Stuff We Like :: 3.22.19
I’ve been working away on the spring issue of HSL and on the chemistry curriculum for next year’s high school, so I am not crazy about the pollen attack that happens every time I walk outside. I am loving the sunshine, though!
What’s happening at home/school/life
on the blog: Suzanne is obsessed with novellas right now, and these are some of her favorites
on patreon: We have a chat coming up this weekend!
at the academy: If you’re in the Atlanta area, you may want to check out our spring open house (and we have some openings in our online summer classes still!)
from the archives: How to write a high school transcript for an unschooler who suddenly needs a traditional transcript, a review of Your Business Math (spoiler: All math is more fun when it involves kittens), and helping children cope with fear
Links I liked
I got a little obsessed with the whole college admissions scandal when it broke last week. (See: Kids photoshopped as athletes.) But I think this was my favorite response to it: “The point is to prepare the kid for the road, instead of preparing the road for the kid.”
I really appreciate the slow, steady, painful work of historians and activities who are bringing the dark side of U.S. history to the forefront. It’s much happier to read about brave pioneers than about lynchings of Mexican people in Texas or about the heroes of D-Day than about Japanese internment camps, but history is never about what’s happy. It’s about what’s true. At least it should be.
How Gabriel Garcia Marquez began to write.
Things I didn’t know but now I do
The Black Death may have had a big impact on medieval Sub-Saharan Africa, too.
We can hear what music actually sounded like in ancient Greece
The abolitionists had a poster girl in the antebellum United States, and you may be surprised by what she looks like.
BOOKS ADDED TO MY TBR LIST THIS WEEK
The Friend by Sigrid Nunez (I usually try to hide from books that everyone is recommending until the buzz is quiet, but I’m putting this one on my list)
Night of Fire by Colin Thubron (this looks right up my alley)
Mad Love and War by Joy Harjo (I’m trying to read more Native American literature)
WHAT’S MAKING ME HAPPY
(We’re Amazon affiliates, so if you purchase something through an Amazon link, we may receive a small percentage of the sale. Obviously this doesn’t influence what we recommend, and we link to places other than Amazon.)
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Evil-fighting babysitters, middle school testing, Japanese storytelling, magical houses, and more in this week’s roundup of Stuff We Like.
The surprising fun of just asking why, the challenges of choosing a reading list, reading poetry, and more stuff we liked this week.
Being patient in pursuit of a routine, un-magic people at magic schools, teaching poetry to kids, and more stuff we liked this week.
Knitting for chilly classrooms, remembering why poetry books are so fun to read, watching His Dark Materials, new highlighters, and more stuff we liked this week.
Memes as the new formalism, how predictive text works, reading trends of the 2010s, and more stuff we liked this week.
The myth of morning routines, the downside of immortality, the problem with online reviews, and more stuff we liked this week.
Apprenticeships are the new college, what we lose when we lose local news, how we lost our sense of time, Hanukkah churros, and more stuff we like.
Decolonizing the canon, what to buy your favorite Nancy Drew fan, emphasizing the significance of the domestic arts in history, and more stuff we liked this week.
Leftover pie, the language of the apocalypse, the myth of limited rights, be as nice to yourself as you would be to a stranger, and more stuff we liked this week.
Games for storytelling, the problem with history curricula, eating alone, and more stuff we liked this week.
Why we love annotated bibliographies, Scooby Doo as Gothic lit, my new retirement ambition, why you should probably hang on to your notebooks in the computer age, and more stuff we liked this week.
Reading before bed makes you smarter, happier, and healthier (ahem), the emotional labor of feeding your family, Rebecca paper dolls, spooky witch houses, and more stuff we liked this week.
The cultural relevance of fairy tales, Hamilton bathroom breaks, new words as old as you are, and more stuff we liked this week.
Rapping The Iliad, historical costumes and racism, the yellowing of school buses, the problem with constant production, and more in this week’s roundup of Stuff We Like.
What were people searching for on HSL in September?
Lilith Fair flashbacks make me happy, British citizenship tests are stuck on the Tudors, the problem with “spiritual consumerism,” when books could kill you, and more stuff we liked this week.
Rediscovered Langston Hughes, the Algonquin Round Table turns 100, feminist utopias, and more stuff we like.
Preschool politics, battles on the YA shelves, Stone Age engineering projects, the subtleties of translation, and more stuff we like.
Burnout is not a professional goal, the myth of the frontier in U.S. history, what do we mean when we talk about “electability,” what we always suspected about cats is true, and more stuff we like.
Highs and lows of Facebook groups, Teddy Roosevelt and the Iron Throne, my new favorite interview with a vampire, and more stuff we like.
Our weekly roundup of links, books, and other homeschool inspiration.
Our weekly roundup of great links, books, and other stuff that’s inspiring our homeschool life.
The slow, important uncovering of history, snow plow parents, transcript-writing for people who aren’t transcript writers, cats in medieval manuscripts, and more stuff I like.
Problems with children’s literature, thirty years of “Closer to Fine,” saying goodbye to Dylan McKay, weird ancient Greek obsessions, and more stuff we like.
Amy Sharony is the founder and editor-in-chief of home | school | life magazine. She's a pretty nice person until someone starts pluralizing things with apostrophes, but then all bets are off.
AMY SHARONY is the founder and editor-in-chief of home | school | life magazine. She's a pretty nice person until someone starts pluralizing things with apostrophes, but then all bets are off.