Geography and cultures Georgian folk music The first two songs we learned in the Carnegie Hall Musical Explorers program are Georgian folk music, with musician Ilusha Tsinadze.
Music Carnegie Hall Musical Explorers A free education resource from New York's famous Carnegie Hall teaches kids about music from around the world.
Geography and cultures Seterra geography quiz I recently started using Seterra to beef up my geography knowledge. I use the free iOS app, and there are also Android and web versions. Seterra gives you the name of a country (or city, or mountain, etc.), and challenges you to find its location on an unlabeled map. I
Reading Animal Farm George Orwell's dystopian classic, with a ten-year-old. Terrible idea, or great idea?
Media recommendations The Brick Bible To deepen our secular learning about the stories from the Bible, we turn to a retelling of the Bible using LEGO bricks.
History Videos for homeschooling history Some of our best history learning has come from watching videos. Mostly funny ones. Here's a long list of recommended videos!
History The ultimate history shortcut I've got a few posts about teaching history brewing in my head. It's a massive, messy, muddled subject, and I have massive, messy, muddled thoughts on it. While I wrestle with what I want to say and how I want to say it, enjoy Wanda'
Book recommendations Shakespeare for young kids I've been introducing Wanda to Shakespeare over the last few years, and we recently leveled up to the real deal: Shakespeare's actual words.
Media recommendations The Good Place This philosophical sitcom turned out to be a sneaker homeschooling hit.
Geography and cultures A trip to the Japanese Tea Garden Golden Gate Park's Japanese Tea Garden is now free to San Francisco residents, so we learned about Japan and took a field trip.
Geography and cultures Impromptu France How an unplanned "trip" to France took shape—without disrupting our daily routine. Too much.
Media recommendations Homeschooling pedagogy nerdery One of my favorite spots for learning about how to teach is now accepting new members.
Fun stuff A day of Swedish Christmas, with Kalle Anka You know Kalle Anka better as Donald Duck, and a Swedish Christmas isn't complete without him.
Media recommendations Taste the Nation, Thanksgiving episode Wanda and I just watched the Thanksgiving episode of the new "holiday edition" of Padma Lakshmi's show Taste the Nation [https://www.hulu.com/series/taste-the-nation-with-padma-lakshmi-53d48a66-d254-4e4f-89a1-277ec6c57368] (available on Hulu), titled "Truth and the Turkey Tale." Each episode of Taste the Nation spotlights a culture
Curriculum Free homeschool curriculum There are outstanding free educational materials available to homeschoolers, including many aligned to common core standards. I've collected a list.
Civics Stories for Veterans Day We spent the morning of Veterans Day discussing the meaning of the day, and hearing the stories of five American Veterans.
Geography and cultures Happy Diwali! We celebrated Diwali [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diwali] today, the Indian festival of lights. I'm a sucker for a light festival. We took a trip to India on Acorn Airlines (our fictional school airline, it's totally Pinterest-barfy, I'll post about it someday in
Geography and cultures Boosting our world learning with Geography Now! We use the popular YouTube channel Geography Now! in our homeschooling as an introduction to the countries of the world.
Science PBS's It's Okay to Be Smart I want to shine a spotlight on my favorite science education YouTube channel, It's Okay to Be Smart [https://www.youtube.com/c/itsokaytobesmart], by PBS. Biologist Dr. Joe Hanson has been making these videos for the better part of a decade now. He and the whole It&
Geography and cultures Mapping movies onto the world When we were first getting started with geography at the beginning of first grade, I wanted to help Wanda start to construct her mental map of the world. To kick-start that process, we used the stories she was familiar with, and talked about which part of the world each one
History The Long, Long Holiday I am heartily recommending this animated miniseries, "The Long, Long Holiday." This isn't (just) a homeschooling recommendation, this is an everybody recommendation. It's about two young Parisian children who find themselves sheltering with their grandparents in Normandy during World War II under German occupation.
Media recommendations Table Top Shakespeare If you could use a distraction over the next few days, consider brushing up your Shakespeare with this fun “Table Top Shakespeare [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=emYGXzCQa0o&list=PL-blz3DjyJIyhGeDEPROuy6WqwDd6mTKO] ” series on YouTube. A talented storyteller tells the plot of the play in plain but engaging English, using
Media recommendations Class Dismissed I'll have been homeschooling Wanda for one year next week, and only just tonight got around to watching Class Dismissed [https://www.amazon.com/gp/video/detail/B01DCHJXXM/], a documentary about homeschooling. If you're at all curious what homeschooling is like these days (some people'
Fun stuff Puzzlements There’s a teacher in Portland who sends out an email each Friday of “puzzlements”—a handful of cool links to get kid’s noggins a-churnin’ on the curiosities of the world. This was in this week’s email, an absurdly good Rube Goldberg machine. It’s a fun watch,
