both,I believe paid and free courses.
So be sure to search outthose free courses
if that is somethingthat you want to look at.
But because of the kind of the structureof the website,
being all kind of virtual lessonsis really easy to get a good idea
(09:45):
of what they have availableso that you can get kind of a really good
opinion formed on it before you commit,whether free or not.
Open stacks.
So I'm not firsthand familiarwith this one, but my understanding,
based on what people have said to meor recommended to me,
is that it is basicallykind of open source.
(10:05):
Textbooks
and things like that, that you canthen build your lessons for around.
Okay.
So two oh, are so openEducational Resource Project,
which is big History project,World History Project and different
oh are open educational resource content,which is another source
(10:28):
where you can findlearning on all kinds of things
art, history, humanities, language arts,all kinds of things in one place, again
free and availableto open educational resource.
Okay, so check those out. Core knowledge.
Core knowledge has downloadablecurriculums
from all all all the way up
(10:48):
so you can start kindergartenall the way up through 12th grade free.
You can I mean all kinds of science,language arts.
You are free, free, free free.
Go check it out.
Fish tank learning.
So fishing learning focuses onI believe it's math and language arts.
And I don't think that it goesall the way up.
I think it's like up to middle grades,but I could be wrong.
(11:09):
It's been a whilesince I've looked into it, so forgive
any inaccuraciesthat I am telling you here
because again, it's been a whilesince I've looked at these firsthand.
Crash course.
Crash course is actually upper levellearning.
So high school learning through college,and it is basically just these wonderfully
well produced,they're broken down into like,
(11:29):
I mean, like a ton, a ton, maybe a hundreddifferent playlists on different things.
Black American history,
European history, film studies, theater
studies, all any anything you couldpossibly want on Crash Course?
You can find it.
You can? Absolutely. It's so good. It'sanimated.
It's really eye catching and brightand entertaining and free.
(11:51):
Did I say free? Free.
And they also have crash course kids.
Now. Now, if you want to fleshes out,I make it like a full curriculum.
Go over to teachers, pay teachers,or just use your power of Google
that you have now completelylike perfected
and search for crash course
mythology worksheets or crash coursemythology
(12:13):
quizzes, crash coursemythology, mythology guided notes.
There is no reason to reinvent the wheel.
Oftentimes, at least in my experience.
What I've seen that you can get the fullwhole kit and caboodle, of course.
Load of guided notesfor an entire playlist
that will take you througha full school year for like 20 bucks.
Okay, so go search it. Search it.
(12:35):
You can make your own. Absolutely.
I'm just not that guy.
So search that out. Amazing. Totally free.
My favorite one from this yearis, As I spoke before, the American
Chemical Society,his middle school chemistry curriculum.
So good.
The only cost.
So the only cost associated withit is for the things that you might
not already have in your homeand in your kitchen.
(12:56):
But honestly, you could do it completelyfor free if you just watch those.
And really, if you just watch theexperiments for the things you don't have,
but then do the experimentsfor the things you can easily source.
Boom. Done.
This is one that you may not be familiarwith. Is shaler.org
essay y l o r and I'm going to tryreally hard to put these on the screen
and at least drop a list of the linksdown in the description box,
(13:18):
but forgive me if I don't sailor. Org.
It is another one of the places whereyou can go to learn virtually anything.
You can search out any kind of program,grade level, anything at all,
and they are available to youright through the website,
I think almost exclusively free.
Now, there are some caveats tosome of this, like Coursera we could have.
(13:39):
Transcript.
Did the Dinos 101 for a fee for college?
Transcript.
But my kid is thirdgrade and seventh grade,
and that felt like not a thingI needed to do.
So you have options available to you now.
An incredibly low cost.
And I don't knowwhy more people don't talk about it.
(14:00):
I've talked about it heremany, many, many, many times.
If you are familiar with History Quest,one of the authors
of several of the Levels of Historyclass is Lindsey Sodano.
Lindsey Sodano
felt like there was a
serious gap in the marketfor language arts
good and beautiful language arts.
(14:21):
Lindsey.
So Donna has now produced.
Four levels or more of her and story,
which is a completely comprehensivelanguage arts curriculum.
You can get an entire grade level.
Now, this doesn'tinclude the printed books
that you're asked to readan entire grade level for $25
(14:44):
for a Language arts, $25,you can download a sample.
You can decide if it's for you,and if it's not, you're only out $25.
Let's say you go all in $25.
Maybe the cost of a couple readaloud cuts it.
It is an amazingly robust languagearts curriculum.
(15:06):
It was designed to intentionally offera secular option
counterpart to be a widely,
widely hailed language arts curriculum.
They've got the beautiful.
So look it up.
It's also she frequently has,sales and discounts and is amazing.
If you have any questions
at all, reach out directly to herbecause she's incredibly responsive.
(15:26):
Again, it is gorgeous and it is wonderful.
So do me a favorbefore you leave me, scroll down.
And just like I told you, those Googleskills are going to come in handy for you.
If you've already found a thing,drop it in the comments down below.
I'm going to link all of these,so if you have something
where you're like,hey Shauna, did you know that
you can get your complete high schoolcurriculum Spanish at this place for free?
(15:49):
Drop that for me girl.
If you know that you can findat geography,
world History,anything, drop us the links.
Because the more we make these resources
available, the better offwe are all going to be.
And it is not a coincidence.
The more these things are available,the more available
these things tend to be, the more of themthere tend to be.
(16:11):
So let's do ourselves all a greatand amazing favor and build this list.
Guys, I hope that you found any of thishelpful, entertaining, or informative.
If you did, please scroll down, hitthe big red subscribe
button, turn on the bell for notificationsand give this video a thumbs up.
As always, you can find me right on downin the comments or over on Instagram at
Making Everyday Magic.
Let me know if you heard the voice.
(16:32):
I'm sure that you heard the AC unit.
And is the echo unbearable?
Because I hope not, but if so, how?
Just keep moving aroundtill we find the right place. I guess.