The River Houses

A National Network of Local Homeschool Societies

Welcome! (Pinned post)

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First time visitor? We post a rich assortment of educational ideas and informal “little lessons” that will help you enrich your homeschooling schedule all through the year. We’d be delighted to have you bookmark us or add your name to our mailing list (just one message a week, and no spam). 😊

The materials we’re developing are going to become the foundation for a new type of homeschool network made up of friendly local groups called “houses” (just like in Harry Potter). There’s lots of wonderful material here on our website β€” take a look around and make yourself at home. 😊

πŸŒ• LUNAR SOCIETY REPORT: Research Projects for Homeschool Students

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For live links, click to: riverhouses.org/blog/lunar-2019-03-20 😊

Tonight is the night of a full moon, so that means it’s time for a report from the Lunar Society of the River Houses.

The Lunar Society is one of our big and wonderful long-term plans to encourage homeschoolers to participate in real online research projects and share their results with other homeschool families. Here’s an outline of the idea, along with a list of some of the great projects that homeschool students (and their parents) can join and contribute to, from history to geography to physics to natural history to mathematics to meteorology to literature to galactic exploration:

Browse through that project list and find one that would be a good fit for your family. Before you know it, your students will be learning a host of valuable skills and your little home academy will be on its way to becoming an international research powerhouse. πŸ”¬ πŸ”­ πŸ–₯ πŸ¦‹ πŸ” βš—οΈ ⛏ πŸ“– 🌲 😊

Over time, it’s my hope that these monthly reports about the Lunar Society will evolve into something like a forum where homeschoolers participating in online research can share their achievements.

As a simple example, here’s my own personal report for the past month on the two types of projects I participate in: eBird monitoring of bird populations, and distributed computing research using the Berkeley open infrastructure application. You and your students can participate right now in these projects, and in many others too.

On the eBird website (eBird.org), sponsored by Cornell University, I’ve been tracking the birds in a small riverside park near me (eBird hotspot L6926932), and have now contributed a total of 527 checklists (daily observation reports) for this locality. When all the checklists are combined you can really get a sense of the seasonal distribution and migration patterns for the year.

You can start keeping a similar list for a location near you β€” your backyard, or a local park or other natural area. (Helping to track a public park or eBird “hotspot” will let you generate more interesting results.) You can even add photos and sound recordings to your reports if you wish. Just pay a visit to the eBird website (ebird.org) and start exploring.

Distributed computing projects use idle time on your computer to perform scientific calculations on various kinds of complex data. The most popular distributed computing projects run on the Berkeley Open Infrastructure for Network Computing platform (BOINC), and I contribute computer time to three of these: (1) the SETI@Home project, sponsored by the University of California, which searches for extraterrestrial intelligence (really!); (2) the Einstein@Home project, which studies neutron stars; and the MilkyWay@Home project, which studies the history and structure of our galaxy.

I’ve created River Houses team pages for each of these projects (Einstein@Home team, MilkyWay@Home team, SETI@Home team). Once your computer is signed up to participate you can join one of these teams and also print “certificates of computation” that show how much data you’ve individually analyzed and how much your team has analyzed β€” they’re just the thing for your homeschool bulletin board. 😊

And here’s another level of skill development for your high-school (or even advanced middle-school) students: once you’ve processed a few weeks or months of data, you can start graphing your contributions. Using Google Sheets, I’ve set up a simple chart of River Houses team results, and this is what it looks like:

(See attached blog post for chart)

That’s just a simple graphing exercise β€” it’s something that we can refine, develop, and expand in the future. (And your students can develop their own individual charts as well.)

The Internet provides exceptional opportunities for homeschool students to participate in real research projects in a variety of scientific and scholarly fields, something that would have been impossible only a few years ago. Pay a visit to our Lunar Society page to read about many more projects that your family can join.

What scholarly and scientific discoveries have you made in your homeschool this month? 😊

❑ Calling all photographers: If you’ve got a budding photographer in your homeschool, one group project you can participate in is the Wikimedia Commons Photo Challenge. A different theme is chosen each month; just sign up and follow the instructions to submit your own entries. Once you’re a registered participant you can also vote for each month’s winners. πŸ“Έ

❑ Books in the running brooks: If you decide to participate in eBird, our recommended homeschool reference library (riverhouses.org/books) includes an excellent bird guide that would serve your family well. And for any astronomical projects you may join, our recommended star atlas and world atlas (which has an astronomical section) will help you orient yourself to the objects you are studying in the starry vault above. πŸ¦‰ 🌠

🌷 SPRING is Here! (Astronomically Speaking)

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Today is the March equinox β€” we call it the vernal or spring equinox in the northern hemisphere, but in the southern hemisphere it’s the autumnal or fall equinox. The vernal equinox is the first day of spring (astronomically speaking), just as the autumnal equinox is the first day of fall (astronomically speaking).

❑ Little lessons: “β€˜Vernal’ and ‘autumnal’ are beautiful words. Let’s look them up in our dictionary (riverhouses.org/books).”

Whenever you’re investigating things temporal or calendrical, timeanddate.com is always a good place to start:

The seasons occur because the earth’s axis of daily rotation is not quite perpendicular to the plane of the earth’s annual orbit around the sun (it’s tilted by about 23ΒΊ). The two solstices occur at the points in the orbit when the axis is tilted most directly away from the sun (in December, on the first day of northern-hemisphere winter), and most directly toward the sun (in June, on the first day of northern-hemisphere summer). The two equinoxes, in March and September, occur when the earth’s axis is “sideways” to the sun (so to speak), making the intervals of daylight and darkness equal (or very nearly so).

The two equinoxes (March and September) and the two solstices (June and December) are defined with respect to the earth’s position in its annual orbit around the sun. (Image: timeanddate.com.)

NASA has a fun educational crossword puzzle for kids that’s filled with seasonal and astronomical vocabulary β€” solstices, equinoxes, and more.

Solstices, equinoxes, orbits, and more! A seasonal crossword puzzle for kids. (Image: NASA.)

You can print out your own copy at NASA’s “For Educators” website.

What calendrical events or astronomical apparitions will you be marking in your homeschool this week? 😊

πŸ—“ QUICK FRESHES for Homeschool Families – Week of 17 March 2019

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For live links, click to: riverhouses.org/blog/2019-03-17 😊

Quick Freshes are our regular Sunday notes on the homeschool week ahead. Pick one or two (or more) of the items below each week and use them to enrich your homeschooling schedule! Print your own River Houses calendar for the year at riverhouses.org/calendars.

πŸ‡ΊπŸ‡Έβ€…OUR STATE-OF-THE-WEEK is Iowa, and our COUNTRIES are Mexico πŸ‡²πŸ‡½, Micronesia πŸ‡«πŸ‡², Moldova πŸ‡²πŸ‡©, and Monaco πŸ‡²πŸ‡¨. (Our separate Sunday States & Countries post for the week went up just a few minutes ago.)

πŸŒ”β€…THE MOON at the beginning of this week is gibbous and waxing, heading toward full on the 20th. You can dial up this week’s constellations and explore the moon’s features with your homeschool star atlas and world atlas (riverhouses.org/books).

πŸ—“β€…TODAY (Sunday, 17 March) β€” Today is the 76th day of 2019; there are 289 days remaining in the year. Learn more about different kinds of modern and historical calendars on pages 358–364 in your River Houses almanac (riverhouses.org/books). ⬩ Happy St. Patrick’s Day! Erin go Bragh! (Ireland forever!) ☘️ On this day in 1776, British forces evacuated Boston after eleven months of siege. It was George Washington’s first victory in the American Revolution. πŸ‡ΊπŸ‡Έ

MONDAY (18 March) β€” Today is the birthday of the great World War I poet Wilfred Owen (1893–1918). πŸ–‹ And on this day in 1965, Soviet cosmonaut Alexey Leonov (b.Β 1934) became the first person to walk in space (for 12 minutes). πŸš€

TUESDAY (19 March) β€” According to tradition, this is the day each year when the swallows come back to Capistrano (the San Juan Capistrano Mission, that is, in Orange County, California).

WEDNESDAY (20 March) β€” Happy First Day of Spring! 🌸 Today is the March Equinox, also known as the Vernal (Spring) Equinox in the northern hemisphere and the Autumnal (Fall) Equinox in the southern hemisphere (where today is the first day of fall). πŸ—“ Today is also the birthday of Mister Fred Rogers (1928–2003), everybody’s favorite neighbor. 🏑 And, there’s a full moon tonight, so that means we’ll have a report on student research projects from the River Houses Lunar Society (riverhouses.org/lunar-society). πŸŒ•

THURSDAY (21 March) β€” Thursday is the birthday of Johann Sebastian Bach (1685–1750), one of the greatest musical composers in history. 🎡

FRIDAY (22 March) β€” Today is the birthday of the English artist Randolph Caldecott (1846–1886), for whom the famous Caldecott awards for illustrated children’s books are named. 🎨 Our homeschool poem-of-the-week for the fourth week of March is Robert Frost’s melancholy meditation “Nothing Gold Can Stay,” for early spring. Print your own River Houses poetry calendar (riverhouses.org/calendars) and follow along with us throughout the year.

SATURDAY (23 March) β€” On this day in 1775 at St. Joseph’s Church in Richmond, Virginia, Patrick Henry delivered his famous speech “Give me liberty, or give me death!” πŸ‡ΊπŸ‡Έ

SUNDAY (24 March) β€” Today is the birthday of the great Victorian artist and designer William Morris (1834–1896). πŸ–Œ And it’s also the birthday of the Hungarian-American magician Harry Houdini (1874–1926). 🎩 Shazam!

πŸ₯‚β€…YOUR WEEKLY TOAST: “To a light heart and a heavy purse.”

❑ Toasts can be a fun educational tradition for your family table. We offer one each week β€” you can take it up, or make up one of your own (“To North American dinosaurs!”), or invite a different person to come up with one for each meal (“To variety in toasting!”). Our current set of toasts are mostly taken from an old anthology called Pocock’s Everlasting Songster (Gravesend, 1804). What will you toast this week?

πŸŒŽβ€…EVERYTHING FLOWS: Mexico is one of our countries-of-the-week, so our Weekly World River is the beautiful Yaqui River in northwestern Mexico. You can chart its course in your recommended homeschool atlas (riverhouses.org/books), and you can read more about it in the Yaqui River entry in Wikipedia or perhaps on your next visit to your local library.

Yaqui River, Sonora, Mexico. (Image: Wikimedia Commons.)

❑ Let the river run: Why not do a homeschool study of world rivers over the course of the year? Take the one we select each week (above), or start with the river lists in your almanac (pages 691–693), and make it a project to look them all up in your atlas, or in a handy encyclopedia either online or on a weekly visit to your local library. A whole world of geographical learning awaits you!

What do you have planned for your homeschool this week? 😊

πŸ‡ΊπŸ‡Έ 🌎 SUNDAY STATES: Iowa, Mexico, Monaco, and More

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For live links, click to: riverhouses.org/blog/2019-iowa 😊

Tour the United States and travel the countries of the world each week with the River Houses. Our Sunday States & Countries posts will point the way.

Many homeschoolers like to review the U.S. states and the nations of the world each year, and your recommended homeschool reference library (riverhouses.org/books) includes a current world almanac, a world atlas, and a history encyclopedia that make these reviews fun and easy. We go through the states in the traditional order of admission to the Union (almanac page 429), so this week’s state is:

  • πŸ‡ΊπŸ‡Έ
    Iowa State Quarter
    IOWA (the 29th state, 28 December 1846) β€” The Hawkeye State. Capital: Des Moines. Iowa can be found on page 571 in your almanac and on plates 39 and 142 in your atlas. Name origin: “Indian word variously translated β€˜here I rest’ or β€˜beautiful land.’ Named for the Iowa River, which was named for the Iowa Indians” (almanac page 430). State bird: American Goldfinch (bird guide page 442). Website: www.iowa.gov.

❑ Little lessons: You can teach a hundred little lessons with the state-of-the-week, using your reference library (riverhouses.org/books) as a starting point. Find the location of the state capital in your atlas each week. Look up the state bird in your bird guide. Read the almanac’s one-paragraph history aloud each week. Using each state’s official website (above), find and copy the preamble to that state’s constitution into a commonplace book over the course of the year. Practice math skills by graphing each state’s population and area. Look up the famous state residents listed in your almanac either online or at your local library. The possibilities are endless and they can be easily adapted to each student’s age and interests. Pick a simple pattern to follow for just a few minutes each week, and your little lesson is done. By the end of the year, without even realizing it, your students will have absorbed a world of new geographical and historical information. 😊

❑ Explore more: If you’re planning a comprehensive unit study of one or more of the U.S. states, be sure to investigate the primary source materials for teachers available from the Library of Congress.

This week’s countries, with their official websites, are:

  • πŸ‡²πŸ‡½β€…MEXICO in southern North America. Population: 125,959,205. Capital: Mexico City. Website: www.gob.mx (in Spanish).
  • πŸ‡«πŸ‡²β€…MICRONESIA in the western Pacific Ocean. Population: 103,643. Capital: Palikir. Website: www.fsmgov.org (in English).
  • πŸ‡²πŸ‡©β€…MOLDOVA in eastern Europe. Population: 3,437,720. Capital: ChiΘ™inΔƒu. Website: www.moldova.md (in Romanian, English, and Russian).
  • πŸ‡²πŸ‡¨β€…MONACO on the Mediterranean coast of France. Population: 30,727. Capital: Monaco. Website: www.gouv.mc (in French and English).

These countries all appear in your current almanac, atlas, and history encyclopedia as well (riverhouses.org/books). The almanac, for example, has profiles of all the nations of the world on pages 745–852; the endpapers of the atlas are index maps that will show you where each of the individual national and regional maps can be found; the history encyclopedia includes individual national histories on pages 489–599; and you can find additional illustrations, flags, and other mentions through the indexes in each of these volumes.

What grand geographical discoveries have you made in your homeschool this week? 😊

❑ Read and think critically: The country links above go to official websites, which are not always in English and which may well be propagandistic in one way or another, thus offering older students a good opportunity to practice their critical reading and thinking skills.

❑ Plan an imaginary vacation: Here’s a fun exercise for your students: take one of the countries that we list each week and write out a family travel plan. How would you get there? How much will it cost? Will you need a passport? Where will you stay? Will you have to exchange your currency? How do you say hello the local language? What cities and attractions and landmarks will you visit? What foods will you eat? How will you get around (car, train, boat, mule)? Make a simple worksheet with blank spaces for the answers, have your students do the research, and start planning your world tour. ✈️ 🚞 πŸš— πŸ›³ 🐎 😊

❑ The great globe itself: This one of our regular Sunday States & Countries posts. Print your own River Houses States & Countries Calendar (riverhouses.org/calendars) and follow along with us as we take a homeschool tour of the world over the course of the year. 🌎

πŸ–‹ WONDERFUL WORDS: “The Ides of March”

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Yesterday was the Ides of March, the famous day on which Julius Caesar was assassinated in 44 B.C. by members of the Roman senate. Our homeschool poem-of-the-week for this Ides of March week is a reflective commemoration of that event by Constantine Cavafy called, naturally enough, “The Ides of March”:

The Ides of March

Constantine Cavafy
(Translated by Edmund Keeley and Philip Sherrard)

My soul, guard against pomp and glory.
And if you can’t curb your ambitions,
at least pursue them hesitantly, cautiously.
And the higher you go,
the more searching and careful you need to be.

And when you reach your summit, Caesar at last β€”
when you assume the role of someone that famous β€”
then be specially careful as you go out into the street,
a conspicuous man of power with your retinue;
and should a certain Artemidoros
come up to you out of the crowd, bringing a letter,
and say hurriedly: “Read this right away.
There are important things in it concerning you,”
be sure to stop; be sure to postpone
all talk or business; be sure to brush off
all those who salute and bow to you
(they can be seen later): let even
the Senate itself wait β€” and find out at once
what important message Artemidoros has for you.

Constantine Cavafy (1863–1933) was one of the most prominent Greek poets of the twentieth century, and many of his poems are modern commentaries and reflections on ancient Greek and Roman literature.

Constantine Cavafy (1863–1933). (Image: Poetry Foundation.)

Cavafy’s “The Ides of March” focuses on Artemidorus, a minor character in Shakespeare’s play Julius Caesar who learns of the conspiracy and writes a letter to Caesar warning him of it. In Act 2, Scene 3, we see Artemidorus in private reading the letter aloud to himself:

“Caesar, beware of Brutus. Take heed of Cassius. Come not near Casca. Have an eye to Cinna. Trust not Trebonius. Mark well Metellus Cimber. Decius Brutus loves thee not. Thou hast wronged Caius Ligarius. There is but one mind in all these men, and it is bent against Caesar. If thou beest not immortal, look about you. Security gives way to conspiracy. The mighty gods defend thee!” (Julius Caesar, Act 2, Scene 3)

But when Artemidorus tries to get the letter to Caesar in the street he is rebuffed, and the warning is never heard. Cavafy’s narrator warns all people of ambition β€” and all of us β€” to heed the minor characters of the world: the news they carry may be the most important of all.

What wonderful words have you found and what literary discoveries have you made in your homeschool this week? 😊

❑ Explore more: For a quick review of the life and times of Julius Caesar, turn to page 108 in your River Houses history encyclopedia (riverhouses.org/books).

❑ Here, said the year: This post is one of our regular homeschool poems-of-the-week. Print your own River Houses poetry calendar (riverhouses.org/calendars) and follow along with us as we visit forty-eight of our favorite friends.

🏞 HOMESCHOOL NATURE NOTES on the Arrival of Spring

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For live links, click to: riverhouses.org/blog/2019-early-spring 😊

Although official (astronomical) spring doesn’t begin for another week, my local birds definitely know that spring is well on the way. Have you and your students seen and heard the signs of spring in your homeschool neighborhood?

➀

Yesterday I went down to the local river at dawn (not my usual hour!) and the evidence was all around. Here’s my list:

A singing Song Sparrow was the first of the year, as was a Great Blue Heron that flew over, several Common Grackles, and a small line of Canada Geese. Are you keeping a list of the birds that you see in your homeschool backyard or local natural area? The beginning of spring is a great time to start!

What natural discoveries have you made in your homeschool lately? 😊

❑ Books in the running brooks: Our recommended homeschool reference library (riverhouses.org/books) includes an excellent bird guide that would serve your homeschool well. Many other similar guides are also available β€” find one that’s a good fit for your family and take it with you on all your outings, whether far afield or just out to the backyard. πŸ¦‰

❑ Homeschool birds: We think bird study is one of the best subjects you can take up in a homeschool environment. It’s suitable for all ages, it can be made as elementary or as advanced as you wish, and birds can be found just about anywhere at any season of the year. Why not track your own homeschool bird observations on the free eBird website (ebird.org) sponsored by Cornell University. It’s a great way to learn more about what’s in your local area and about how bird populations change from season to season. 🐦

πŸ—‘ BEWARE the Ides of March!

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For live links, click to: riverhouses.org/blog/2019-denarius 😊

Today is the Ides of March, the famous date on which the Roman politician, general, and dictator Julius Caesar was assassinated. Rome had been a republic for centuries, proud of its heritage of having overthrown its ancient kings. But when Caesar, returning victorious from a military campaign in the west, ordered his soldiers into the city (“crossed the Rubicon”) in 49 B.C. and then eventually declared himself dictator for life, his opponents in the republican senate conspired to have him murdered. They accomplished their aim on this day, the “Ides” or midpoint of the month of March, in 44 B.C.

In the end, the senate’s coup failed. After several years of internal turmoil, Caesar’s designated successor, Octavian, consolidated power and became Rome’s first emperor, Augustus. The old republic was swept away.

❑ Filling in the background: For a quick homeschool review of the life and times of Julius Caesar, and of his assassination on the Ides of March in 44 B.C., turn to page 108 in your River Houses history encyclopedia (riverhouses.org/books).

If you want to show your homeschool students a really tangible artifact of this one famous moment in history, you need look no further than the “EID MAR denarius” issued in the name of the assassin Brutus to pay the senatorial army in months following Caesar’s overthrow:

A denarius was a standard coin of ancient Rome, about the size of our American penny but made of silver, and usually said to represent about a day’s pay for a common soldier.

[Ides of March denarius]
EID MAR (Ides of March) denarius, issued in the name of Brutus shortly after Caesar’s assassination, used to pay soldiers loyal to the Roman senate. (Image: Museum of Fine Arts, Boston.)

The front or obverse of this denarius features the head of Brutus the senator (“BRVT”) and the back or reverse tells the story of what has just happened: two daggers for the assassination, a “liberty cap” representing freedom, and the date “EID MAR” β€” the Latin abbreviation for “Ides of March.”

The EID MAR denarius isn’t an exceptionally rare coin, but it’s in high demand, as you might imagine. Fine specimens today have sold for more than half a million dollars β€” not bad pay for a common soldier.

On this historical anniversary, be sure to introduce your homeschool students to the name of Julius Caesar and how he met his fate. And to make this ancient event seem a bit less distant, ask them to imagine themselves as Roman soldiers with a handful of Ides-of-March denarii in their pockets, shiny and fresh from the mint of Brutus.

What historical events and anniversaries will you be remembering in your homeschool this week? 😊

πŸ”­ JOIN A HOMESCHOOL RESEARCH PROJECT for Einstein’s Birthday

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For live links, click to: riverhouses.org/blog/2019-einstein-at-home 😊

Today is Albert Einstein’s birthday! πŸŽ‰ It’s also Pi Day (3/14), so there couldn’t be a better day to connect your homeschool to a long-running scientific research project that is searching for pulsars in deep space β€” aΒ research project that you and your students (yes, you) can join and contribute to in just aΒ few minutes. (Really!)

The project is called Einstein@Home (einsteinathome.org) and it is sponsored and funded by the University of Wisconsin, the U.S. National Science Foundation, and many other scientific organizations. I’ve been participating for years, and you can too with just a few minutes of set-up.

Einstein@Home uses idle time on your computer to search through data collected by radio telescopes β€” data that may contain weak signals from pulsars and other deep space objects. All you have to do is download a small application to your computer that runs in the background, and while you’re working or napping or eating or reading, it will be sorting through thousands and thousands of recorded signals. To participate using your computer (desktop or laptop), just go to the “Join Now” page and follow the instructions:

The application you download is called BOINC β€” the Berkeley Open Infrastructure for Network Computing application β€” and it was developed at the University of California to support “distributed computing” research projects like Einstein@Home. (IΒ believe there is also an Android version that may work on your phone, but IΒ haven’t tried that; you’ll have to experiment.) Once you download and install the BOINC application, just select Einstein@Home from among the available projects, and you’ll be up and running.

Einstein@Home isn’t an interactive project that requires you to perform any special tasks beyond the set up, so don’t worry that you need to understand advanced physics to participate! The program just runs in the background doing calculations, and so in a sense it’s a relatively passive activity overall. But your students can learn a great deal by reading about the project and understanding what kind of data are being analyzed and where they come from, if they’re so inclined. And you can all feel good about your homeschool making aΒ small contribution to the advancement of science. 😊

Once the application is up and running, Einstein@Home will produce a lovely screensaver when your computer is idle that shows a map of the heavens, the locations of the radio-signal detectors, and where in space the recording came from that your computer is currently analyzing.

Einstein@Home screensaver from RJO’s computer, showing the location in space that was being analyzed (crossed circle, top center) at the moment this screenshot was taken. The purple dots represent known pulsars.

More that 500,000 volunteers (just like you) have participated in the Einstein@Home project, and more than 40 new pulsars have thus far been discovered.

And don’t feel like you’re working alone! I created a page for a future River Houses team made up of any homeschoolers who would like to participate, and once you’ve got the program up and running you can join:

So far, I’m the only member. 😊

The Internet provides exceptional opportunities for homeschool students to participate in real research projects in a variety of scientific and scholarly fields, something that would have been impossible only a few years ago. Pay a visit to our Lunar Society page to read about many more projects, in addition to Einstein@Home, that you and your family can join.

What scientific discoveries have you made in your homeschool this month? 😊

πŸ“œ LIBRARY TUESDAY: Julius Caesar the Author

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For live links, click to: riverhouses.org/blog/2019-all-gaul 😊

Tuesday is Books & Libraries day at the River Houses, and since this our unofficial Julius Caesar Week (Beware the Ides of March!), we’re going to take a look at a magnificent copy of Caesar’s most famous work.

❑ Filling in the background: For a quick homeschool review of the life and times of Julius Caesar, and of his assassination on the Ides of March in 44 B.C., turn to page 108 in your River Houses history encyclopedia (riverhouses.org/books).

Julius Caesar was not only a politician, a general, and a military dictator, he was also an author. Caesar’s account of his military conquest of Gaul (most of modern France and Belgium) is famous not only for its description of the state of Europe at that time, but also because it’s a fine example of simple and clear Latin prose. Tens of thousands of school children β€” probably millions, in fact, over hundreds of years β€” have read Caesar’s De bello Gallico (On the Gallic War) in their beginning Latin classes in dozens of countries around the world. Its famous opening sentence β€” β€œAll Gaul is divided into three parts” β€” is a stock phrase that has been part of the mental furnishings of educated people in the Western world for centuries.

Here is a magnificent illuminated (colored and decorated) copy of On the Gallic War that is now owed by the Bavarian State Library in Germany; it was produced in 1469:

[All Gaul is divided into three parts]
Illuminated copy of Caesar’s Gallic Wars, from the collections of the Bavarian State Library in Germany (Bayerische Staatsbibliothek). (Image: Wikimedia Commons.)

Can your students read the printing? The first line in red is the work’s title (this was before the invention of title pages): “C. Iulii Cesaris belli gallici commentarius primus” (“C[aius] Julius Caesar’s first commentary on the Gallic wars”). The second line is the famous opening sentence, with a magnificently illuminated initial “G”: “GAllia est omnis divisa in partes tres” (“All Gaul is divided into three parts”).

So here’s how you make a playful little lesson from this, even with small children. Take the famous phrase “All Gaul is divided into three parts” and turn it into a running family game. Sharing a pie with three children? All pies are divided into three parts. Our whole house is divided into three parts: the kitchen where we eat, the living room where we play, and the bedroom where we sleep. The backyard with the garden, lawn, and dog house? All backyards are divided into three parts. And all books are of course divided into three parts: beginning, middle, and end. And so on.

Cultures and civilizations are built on shared educational experiences, shared ideas, shared languages, even shared jokes. By introducing your students to playful uses classic texts, even in this tiny way, you are sharing with them a small part of the cultural inheritance of the West that can continue to enrich them throughout their lives.

What educational discoveries have you made at your library lately? 😊

❑ Books in the running brooks: The sidebar on the River Houses website (riverhouses.org) has links to several important online library collections that we like to explore. Why not sit yourself down at a large screen for a while (not a phone), and give them a browse. 😊

❑ Explore more: Have you visited all the local libraries in your area? There may be more than you realize! The WorldCat Library Finder (worldcat.org/libraries) will help you locate all the libraries near you β€” public and private, large and small β€” and the WorldCat catalog itself will help you find the closest copy of almost any book in the world. 😊

πŸ—“ QUICK FRESHES for Homeschool Families – Week of 10 March 2019

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For live links, click to: riverhouses.org/blog/2019-03-10 😊

Quick Freshes are our regular Sunday notes on the homeschool week ahead. Pick one or two (or more) of the items below each week and use them to enrich your homeschooling schedule! Print your own River Houses calendar for the year at riverhouses.org/calendars.

πŸ‡ΊπŸ‡Έβ€…OUR STATE-OF-THE-WEEK is Texas, and our COUNTRIES are Malta πŸ‡²πŸ‡Ή, the Marshall Islands πŸ‡²πŸ‡­, Mauritania πŸ‡²πŸ‡·, and Mauritius πŸ‡²πŸ‡Ί. (Our separate Sunday States & Countries post for the week went up just a few minutes ago.)

πŸŒ’β€…THE MOON at the beginning of this week is waxing crescent β€” a good time for stargazing! You can dial up this week’s constellations and explore the moon’s features with your homeschool star atlas and world atlas (riverhouses.org/books).

πŸ—“β€…TODAY (Sunday, 10 March) β€” Today is the 69th day of 2019; there are 296 days remaining in the year. Learn more about different kinds of modern and historical calendars on pages 358–364 in your River Houses almanac (riverhouses.org/books). ⬩ Today is Harriet Tubman Day β€” a great day to celebrate freedom! πŸŽ†

MONDAY (11 March) β€” Monday is the birthday of Vannevar Bush (1890–1974), one of the pioneering thinkers of the early computer age, who envisioned something like the World Wide Web all the way back in 1945. πŸ–₯

TUESDAY (12 March) β€” Today is “Girl Scouts’ Birthday,” commemorating the establishment of the first American girl scout troop by Juliette Gordon Low in Savannah, Georgia, in 1912.

WEDNESDAY (13 March) β€” Today is the birthday of the American businessman, mathematician, and astronomer Percival Lowell (1855–1916), who inspired generations of science-fiction writers with his claim that there was an extensive network of canals on the surface of Mars. πŸ‘½

THURSDAY (14 March) β€” Happy Pi Day! (3/14, that is.) 𝝿 And happy birthday also to the great German-American physicist Albert Einstein (1879–1955). βš›οΈ

FRIDAY (15 March) β€” Beware the Ides of March! πŸ—‘ On the ancient Roman calendar, the 15th of March is called the “Ides,” or midpoint, of the month. On the Ides of March in 44 B.C., the military dictator Julius Caesar was stabbed to death by Marcus Junius Brutus, Gaius Cassius Longinus, and several other Roman senators. This ultimately unsuccessful coup led to the consolidation of Rome as an Empire under Caesar’s successors and its decline as a Republic. πŸ–‹ And speaking of bewaring, our homeschool poem-of-the-week for the third week of March is “The Ides of March” by Constantine Cavafy (1863–1933), for, um, the Ides of March! Print your own River Houses poetry calendar (riverhouses.org/calendars) and follow along with us throughout the year.

SATURDAY (16 March) β€” Today is the birthday of James Madison (1751–1836), “Father of the Constitution” and the 4th President of the United States. πŸ‡ΊπŸ‡Έ And on this day in 1926 in a field in Auburn, Massachusetts, Robert Goddard (1882–1945) launched the first experimental liquid-fueled rocket. πŸš€

SUNDAY (17 March) β€” Happy St. Patrick’s Day! Erin go Bragh! (Ireland forever!) ☘️ On this day in 1776, British forces evacuated Boston after eleven months of siege. It was George Washington’s first victory in the American Revolution. πŸ‡ΊπŸ‡Έ

πŸ₯‚β€…YOUR WEEKLY TOAST: “Sic semper tyrannis!” (“Thus ever to tyrants!” Said to have been uttered by Brutus as he stabbed the dictator Julius Caesar in 44 B.C.; also, the state motto of Virginia.)

❑ Toasts can be a fun educational tradition for your family table. We offer one each week β€” you can take it up, or make up one of your own (“To North American dinosaurs!”), or invite a different person to come up with one for each meal (“To variety in toasting!”). Our current set of toasts are mostly taken from an old anthology called Pocock’s Everlasting Songster (Gravesend, 1804). What will you toast this week?

πŸŒŽβ€…EVERYTHING FLOWS: Mauritania is one of our countries-of-the-week, so our Weekly World River is the Senegal River, which flows along the border between Mauritania and Senegal. You can chart its course in your recommended homeschool atlas (riverhouses.org/books), and you can read more about it in the Senegal River entry in Wikipedia or perhaps on your next visit to your local library.

Sunset on the Senegal River along the border between Mauritania and Senegal. (Image: Wikimedia Commons.)

❑ Let the river run: Why not do a homeschool study of world rivers over the course of the year? Take the one we select each week (above), or start with the river lists in your almanac (pages 691–693), and make it a project to look them all up in your atlas, or in a handy encyclopedia either online or on a weekly visit to your local library. A whole world of geographical learning awaits you!

AND DON’T FORGET: Friday the 13th comes on a Wednesday this month! πŸ™€

What do you have planned for your homeschool this week? 😊

πŸ‡ΊπŸ‡Έ 🌎 SUNDAY STATES: Texas, Malta, Mauritius, and More

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For live links, click to: riverhouses.org/blog/2019-texas 😊

Tour the United States and travel the countries of the world each week with the River Houses. Our Sunday States & Countries posts will point the way.

Many homeschoolers like to review the U.S. states and the nations of the world each year, and your recommended homeschool reference library (riverhouses.org/books) includes a current world almanac, a world atlas, and a history encyclopedia that make these reviews fun and easy. We go through the states in the traditional order of admission to the Union (almanac page 429), so this week’s state is:

  • πŸ‡ΊπŸ‡Έ
    Texas State Quarter
    TEXAS (the 28th state, 29 December 1845) β€” The Lone Star State. Capital: Austin. Texas can be found on page 586 in your almanac and on plates 40 and 142 in your atlas. Name origin: “Variant of word used by Caddo and other Indians meaning β€˜friends’ or β€˜allies’ and applied to them by the Spanish in eastern Texas. Also written Texias, Tejas, Teysas” (almanac page 430). State bird: Northern Mockingbird (bird guide page 416). Website: texas.gov.

❑ Little lessons: You can teach a hundred little lessons with the state-of-the-week, using your reference library (riverhouses.org/books) as a starting point. Find the location of the state capital in your atlas each week. Look up the state bird in your bird guide. Read the almanac’s one-paragraph history aloud each week. Using each state’s official website (above), find and copy the preamble to that state’s constitution into a commonplace book over the course of the year. Practice math skills by graphing each state’s population and area. Look up the famous state residents listed in your almanac either online or at your local library. The possibilities are endless and they can be easily adapted to each student’s age and interests. Pick a simple pattern to follow for just a few minutes each week, and your little lesson is done. By the end of the year, without even realizing it, your students will have absorbed a world of new geographical and historical information. 😊

❑ Explore more: If you’re planning a comprehensive unit study of one or more of the U.S. states, be sure to investigate the primary source materials for teachers available from the Library of Congress.

This week’s countries, with their official websites, are:

  • πŸ‡²πŸ‡Ήβ€…MALTA in the Mediterranean Sea. Population: 449,043. Capital: Valletta. Website: www.gov.mt (in English and Maltese).
  • πŸ‡²πŸ‡­β€…MARSHALL ISLANDS in the Pacific Ocean. Population: 75,684. Capital: Majuro. Website: rmiparliament.org (in English).
  • πŸ‡²πŸ‡·β€…MAURITANIA in northwestern Africa. Population: 3,840,429. Capital: Nouakchott. Website: primature.gov.mr (in Arabic and French).
  • πŸ‡²πŸ‡Ίβ€…MAURITIUS in the Indian Ocean. Population: 1,364,283. Capital: Port Louis. Website: www.govmu.org (in English and French).

These countries all appear in your current almanac, atlas, and history encyclopedia as well (riverhouses.org/books). The almanac, for example, has profiles of all the nations of the world on pages 745–852; the endpapers of the atlas are index maps that will show you where each of the individual national and regional maps can be found; the history encyclopedia includes individual national histories on pages 489–599; and you can find additional illustrations, flags, and other mentions through the indexes in each of these volumes.

What grand geographical discoveries have you made in your homeschool this week? 😊

❑ Read and think critically: The country links above go to official websites, which are not always in English and which may well be propagandistic in one way or another, thus offering older students a good opportunity to practice their critical reading and thinking skills.

❑ Plan an imaginary vacation: Here’s a fun exercise for your students: take one of the countries that we list each week and write out a family travel plan. How would you get there? How much will it cost? Will you need a passport? Where will you stay? Will you have to exchange your currency? How do you say hello the local language? What cities and attractions and landmarks will you visit? What foods will you eat? How will you get around (car, train, boat, mule)? Make a simple worksheet with blank spaces for the answers, have your students do the research, and start planning your world tour. ✈️ 🚞 πŸš— πŸ›³ 🐎 😊

❑ The great globe itself: This one of our regular Sunday States & Countries posts. Print your own River Houses States & Countries Calendar (riverhouses.org/calendars) and follow along with us as we take a homeschool tour of the world over the course of the year. 🌎

🌟 STAR BRIGHT: Sirius for March

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For live links, click to: riverhouses.org/blog/2019-sirius 😊

We’re going to start a new thing today: a monthly great star. March is the perfect month to begin this new tradition, because just as it’s getting dark each evening at this time of year the brightest star in earth’s night sky, Sirius, appears high in the south. Brilliant white Sirius will be our star for the month.

Sirius (Ξ± Canis Majoris). (Image: Wikimedia Commons.)

Sirius is the brightest star β€” the “alpha” star β€” in the constellation Canis Major, the Big Dog that trails behind Orion the Hunter as he crosses the winter and early spring sky to the west. Sirius is commonly called “the Dog Star,” marking as it does the Big Dog’s head. Its formal designation is Ξ± Canis Majoris β€” “alpha of Canis Major.”

If you want to introduce your students to Sirius, you can start with some basic astronomy from our recommended homeschool star atlas (riverhouses.org/books):

“Sirius, the brightest star in the sky (magnitude –1.44) is the most conspicuous star in this constellation [Canis Major, the Big Dog]. It is easily located by following downward the line connecting the three stars in the Belt of Orion. Sirius is the nearest star to the sun visible to the naked eye in the northern latitudes, being but 9Β light years distant. It has a white dwarf companion, a star so dense that one cubic inch weighs a ton.“ (Celestron Sky Maps, page 18)

The planisphere on the front of your star atlas will help you locate Sirius, and that’s plenty for beginning students β€” your little lesson is done. If you want to get more advanced, the Wikipedia page on Sirius is packed with additional information on everything from astrometrics to cultural history.

Sirius is indeed a double star system, but the smaller star of the pair is only visible in the largest telescopes. The name Sirius means burning, shining, or scorching in Greek (σΡίριος), either from its brightness or from the timing of its dawn rising along with the sun in mid-summer. (Today, we tend to make seasonal associations with the stars and constellations according to their evening visibility, but in ancient times, it was the dates on which particular stars rose just ahead of the sun at dawn that was commonly used for calendrical purposes.)

Sirius is roughly twice the diameter of our sun, and it is much younger β€” less than 250 million years old, in contrast to the sun’s age of about 4.6 billion years. Sirius was one of the first stars whose “proper motion” against the distant background was confirmed. The astronomer Edmond Halley (1656–1742), by comparing contemporary measurements of the position of Sirius with those of the ancient astronomer Claudius Ptolemy (ca. 100–170), determined that Sirius had moved about 30 arc minutes across the sky since Ptolemy’s day β€” a movement equivalent to the diameter of the moon in 1500 years. The “fixed stars” were not so fixed after all.

Just yesterday, as I was walking back from the grocery store around sunset, I turned to the south and there was Sirius emerging in the twilight, the first star of the evening. This month, take your homeschool students out at dusk and introduce them to this great nearby sun and teach them its name, and so give them a new friend for life.

What stellar observations have you made in your homeschool lately? 🌟

❑ Alpha and beta and gamma, oh my: Most of the principal stars within each constellation have both old vernacular names β€” Vega, Sirius, Arcturus, and so on β€” and also more formal scientific designations. The German astronomer Johann Bayer (1572–1625) devised the formal system of star designations that is still in common use today. In Bayer’s system, the stars in each constellation, from brightest to dimmest, are assigned a lowercase letter of the Greek alphabet: Ξ± (alpha, brightest), Ξ² (beta, second brightest), Ξ³ (gamma, third brightest), Ξ΄ (delta, fourth brightest), and so on. This letter designation is combined with the Latin name of the constellation in its possessive (genitive) form: Lyra becomes Lyrae (“of Lyra”), Canis Major becomes Canis Majoris (“of Canis Major”), and so on. The brightest star in the constellation Lyra (the star Vega) thus becomes Ξ± Lyrae (“alpha of Lyra”), the brightest star in Canis Major (the star Sirius) becomes Ξ± Canis Majoris (“alpha of Canis Major”), and so on, through all 24 Greek letters and all 88 constellations. How bright would you expect, say, the Οƒ (sigma) star of Orion to be? Not very bright β€” it’s far down the alphabet β€” but Οƒ Orionis happens to be the top star of Orion’s sword, so it’s notable and easy to locate on a dark night.

❑ Watchers of the skies: Teaching your students to recognize the constellations is one of the simplest and most enduring gifts you can give them. The planisphere on the front of your River Houses star atlas (riverhouses.org/books) will let you dial up the northern hemisphere sky for any night of the year, and the descriptions and maps of each constellation will point out the highlights, including the names and characteristics of the brightest stars. Why not find a dark-sky spot near you this month and spend some quality homeschool time beneath the starry vault. 🌠 πŸ”­ 🌌 🌟

πŸŒ’ HOMESCHOOL NATURE NOTES: Signs of Spring

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A thin crescent of a moon followed the sun over the western horizon this evening. Did you and your students see it?

Although “official” (astronomical) spring won’t begin for another couple of weeks, there are already signs of spring all around us, even here in the frozen north where we still have a couple of inches of snow on the ground.

Down by my local river the Mourning Doves have reappeared, calling and associating in pairs. There were a few in the general area over the winter β€” you could sometimes spot them at dusk going to roost β€” but there were none by the river in the daytime, and now there are.

The local Mockingbird has returned and is standing guard over his big berry-hoard each day. And most notably, the Turkey Vultures are back, passing over to the north singly and in small groups β€” perhaps the most dramatic sign of spring so far.

A springtime Turkey Vulture returning to the Nashua Valley. (Image: RJO.)

Soon the Common Grackles and Song Sparrows will be back, and maybe an early Great Blue Heron.

What signs of spring are you seeing in your homeschool? 😊

❑ Homeschool birds: We think bird study is one of the best subjects you can take up in a homeschool environment. It’s suitable for all ages, it can be made as elementary or as advanced as you wish, and birds can be found just about anywhere at any season of the year. Why not track your own homeschool bird observations on the free eBird website (ebird.org) sponsored by Cornell University. It’s a great way to learn more about what’s in your local area and about how bird populations change from season to season. 🐦

❑ Books in the running brooks: Our recommended homeschool reference library (riverhouses.org/books) includes an excellent bird guide that would serve your homeschool well. Many other similar guides are also available β€” find one that’s a good fit for your family and take it with you on all your outings, whether far afield or just out to the backyard. πŸ¦‰

❑ Rivers in the sky: What birds are migrating this week? You can find out from the BirdCast website (birdcast.info), which offers daily bird migration forecasts in the spring and fall for the entire United States. πŸ¦…

πŸ”­ WONDERFUL WORDS: When I Heard the Learn’d Astronomer

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For live links, click to: riverhouses.org/blog/2019-whitman-astronomer 😊

Two great scientists who studied the stars were born this month: William Herschel (1738–1822) and Albert Einstein (1879–1955). In their honor, in a contrariwise manner, our homeschool poem-of-the-week for the second week of March is the science-skeptical “When I Heard the Learn’d Astronomer” by the great American poet Walt Whitman (1819–1892):

When I Heard the Learn’d Astronomer

When I heard the learn’d astronomer,
When the proofs, the figures, were ranged in columns before me,
When I was shown the charts and diagrams, to add, divide, and measure them,
When I sitting heard the astronomer where he lectured with much applause
Β Β Β Β Β in the lecture-room,
How soon unaccountable I became tired and sick,
Till rising and gliding out I wander’d off by myself,
In the mystical moist night-air, and from time to time,
Look’d up in perfect silence at the stars.

Artists and scientists have not always gotten along through history β€” and what a wonderful subject that is for open-ended discussion between you and your homeschool students. To be frankly critical, I think artists have failed to appreciate scientists more often than the reverse. (For a second poetical example, see Edgar Allan Poe’s sonnet “To Science.”) Do you have an art-loving student with no interest in science? Or a science-loving student with no interest in art? Or one of each? And which are you? And why might that be?

Putting on our artist-hats for a moment and turning to the details of the poem itself, we’ll see that it has very little metrical structure. Whitman’s preferred style was “free verse,” and counting lines and syllables in his poems doesn’t usually reveal much. But Whitman’s free verse does regularly employ specific artful literary techniques that your students can learn to recognize.

One of Whitman’s favorite devices is anaphora β€” the repetition of a word or phrase at the beginning of successive clauses (and a great college-level vocabulary word): When I heard … When the proofs … When I was shown … When I sitting. (See the first section of Whitman’s masterpiece “Out of the Cradle Endlessly Rocking” for many more beautiful examples of anaphora.)

Anaphora produces a weighty and majestic feel in poetry and prose. It’s a common literary device in the Bible, and Whitman’s poetic cadences owe much to the many anaphoric passages that occur all through the King James Version: Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels … And though I have the gift of prophecy … and though I have all faith … And though I bestow all my goods … and though I give my body to be burned, and have not charity, it profiteth me nothing. (1Β Corinthians 13:1–3)

Contra Whitman, I think science and art both profiteth much, and I hope you agree. Why not spend a few homeschool minutes this week remembering those who, however independently, have advanced both fields of endeavor.

What wonderful words have you found and what literary discoveries have you made in your homeschool this week? 😊

❑ Look’d up in perfect silence at the stars: If a special line or turn of phrase happens to strike you in one of our weekly poems, just copy it onto your homeschool bulletin board for a few days and invite your students to speak it aloud β€” that’s all it takes to begin a new poetical friendship and learn a few lovely words that will stay with you for life. 😊

❑ Explore more: The Poetry Foundation’s website includes biographical notes and examples of the work of many important poets (including Walt Whitman) that are suitable for high school students and homeschool teachers.

❑ Here, said the year: This post is one of our regular homeschool poems-of-the-week. Print your own River Houses poetry calendar (riverhouses.org/calendars) and follow along with us as we visit forty-eight of our favorite friends.

❑ Find all our Language & Literature posts on Facebook at #RHwords.

πŸ‡ΊπŸ‡Έ 🌎 FOR YOUR BULLETIN BOARD: A Printable States & Countries Schedule

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For live links, click to: riverhouses.org/blog/2019-states-calendar/ 😊

Every Sunday we put up our weekly States & Countries posts that invite you and your students to tour the U.S. states and the countries of the world with us. Just spend a few minutes each week finding the countries and states with your atlas and almanac and reading a fact or two about them, and over the course of the year, without even realizing it, your students will absorb a wealth of cultural and geographical information.

In case you’d like to plan ahead, we just put together a simple one-page printable schedule that shows when each state and each country will be coming up on the annual calendar. It’s available now on our main homeschool calendars page β€” download it and post it on your homeschool bulletin board today:

What calendrical events will you be marking and what geographical discoveries will you be making in your homeschool this week? 😊

❑ Find all our Terms & Calendars posts on Facebook at #RHterms.

❑ Find all our States & Countries posts on Facebook at #RHstates.