u/m3lk0r__

Hi All, I’m looking for first week activities to do with an eighth grade US history class. I don’t want to dive straight into the curriculum, and would love any ideas or suggestions for what to do the first few days. Thanks!

First post here, so apologies if this is the wrong sort of question! Here goes:
A family member knows that I am a bit of a history nerd. However, while I love Russian and Mesoamerican history, I told her that Greece and Rome are my least favorite subjects. She told me she would lend me some books that might change my mind, so I agreed to read them. They are all by Tom Holland: Dominion, Rubicon, Dynasty, Pax, and Persian Fire. I started with Persian Fire, but noticed a rather big inaccuracy(?) (or maybe oversimplification is a better term) when he talks about Spartans throwing babies off Mt. Taygetus. The author went on for several pages about this and stated it as an incontrovertible fact. I would like to continue reading the books so that my family member and I can have a discussion, but I’m wondering what other inaccuracies there are. I’m not well-versed enough in this subject to recognize them all, and I can’t look up every single little thing. Anything you could point out would be appreciated!

This is kind of a weird question, but has anyone heard of feeding goats raspberry leaves to help them calm down? I live in redneck country and my neighbors go insane on the 4th of July. We’re talking blowing up actual mortars that shake the barn. I have a small herd of myotonic (fainting) goats and someone told me once to feed them raspberry leaves and it will naturally calm them down. So every year I give them buckets of raspberry leaves and they have never once had a problem with anxiety or fainting afterwards. I was telling this to another goat owner and they said they’ve never heard of raspberry leaves being used this way, so I did an Internet search and found absolutely nothing. I can’t remember where I heard this from and now I’m wondering if the leaves have some sort of placebo effect for me the goat owner and I’m starting to feel silly. I feel like you can find anything on the Internet and I haven’t found even a mention. Does anyone have any insight or experience with this? Thanks!