March Resources List
And all the documentary suggestions from readers.
As ever, this is not everything we’ve used this month, but the things we’ve used and enjoyed the most. I hope it’s useful!
And down at the bottom I’ve shared some links to posts from elsewhere on Substack that you might like to take a look at.
Reading
My daughter is currently racing through the Percy Jackson and the Olympians series, and my son is patiently awaiting the fourth book in the Alex Neptune series. In the meantime he is mostly rereading the Ramona and Henry Huggins books. If you’ve been here a while that won’t surprise you!
We have a family tradition that I give the children a book each on Easter Sunday instead of a chocolate egg (don’t worry, they get plenty of chocolate, too). This year for my daughter I chose Hatchet by Gary Paulson, a story about a boy who has to fend for himself in the Canadian wilderness for 54 days with nothing but a hatchet. Published in 1986, it’s apparently a modern classic and won the Newbery Honour. For my son I chose A Tale Dark and Grimm by Adam Gidwitz, a contemporary retelling of Grimms’ Fairy Tales. Both books have thousands of good reviews online, and if we have anything to add I’ll report back later.
Maths
We have mostly been continuing with the Math For Love Fraction Curriculum and Multiplication by Heart this month. We also started reading What’s the Point of Math?, which I read about on Can We Read?. As
wrote in her post, it’s a brilliant book. It covers a wide range of topics—counting, shapes, data, logic and more—so will be relevant and appealing to children over many years. It’s hard to imagine a family that wouldn’t benefit from having this book in their home.
We also tried Sir Cumference and the Fracton Faire, which is a maths story about fractions. It’s really an introduction to the subject, so if you’ve already explored fractions the story won’t add much to your understanding, but my two really enjoyed it.
Science
It’s Elementary book, a good introduction to the Periodic Table and to particular elements and their properties. When we saw the gold-covered Chapter House ceiling at Canterbury Cathedral, my daughter remembered that a piece of gold the size of a grain of rice can be hammered out to cover an area of one square metre.
Geology Rocks podcasts from the Geological Society. A wide selection of short, children’s podcasts on things like fossils, types of rock, different geological periods etc.
Whizz Pop Bang magazine. I tried this about a year ago and the children weren’t ready, or maybe just weren’t interested. Now they are, and they’re really enjoying it.
Usborne First Encyclopedia of the Human Body Amazon says 5-8, and the level of information is ideal for my 8 year old. My daughter has been reading it alongside See Inside Your Body.
The Magic of Forests. I think this is an excellent book. We’re taking our time with it, and have so far learnt about the differences between temperate, boreal, and tropical forests, and between woodland, forest, and jungle. My son also enjoyed the page on woodland myth and folklore. Lots more to explore.
The World’s Wildest Places. Bite-sized introductions to the habitats, plants and animals of twenty wild places around the world, plus the threats facing them and what you can do to help.
24 Hours in Antarctica. Accessible but very informative comic-style book about life at the UK’s Rothera Research Base.
History
A Child Through Time. Excellent book that looks at dozens of children living at different times and places through history. Also more detailed pages on things like the Crusades, the Reformation, Schools Through Time etc. Amazon says 7-11 but younger children would definitely get lots out of this too. The sort of book that would be read and reread for years.
TV programmes that are actually worth watching
I mentioned in a recent post that we’d had a look at a few history documentaries but struggled to find things that were both informative and age-appropriate. So often programmes that are appropriate in terms of content also massively underestimate how much a child can take in and understand. And factual programmes aimed at children are often so full of ‘fun’ animations and sound effects that the actual information gets hopelessly lost. Here are the few programmes we’ve enjoyed ourselves, followed by the suggestions kindly shared by readers.
Madagascar, Prehistoric Planet, and any other David Attenborough documentary.
Britain’s Great Cathedrals (Rated U. I found this fine for my 6 and 8 year olds, but as I mentioned in a previous post the Canterbury episode—the only one we’ve watched—does briefly mention Henry VIII’s affairs and so on, as well as loss of life during the World Wars.)
Reader suggestions
The Eagle Huntress (13 year old nomadic Mongolian girl hopes to be the first eagle hunter in 12 generations of her Kazakh family. Rated U.)
Babies (How babies are raised around the world. PG)
Becoming You (Following children around the world.)
Outside the City/Brotherhood: The Inner Life of Monks.
says “it was so, so good and really did a great job capturing what life in a monastery today is like! Nothing inappropriate for kids but definitely be prepared to discuss dying and death (the documentary handles it in a very beautiful and of course Catholic way.)”Disneynature documentaries especially Bears and Penguins
Max Miller’s ‘Tasting History’ YouTube channel.
says “He shares a dish related to whatever historical era or event (everything from Ancient Rome to the Hindenburg disaster) he covers, along with a very well done summary of said era or event.” (This looks fascinating. For those of you also having a medieval year, there’s What was it like to visit a medieval tavern?, Making medieval mead like a Viking, The Medieval History of Sugar, and many more. I want to watch them all!)The Weeping Camel (PG). From Google: In Mongolia’s Gobi desert, a camel belonging to a group of nomadic shepherds gives birth to a white calf. It’s a rare occurrence, and the shepherds watch as the unusually-colored offspring is rejected by its mother. Without its mother’s milk, the calf will die. To save its life, the nomads send two boys on a journey across the desert to find a musician in the village whose song may compel the camel to accept its calf.
says it is “extraordinary and quite wonderful. Cultural differences and the alternate approaches to problem solving will be great mealtime topics to consider.”Kids’ Animated History With Pipo. Lots of 10 minute episodes on many historical periods. £50 for 32 episodes in the UK—if you find a less expensive source please share!
says “Mine started watching it around age 7 and is still watching at 10, when the topic overlaps with our history reading. She’s pretty tender, and we found they handled discussion of all the warring and bizarre ancient violent practices fairly sensitively.”If you have more suggestions, please do add them in the Comments. Occasionally, putting the TV on is the only thing to do, and it’s nice if there’s actually something good to watch.
HWH posts you might have missed in March
Why Teach the Classics? A guest post from Anya Leonard
A-Grade Days; What do you do when the children don’t need you?; and Smartphone Free Childhoods Lots of great discussion in the Comments about video games, smart phones, and how parents can keep themselves busy/sane when the children don’t need them… but might need them any moment.
The toys that go on forever If you’re going to buy your child a toy, make sure it’s one that will last and last! Lots of ideas here from me and from readers on the toys that give the most bang for your buck.
Difficult Doesn’t Have to be Bad: The challenge of challenging our children and ourselves The twentieth century was all about making life easier, and as parents we are evolutionarily programmed to smooth the way for our children. But all this ease isn’t good for us. We’ve forgotten how good it feels to accomplish difficult things.
Timetables, milestones, and going off the beaten track Baz Luhrmann’s right: the race is only with yourself. But that’s not easy to remember in a world that’s obsessed with goals and targets and doing everything right on schedule.
And some you might like from elsewhere on Substack
I Grew Up Oblivious About Grades. It Ruined Me.
I loved this post from
. It’s not specifically about homeschooling, but Josh was homeschooled for part of his education and writes engagingly about it and about the ramifications for his later attitude to learning.Why is my child so cranky after screentime?
It’s a cruel but undeniable fact that buying yourself some peace and quiet by putting your child in front of a screen often only results in serious payback when you turn it off.
explores why, and how to manage it. with a beautiful reminder that ‘shy, gentle, and very private’ people have much to offer the world. If you have a child who’s frustratingly clingy in social situations, or if you’d rather read a book than do almost anything else, remember that we wouldn’t have books like Charlotte’s Web if it wasn’t for quiet people like EB White—and, perhaps, like you or your child.Thanks for reading. If you’re not subscribed, sign up for free and never miss a post.
Hatchet! Wonderful.
We also give a book in each child's Easter basket. This year we gave:
12yo: Chesterton, "The Innocence of Father Brown"
9 yo: McInerny, "The Quest for Clodus's Collectibles" (this is a Christmas story, but it's the only one in the series our son didn't already have!)
6 yo: Dr. Seuss, "Marvin K. Mooney, Will You Please Go Now?"
4 yo: Dr. Seuss, "In a People House."
I'd love to hear what others gave, if they gave books!
I remember reading Hatchet at school as a young teen! It's such a visceral book, like a pre-cursor to Bear Grylls.
Geology Rocks podcast sounds great too