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A wonderful list. My daughter is currently making blanket forts in the living room instead of schoolwork and I am ~almost~ succeeding in being just fine with that. I think this post came at just the right time.

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When your kids are ready for the physics of the catapult, my boys adore Professor Stephen Ressler at the Great Courses (now Wondrium). His course on the engineering of the ancient world includes a two part course on how catapults were built, and he builds a scale model to demonstrate. It’s all wonderful stuff! (We recommend his other courses, too).

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Amazing! I’d never heard of this before. There are so many I want to try! What age are your boys, it looks like it’s aimed at adults but I’m happy to interpret.

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Not directly related to this post, but while I’m thinking of it, you might really enjoy reading a book by Yale cognitive scientist Frank Keil, called “Wonder: Childhood and the Lifelong Love of Science.” It has some fantastic guidance for science education. It talks about school teachers, but it’s just as relevant for homeschoolers! (In a nutshell, he’s gently but firmly critical of modern science education in schools, and explains why we shouldn’t dumb down mechanistic explanations to children).

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The content is aimed at adults, but — and I say this as an American — a lot of it is geared to poorly educated American adults. The language used isn’t advanced and the professors tend to assume little prior knowledge. A good attention span is needed, however. My boys don’t tend to enjoy educational content aimed at kids; they find it patronizing :) They started watching Prof Ressler’s Great Courses at ages 7 and 10 (they’re now 11 and 14). “The Science of Flight” is another great one (although it features a lot of plane crashes, analysing what went wrong, so not ideal if you have anyone in your home who gets anxious about flying!). Some of the physics went over their heads, but a surprising amount really clicked. My boys have watched a lot of history now, too. We skip episodes that might have inappropriate content (eg with WW2 we were quite careful).

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This is so helpful and I also love your book recommendation, I’ve added it to my list. Thank you! Yes I agree most education programmes/podcasts for children are woeful. We always find there are so many ‘fun’ sound effects you can barely hear the meagre information they’re trying to impart. People hugely underestimate what children can manage and misjudge what makes something interesting to them.

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What a beautiful read. And so comforting to know that people don’t always stick to a ‘plan’. We too have had a step back for the last month and are just enjoying drawing, games and oodles of reading. The darker days definitely feel like they impact my drive x

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Oh definitely, my energy levels are through the floor! I don’t think any plan, routine or rhythm works forever—we all have different seasons, literal and figurative, and it’s only sensible to adjust accordingly instead of trying to stick to a schedule that no longer works for everyone. I’m really rather enjoying these wintry activities. It’s like we’ve all changed gears. So pleased you liked the post!

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