Media recommendations - Homeschool Humuhumu

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Media recommendations

Educational movies, TV shows, YouTube videos, and apps we've loved.

Dancers in traditional Georgian dress surround Ilusha Tsinadze, who is playing guitar and singing.

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.

Musicians performing on stage. Some are wearing Native American ribbon dresses, some are wearing African Zulu garb.

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

A bright yellow Animal Farm paperback book with cartoon drawings of farm animals, and a student workbook.

Animal Farm

George Orwell's dystopian classic, with a ten-year-old. Terrible idea, or great idea?

Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden are depicted using LEGO bricks.

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.

Five men and one woman stand, each one dressed in clothing from a different historic period.

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 of the entire world, I guess

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's favorite history video, "history of

A book, "How to Teach Your Children Shakespeare," some lines from a play, and a picture of Shakespeare that says WILL POWER.

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.

The cast of the TV show The Good Place are seated on a couch in the town square of the afterlife.

Media recommendations

The Good Place

This philosophical sitcom turned out to be a sneaker homeschooling hit.

A Japanese structure, brightly painted red with a peaked roof, overlooks a manicured garden.

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.

Painted background scene from a Disney animated Mickey Mouse short, showing L'arc du Triomphe in Paris.

Geography and cultures

Impromptu France

How an unplanned "trip" to France took shape—without disrupting our daily routine. Too much.

A sign saying "ANY SALAD CAN BE A CAESAR SALAD IF YOU STAB IT ENOUGH"

Media recommendations

Homeschooling pedagogy nerdery

One of my favorite spots for learning about how to teach is now accepting new members.

Tinkerbell hovers next to the front of a pink and red Christmas card with the words "From All of Us" in white.

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.

Wampanoag chef Sherry Pocknett, sharing a meal with Padma Lakshmi

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 in America—mostly immigrant cultures and

Vintage drawing of a stack of books, with the words FREE 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.

Title card for American Veteran: Keep It Close

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.

A lit diya (a small ceremonial oil lamp), with the words "Happy Diwali!"

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 case you need some text-based ipecac)

Man standing and smiling alongside a satellite view of New Zealand and the New Zealand flag.

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.

PBS's It's Okay to Be Smart

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's Okay to

Wanda pointing to a wall map of the world

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

The Long, Long Holiday

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. It's a French production, I watched

A collection of ordinary household items, plus a handwritten slip of paper saying, "The Taming of the Shrew"

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 regular

Poster for the film "Class Dismissed," with a school desk out in the middle of a grassy field.

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's ideas of homeschooling are pretty

Sign that says "When life gives you lemons," topped with a lemon at the top of a ramped chute.

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,