The River Houses

A National Network of Local Homeschool Societies

πŸ”­ WATCHERS OF THE SKIES: A Cygnus Skyscape

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For live links, click to: riverhouses.org/2019-ap190725

Deneb in the constellation Cygnus is our Great Star of the Month for September, the first month of Cygnus Term, the opening term of our homeschool year. This magnificent image of the Cygnus region is one of the many treasures available on NASA’s Astronomy Picture of the Day website:

[See attached blog post for images]

A Cygnus skyscape. Deneb, the swan’s tail, is the bright star at the top, just left of center, and the cross that forms the body and wings of the swan is pointing downward to the right. The dark region directly below Deneb is called the Coal Sack. (Image: Alistair Symon via apod.nasa.gov.)

For a great ten-minute astronomy lesson, have your students read aloud this detailed explanation of the image from the APOD astronomers, and have them look up any new terms and concepts they encounter in your recommended backyard star guide or family dictionary (riverhouses.org/books):

“In brush strokes of interstellar dust and glowing hydrogen gas, this beautiful skyscape is painted across the plane of our Milky Way Galaxy near the northern end of the Great Rift and the constellation Cygnus the Swan. Composed with three different telescopes and about 90 hours of image data, the widefield mosaic spans an impressive 24 degrees across the sky. Alpha star of Cygnus, bright, hot, supergiant Deneb lies near top center. Crowded with stars and luminous gas clouds, Cygnus is also home to the dark, obscuring Northern Coal Sack Nebula, extending from Deneb toward the center of the view. The reddish glow of star forming regions NGC 7000, the North America Nebula, and IC 5070, the Pelican Nebula, are just left of Deneb. The Veil Nebula is a standout below and left of center. A supernova remnant, the Veil is some 1,400 light years away, but many other nebulae and star clusters are identifiable throughout the cosmic scene. Of course, Deneb itself is also known to northern hemisphere skygazers for its place in two asterisms β€” marking the top of the Northern Cross and a vertex of the Summer Triangle.“ (apod.nasa.gov)

You can find Deneb and Cygnus high overhead in the evening now, just a little east of the zenith at sunset and passing to the west as the night goes on β€” looking beautiful indeed but not quite as dramatic as they do in this specialized long-exposure image.

What astronomical alignments are you examining in your homeschool this week? 😊

❑ Choose something like a star: Teaching your students to recognize the constellations is one of the simplest and most enduring gifts you can give them. Your recommended backyard star guide and homeschool world atlas (riverhouses.org/books) both contain charts of the constellations that will show you the all the highlights. Find a dark-sky spot near you this month and spend some quality homeschool time beneath the starry vault. 🌌

❑ Star bright: If you’d like some more simple homeschool astronomy lessons, download and print a copy of our annual River Houses Star Calendar (riverhouses.org/calendars) and follow along with us month by month as we get to know twelve heavenly friends-for-life over the course of the year. 🌟

❑ Watchers of the skies: This is one of our regular homeschool astronomy posts. Add your name to our free River Houses mailing list (riverhouses.org/newsletter) and get great homeschool teaching ideas delivered right to your mailbox every week. πŸ”­

πŸ¦† FRIDAY BIRD FAMILIES: Ducks, Geese, and Swans (II)

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For live links, click to: riverhouses.org/2019-anatidae-ii

Every Friday in the River Houses we invite you and your students to learn about a different group of North American birds from your recommended homeschool bird guide (riverhouses.org/books) β€” it’s a great way to add a few minutes of informal science, geography, natural history, and imagination to your homeschool schedule. (We started this new feature at the beginning of this month with an introduction to your bird guide.)

This week’s family is (again) the Ducks, Geese, and Swans β€” the Anatidae (bird guide page 14). Usually we’ll cover one or two families each week, but we’re spreading the ducks, geese, and swans over two weeks because there are so many of them: about 160 species around the world, and 66 in North America. Last week we said a few words about geese and swans; this week we’ll turn to the ducks.

[Follow attached blog link for images and sounds]

With smaller children, you can take our Friday Bird Families posts as opportunities to just use your bird guide as a picture book and spend a few minutes looking at all the wonderful wildlife. For older students, one of our objectives is to help them become fluent with a technical reference book that’s packed with dense information. Here’s the introduction to this bird family β€” you’ll find it on page 14:

“DUCKSΒ Β· GEESE Β· SWANS β€” Family Anatidae. Worldwide family. Web-footed, gregarious birds, ranging from small ducks to swans. Largely aquatic, but geese, swans, and some ‘puddle ducks’ also graze on land. Species: 160 World, 66 N.A. [North America].“

In larger families, such as the ducks, geese, and swans, your bird guide will also often have separate subheadings for notable subgroups within the family β€” for example, the “dabbling ducks” (page 26):

“DABBLING DUCKS. Surface-feeding members of the genus Anas: the familiar ‘puddle ducks’ of freshwater shallows and, chiefly in winter, salt marshes. Dabblers feed by tipping, tail up, to reach aquatic plants, seeds, and snails. They require no running start to take off but spring directly into flight. Most species show a distinguishing swatch of bright color, the speculum, on the secondaries. Many are known to hybridize.“

Pick a representative species to look at in detail each week and read the entry aloud, or have your students study it and then narrate it back to you, explaining all the information it contains. This week, why not investigate one of the most familiar of all ducks, a species found throughout the entire northern hemisphere: the Mallard (page 26).

[Follow attached blog link for images and sounds]

All sorts of biological information is packed into the brief Mallard species description in your bird guide β€” can your students tease it out? How big is this bird? (23 inches long.) What’s its scientific name? (Anas platyrhynchos.) What does it sound like? (Quack! But then you already knew that. 😊) Will you be able to find this species where you live? At what times of year? (Study the range map and range description carefully to answer those questions, and see the book’s back flap for a map key.)

From the illustrations you can see that the Mallard is sexually dimorphic (“two-formed”): that is, the males and females are different in appearance, with the males having an iridescent green head, chestnut breast, and silvery-gray flanks. A little browsing will show you that most duck species are dimorphic, whereas most geese and swans are sexually monomorphic (“one-formed”): the males and females are similar in appearance, and just by looking you can’t tell them apart.

[Follow attached blog link for images and sounds]

One of the most beautiful hidden features of many dabbling ducks, as noted in the description above, is the speculum (Latin, “mirror”) β€” the swatch of iridescence on the secondary feathers (the inner wing feathers that attach to the bird’s forearm). The speculum is plainly visible when the bird is in flight, but it’s usually hidden at rest, unless the bird happens to stretch its wings a bit.

And of course Mallards have provided the soundtrack β€” accurately or not β€” for just about every duck that has ever appeared in film and television. πŸ”Š

[Follow attached blog link for images and sounds]

Browse through the many other duck species in your bird guide and take note of (and delight in) the many wonderful duck names that enrich the English language: gadwall, merganser, pochard, eider, teal, canvasback, scaup, pintail, and more.

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

❑ 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 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. 🐦

❑ Words for birds: You may not think of your homeschool dictionary (riverhouses.org/books) as a nature reference, but aΒ comprehensive dictionary will define many of the standard scientific terms you will encounter in biology and natural history, although it will not generally contain the proper names of species or other taxonomic groups that aren’t part of ordinary English. (In other words, you’ll find “flamingo” but not Phoenicopterus, the flamingo genus.) One of the most important things students should learn to look for in the dictionary is the information on word origins: knowing the roots of scientific terms makes it much easier to understand and remember their meaning.Β πŸ“–

❑ Come, here’s the map: Natural history and geography are deeply interconnected. One of the first questions you should teach your students to ask about any kind of animal or plant is, “What is its range? Where (in the world) does it occur?” Our recommended homeschool reference library (riverhouses.org/books) includes an excellent world atlas that will help your students appreciate many aspects of biogeography β€” the science of the geographical distribution of living things. 🌎

❑ Rivers in the sky: How many birds are migrating this week? You can find out from the BirdCast website, also sponsored by Cornell University, which offers daily bird migration forecasts in the spring and fall for the entire United States.Β πŸ¦…

❑ Nature notes: This is one of our regular Friday Bird Families posts. Why not print your own copy of our River Houses Calendar of American Birds and follow along with us, and add your name to our free weekly mailing list (riverhouses.org/newsletter) to get great homeschool teaching ideas delivered right to your mailbox all through the year. πŸ¦†

πŸ‡¦πŸ‡Ί WEEKLY WORLD HERITAGE: The Sydney Opera House in Australia

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For live links, click to: riverhouses.org/2019-sydney

(A new homeschool year has begun and so has a new tour of World Heritage Sites around the globe! Print your own River Houses World Heritage Calendar (riverhouses.org/calendars) and follow along with us every Wednesday.)

Australia is one of our homeschool countries-of-the-week, so why not spend a few minutes today learning about one of Australia’s World Heritage Sites: the Sydney Opera House.

The Sydney Opera House in Sydney Harbor, Australia. (Image: Wikimedia Commons.)

Many World Heritage Sites are ancient, but some, like the famous Sydney Opera House, are almost brand new:

“Inaugurated in 1973, the Sydney Opera House is a great architectural work of the 20th century that brings together multiple strands of creativity and innovation in both architectural form and structural design. A great urban sculpture set in a remarkable waterscape, at the tip of a peninsula projecting into Sydney Harbour, the building has had an enduring influence on architecture. The Sydney Opera House comprises three groups of interlocking vaulted β€˜shells’ which roof two main performance halls and a restaurant. These shell-structures are set upon a vast platform and are surrounded by terrace areas that function as pedestrian concourses. In 1957, when the project of the Sydney Opera House was awarded by an international jury to Danish architect JΓΈrn Utzon, it marked a radically new approach to construction.“ (UNESCO World Heritage Centre #166)

World Heritage Sites are cultural or natural landmarks of international significance, selected for recognition by the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization. More than 1000 such sites have been recognized in over 160 countries, and we post one every Wednesday, drawn from one of our homeschool countries-of-the-week. You can find a complete list online at the UNESCO World Heritage Centre and in Wikipedia.

The UNESCO World Heritage Centre also has a free and comprehensive World Heritage education kit for teachers and a wonderful full-color wall map of World Heritage Sites (available for the cost of shipping). Why not add them both to your own homeschool library. πŸ—Ί

What world treasures will you be exploring in your homeschool this week? 😊

❑ Books in the running brooks: You can always turn to your River Houses almanac, atlas, and history encyclopedia (riverhouses.org/books) for more information about any of our countries-of-the-week. The almanac has profiles of all the nations of the world on pages 745–852; the endpapers of the atlas are indexes that will show you where all of the individual national and regional maps may be found; the history encyclopedia includes national histories on pages 489–599; and you can find additional illustrations, flags, and other mentions through the indexes in each of these volumes. For an ideal little lesson, just write the name of the Weekly World Heritage Site on your homeschool bulletin board, find its location in your atlas, read UNESCO’s one-paragraph description aloud, look at a picture or two, and you’re done. Over the course of the year, without even realizing it, your students will absorb a wealth of new historical, geographical, and cultural information. πŸ‡¦πŸ‡Ί

❑ The great globe itself: This is one of our regular Homeschool States & Countries posts featuring historic sites of international importance. Download your own copy of our River Houses World Heritage Calendar (riverhouses.org/calendars) and follow along with us as we tour the planet, and add your name to our free weekly mailing list (riverhouses.org/newsletter) to get great homeschool teaching ideas delivered right to your mailbox all through the year. 🌏

πŸ‡ΊπŸ‡Έ CONSTITUTION DAY 2019 – Homeschool Teaching Resources

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For live links, click to: riverhouses.org/2019-constitution

Today is Constitution Day! (Or more officially, Constitution Day and Citizenship Day, as enacted by Congress in 2004.) On this day in 1787, the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia approved the U.S. Constitution and sent it to the states for ratification. (And since it’s Tuesday, it’s also our regular Books & Libraries Day inΒ the River Houses.)

[We the People]
The opening of the Preamble to the U.S. Constitution, 1787. (Image: Wikimedia Commons.)

The original Constitution that was signed on this day in 1787 resides now in the National Archives in Washington, D.C., one the world’s great historical libraries. There are some wonderful Constitution Day teaching materials available from the Archives β€” why not spend a few homeschool minutes with them this week:

Here’s the document itself, with detailed images and extensive interpretive materials:

And here’s one of a number of introductory videos from the National Archives showing some of the related documents that were important in the Constitution’s development, all safely stored in the Archives’ vaults:

➒

You can visit the National Archives yourself and see the Constitution (and the Declaration of Independence) on display in the rotunda. Perhaps that will be aΒ homeschool field trip for your family someday. (IΒ visited aΒ number of times, quite aΒ few years ago, when I worked across the street at the Smithsonian Institution.)

You can also find the full text of the Constitution in your River Houses almanac (riverhouses.org/books) on page 465 β€” why not have your students read the Preamble aloud this week, or if you have more advanced students, pick one of the Articles and discuss what it means and why it was written the way it was. At the very end of the Constitution’s text you can see why today is the anniversary day:

“Done in Convention by the Unanimous Consent of the States present the Seventeenth Day of September in the Year of our Lord one thousand seven hundred and Eighty seven and of the Independence of the United States of America the Twelfth.“

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

❑ Dukedoms large enough: Have you found all the local libraries in your area? There may be more than you realize, and there’s no better homeschool field trip than a field trip to a new library! The WorldCat Library Finder will help you find all the library collections near you β€” public and private, large and small β€” and the WorldCat catalog itself will help you locate the closest copy of almost any book in the world. 😊

❑ 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, as well as permanent links to WorldCat and the WorldCat Library Finder. Why not sit yourself down at a large screen for a while (rather than a phone) and give them a browse. 😊

❑ When in doubt, go to the library: This is one of our regular Homeschool Books & Libraries posts. Add your name to our weekly mailing list (riverhouses.org/newsletter) and get great homeschool teaching ideas delivered right to your mailbox all through the year. πŸ“š

πŸ–‹ WONDERFUL WORDS: β€œWhen I said autumn, autumn broke”

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For live links, click to: riverhouses.org/2019-jennings

What defines the seasons? Is it a change in temperature? Migrating birds? The position of the sun in the sky? An evocation in the air?

Here’s a wonderful poem for homeschool high-schoolers (and for mom and dad, too) that considers how the seasons arrive and what defines them. It’s from British poet Elizabeth Jennings (1926–2001), and it’s our poem-of-the-week for the third week of September.

Song at the Beginning of Autumn

Now watch this autumn that arrives
In smells. All looks like summer still;
Colours are quite unchanged, the air
On green and white serenely thrives.
Heavy the trees with growth and full
The fields. Flowers flourish everywhere.

Proust who collected time within
A child’s cake would understand
The ambiguity of this β€”
Summer still raging while a thin
Column of smoke stirs from the land
Proving that autumn gropes for us.

But every season is a kind
Of rich nostalgia. We give names β€”
Autumn and summer, winter, spring β€”
As though to unfasten from the mind
Our moods and give them outward forms.
We want the certain, solid thing.

But I am carried back against
My will into a childhood where
Autumn is bonfires, marbles, smoke;
I lean against my window fenced
From evocations in the air.
When I said autumn, autumn broke.

When you introduce your students to a new poem, especially one like this that is in aΒ traditional form, take your time, and don’t worry about “getting” everything right away. AΒ good poem is a friend for life, and as with any friend, it takes time to get acquainted.

[Elizabeth Jennings]
Elizabeth Jennings (1926–2001). (Image: Oxford Today.)
Before you even start worrying about “meaning,” take aΒ look at the poem’s structure. How many lines does it have? Are the lines grouped into stanzas? How many lines in each stanza? How many syllables in each line? Many traditional poems are highly structured and fit together in an almost mathematical way, which you can discover by counting. Do the lines rhyme? What is the rhyme-scheme (ABAB, AABA, ABCD, or something else)? By uncovering these details of structure your students will come to appreciate good poems as carefully crafted pieces of literary labor.

“Song at the Beginning of Autumn” is a very precisely structured poem. If you count, you’ll find that every line has exactly eight syllables. (That pattern tells you that “flowers” should be pronounced here as a one-syllable word: “flowrs” not “flow-ers.”) Do the lines have a rhyming pattern? They do. The lines of the first stanza end with arrives–still–air and thrives–full–where. We’ll call that ABC ABC, and if you check all the other stanzas you’ll find they’re exactly the same: ABC ABC.

If you try to read this poem aloud you’ll discover that it has a kind of prose-y feel β€” it doesn’t seem very “poetical” at first. What creates that sensation? The prose-y feel comes from Jennings’ deliberate use of enjambment β€” a wonderful literary word for your students to learn that refers to the mismatch between the line breaks of the poem and the natural grammatical pauses in the poem’s underlying sentences.

The opposite of enjambed verse is end-stopped verse, in which the line-ends correspond to natural grammatical breaks: “Whose woods these are I think I know (pause). / His house is in the village though (pause); / He will not see me stopping here / To watch his woods fill up with snow (pause).” That’s Robert Frost’s “Stopping by Woods,” a heavily end-stopped poem with a sing-song-y feel.

Contrast that with Jennings, with natural grammatical pauses added: “Now watch this autumn that arrives / In smells (pause). All looks like summer still (pause); / Colours are quite unchanged (pause), the air / On green and white serenely thrives (pause). / Heavy the trees with growth and full / The fields (pause). Flowers flourish everywhere (pause).” In her case, many of the natural grammatical pauses don’t coincide with the line-ends β€” that’s enjambment, and that’s what creates the prose-y feel of the poem.

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

❑ Looking in the lexicon: You can ask your students some good vocabulary-related questions this week in the context of this poem β€” send them to your family dictionary (riverhouses.org/books) for answers: Who is Proust? What’s the difference between “colours” and “colors”? What’s the origin of the word “nostalgia”? (And how is it related to the word “analgesic”?) How is the word “broke” being used here? (Hint: it’s intransitive definition #13.) (Wait, are you saying there are thirteen different definitions of “break/broke”? Actually, there are a lot more β€” look in the lexicon!) πŸ”Ž

❑ When I said autumn, autumn broke: 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. 😊

❑ 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. πŸ“–

πŸ”Ž HOMESCHOOL RESEARCH AND NEWS – September 2019

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For live links, click to: riverhouses.org/2019-09-research

Around the middle of each month we post a quick roundup of some recent academic publications and news about homeschooling, offered for your interest. These are typically university research papers, and they may have a positive, negative, or neutral outlook on home education β€” and if they don’t seem appealing, just scroll on by. The title links generally point to the full text of each publication (often a pdf file). (Facebook readers should click to the attached blog post to find these links live.) The abstracts are quoted in full when possible, without editing.

The first item this month is the introduction to a notable series of papers devoted to homeschooling in a special issue of The Peabody Journal of Education (Volume 94.3, July 2019):

(1) New Frontiers in Research and Practice on Homeschooling β€” Albert Cheng and Michael Donnelly

Introduction: In 2000 and 2013, The Peabody Journal of Education published issues about homeschooling, providing a platform to deliberate on what was in 2000 a burgeoning movement in the United States and has now become a population estimated by the National Center on Education Statistics (NCES) to number between 3% to 4% of the school-age population (Snyder, de Brey, & Dillow, 2018).

There are also indications that home education is a growing global phenomenon. The recent Wiley Handbook of Home Education devoted an entire section to homeschooling practice worldwide (Gaither, 2017). Moreover, in the past 6 years three global conferences have been held on the subject, the most recent of which was held in Russia with over 1,000 participants. The conference included a research track yielding dozens of papers, several of which are included in this issue. Holding a conference about home education in Russia is itself an intriguing occurrence worthy of consideration in the context of geopolitical happenings. Since then, a new organization called the Global Home Education Exchange Counsel has formed (www.ghex.world) with a mission that includes supporting more and diverse research on home education.

In the 2000 and 2013 issues on homeschooling in this journal, supporters and critics alike drew upon political philosophy and legal thought to make normative arguments about the legitimacy of homeschooling or to debate how homeschooling and the policy environments under which the practice was regulated and exercised could benefit or harm not only individual students but also collective aspects of civic life. Researchers reviewed the literature to evaluate claims of the efficacy of homeschooling on academic achievement, postsecondary preparation, and socialization. The issue also explored the impact of home education on the education profession and education research. […]

The following collection of articles highlights the change that homeschooling practice and research has undergone. It features unique populations of homeschoolers and the way they practice homeschooling. Although there is still much more room for improvement, it is often helpful to pause and take stock of how the field has progressed over time.

[Seven separate papers are included in the issue; they are not individually abstracted here.]

(2) The Influence of Homeschooling on the Lives of College Graduates: A Transcendental Phenomenological Study β€” Jennifer R. Elliott

Abstract: The purpose of this transcendental phenomenological study was to describe the influence of a K–12 home education on the academic, familial, spiritual, and vocational aspects of the adult lives of select four-year college graduates. Vygotsky’s sociocultural theory framed this study, as it purports that learning and development occur in the symbiotic relationship between learner and environment. Central research question:How do select four-year college graduates describe the influence of a K–12 home education on their adult lives?Sub-questions: (a) How do participants describe the impact of a K–12 home education on their experiences in higher education? (b) How do participants describe the impact of a K–12 home education on their relationships with their parents? (c) How do participants describe the impact of a K–12 home education on their spiritual journey? (d) How do participants describe the impact of a K–12 home education on their vocational choice? Fourteen participants were selected via purposeful, snowball sampling, and data collection was triangulated via personal interviews, focus groups, and document analysis. Data were analyzed utilizing Moustakas’s modified Stevick–Colaizzi–Keen approach to transcendental phenomenology. Research question responses indicated that (a) participants felt prepared for college because of critical thinking skills as well as experience in dual enrollment, co-ops, and outside classes, (b) the greatest challenges in college were balancing a heavy course load and navigating new social dynamics/venues, (c) most participants had close relationships with their parents, (d) homeschooling helped lay a strong faith foundation, and participants’ faith was similar to their parents’, and (e) there was a connection between homeschooling experiences and vocational choice.

(3) The Correlation Between Trait Emotional Intelligence and Feelings of Social Isolation in Alaskan Homeschool Students β€” Daniel S. Wolfe

Abstract: This study examined the relationship between trait emotional intelligence (TEI) and feelings of social isolation in children that homeschool in rural and remote areas of Alaska. The topic of social isolation has continued to be prominent in the homeschool research. Tenuous claims resulting from studies that lack methodological rigor and representative sample sizes have perpetuated the debate by producing disparate conclusions with inherent limitations. This study acknowledged, that given a particular set of circumstances, the likelihood that an individual will experience feelings of social isolation increases. The compounding of conditions such as geographic isolation, time spent without access to a peer group, and extremes in seasonal conditions, contribute to a reasonable concern about the susceptibility to feelings of social isolation for homeschoolers in rural and remote areas of the state. The purpose of this study was to add to the homeschooling research by investigating the relationship between TEI, as measured by the Trait Emotional Intelligence Questionnaire-Children’s Short Form (TEIQue-CSF), and feelings of social isolation, as measured by the Children’s Loneliness and Social Dissatisfaction Scale, in a distinct population with practical application. This study found a statistically significant relationship between the variables, which should compel a change of focus from the unproductive social isolation debate, toward a more useful exploration of potential measures to prevent, mitigate, or alleviate feelings of social isolation and the associated harmful effects.

(4) Effective Home School Programming for Students with Autism Spectrum Disorder β€” Glennda Mckeithan, Anne Mendoza, and Deborah E. Griswold

Abstract: Many parents and/or caregivers of children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) are frustrated with services offered and/or provided through the public school setting. The services for children with ASD may be limited because teachers may not be adequately prepared to meet the needs of the increasing number of students being identified with ASD, and/or because students with ASD may not respond to traditional methods of instruction. Some parents of children with ASD are concerned with educational programming available through public school systems because they may believe public schools are unable and/or unwilling to develop and implement effective programming. Thus, the decision to remove these children from public school and provide services through home schools has become increasingly more prevalent as parent educators can provide more individualized and structured routines and curriculum options. This article provides an overview some guidelines/suggestions for developing effective home school programming that can help parents of children with ASD reflect on and/or revise current homeschool instructional strategies in conjunction with evidence-based practices. In sharing the information, we hope to help others work collaboratively to improve the academic and social learning outcomes for homeschooled children with ASD.

(5) The Changing Landscape of Homeschooling in the United States β€” Aaron Hirsh

Abstract: Educating children at home is a growing practice in the United States: the homeschool movementβ€”frequently left out of the conversation about educationβ€”has much to teach us about creating more customized and effective school systems aimed at producing better outcomes for students. Homeschool families are hyper-autonomous units with tremendous freedom to create curriculum, redesign typical learning pathways, and build innovative partnerships.

Homeschooling is not a monolith and it is not static. These diverse homeschooling families are taking several innovative approaches to redesigning educationβ€”forming partnerships with districts, organizing themselves into collaboratives, and finding ways to promote equity.

Homeschooling has been legal in every state since the 1990s. While only 3 percent of K–12 students in the United States are homeschooled, this percentage has grown since 1999 and shows signs of continuing to increase. Homeschooling impacts the lives of millions of children and yet is understudied compared to other sectors of U.S. education.

This brief describes the state of homeschooling in the U.S. in 2019. Section I explores the changing demographics of homeschoolers. Section II gives an overview of new forms of homeschooling, including hybrid models. Section III outlines the variety of state policies that govern homeschooling.

What interesting homeschool news and research have you come across lately?Β πŸ‘©πŸ»β€πŸŽ“

❑ Explore more: If you’d like to investigate the academic literature on homeschooling, the best place to start is Google Scholar (scholar.google.com), the special academic search engine from Google. Just enter a search term or phrase of interest (“homeschool,” “unschooling,” “classical homeschooling,” “deschooling,” etc.), and Google Scholar will return a list of academic publications that mention your topic. πŸ”Ž

❑ Stay in the loop: This is one of our regular Homeschool Research & News posts. Add your name to our free weekly mailing list (riverhouses.org/newsletter) and get great homeschool teaching ideas delivered right to your mailbox all through the year. πŸ—ž

πŸ—“ QUICK FRESHES for Homeschool Families – Week of 15 September 2019

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For live links, click to: riverhouses.org/2019-09-15

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! Visit our River Houses calendar page (riverhouses.org/calendars) and print your own homeschool calendars for the entire year.

πŸ‡ΊπŸ‡Έβ€…OUR STATE-OF-THE-WEEK is New Jersey, and our COUNTRIES are Australia πŸ‡¦πŸ‡Ί, Austria πŸ‡¦πŸ‡Ή, Azerbaijan πŸ‡¦πŸ‡Ώ, and the Bahamas πŸ‡§πŸ‡Έ. (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 waning, just passing full (yesterday). You can explore the night sky and the features of the moon in your recommended backyard astronomy guide and your homeschool world atlas, and you can learn many more stellar and lunar facts on pages 342–357 in your almanac (riverhouses.org/books).

πŸ—“β€…TODAY (Sunday, 15 September 2019) β€” Today is the 258th day of 2019; there are 107 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). πŸ“š Today is also the birthday of writer and illustrator Robert McCloskey (1914–2003), author of Make Way for Ducklings (1941) and other children’s classics. πŸ¦† Our homeschool poem-of-the-week for the third week of September is Elizabeth Jennings’ “Song at the Beginning of Autumn,” for the autumn about to arrive. πŸ‚ Print your own River Houses Poetry Calendar (riverhouses.org/calendars) and follow along with us throughout the year. πŸ–‹

Monday (16 September 2019) β€” On this day in 1776, with George Washington in direct command, the Continental Army in New York successfully defended several key positions on Manhattan Island in the Battle of Harlem Heights. βš”οΈ

Tuesday (17 September 2019) β€” Today is Constitution Day! On this day in 1787, the U.S. Constitution was signed in Philadelphia by the members of the Constitutional Convention. Why not pay a homeschool visit to the original Constitution today at its current home in the National Archives. πŸ‡ΊπŸ‡Έ Today is also the anniversary of the Battle of Antietam in 1862, one of the bloodiest days in American history, with more than 22,000 Union and Confederate casualties. βš”οΈ

Wednesday (18 September 2019) β€” Today is the birthday of the great English writer and lexicographer Samuel Johnson (1709–1784). πŸ“– And on this day in 1793, President George Washington, dressed in his masonic regalia, laid the cornerstone of the U.S. Capitol Building. πŸ›

Thursday (19 September 2019) β€” Arrrr! It’s International Talk-Like-a-Pirate Day, meΒ hearties! ☠ On this day in 1991, “Γ–tzi the Iceman,” a 5000-year-old naturally preserved mummy, was discovered frozen in the ice along the Alpine border between Italy and Austria. πŸ”

Friday (20 September 2019) β€” On this day in 1519, Ferdinand Magellan set sail from the coast of southern Spain with five ships and 270 men in the first expedition to successfully circumnavigate the globe. 🌍🌎🌏🌍

Saturday (21 September 2019) β€” Today is the birthday of the great English composer Gustav Holst (1874–1934). 🎡 And on this day in 1981, Sandra Day O’Connor (b.Β 1930) was unanimously approved by the U.S. Senate as the first female Supreme Court justice. πŸ‘©β€βš–οΈ

Sunday (22 September 2019) β€” On this day in 1776, American spy Nathan Hale, ageΒ 21, was executed by the British in New York City. His final words were said to be, “IΒ only regret that IΒ have but one life to lose for my country.” πŸ‡ΊπŸ‡Έ Today is also the birthday of the great physicist Michael Faraday (1791–1867). ⚑️ AndΒ … today is Hobbit Day! πŸŒ‹

πŸ₯‚β€…OUR WEEKLY TOAST, for Nathan Hale: “To our native land β€” may it ever continue the abode of freedom and the birthplace of heroes.”

❑ 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 The Perfect Gentleman; or, Etiquette and Eloquence (New York, 1860). What will you toast this week? πŸ₯‚

πŸŒβ€…EVERYTHING FLOWS: Austria is one of our countries-of-the-week, so our Weekly World River is the Traun River, one of the principal tributaries of the Danube. You can chart its course in your recommended homeschool atlas (riverhouses.org/books), and you can read more about it in the Traun River entry in Wikipedia or perhaps on your next visit to your local library.

The Traun River near Steeg in the Tyrolian region of Austria. (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? 😊

❑ Lively springs: This is one of our regular “Quick Freshes” posts looking at the homeschool week ahead. Add your name to our River Houses mailing list (riverhouses.org/newsletter) and get these weekly messages delivered right to your mailbox all through the year. You can also print your own River Houses calendars of educational events (riverhouses.org/calendars) and follow along with us. πŸ—“

πŸ‡ΊπŸ‡Έ 🌎 SUNDAY STATES: New Jersey, Australia, the Bahamas, and More

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For live links, click to: riverhouses.org/2019-new-jersey

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 our 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. Our annual review begins at the start of the River Houses year in September and 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
    New Jersey State Bird and Flower
    NEW JERSEY (the 3rd state, 18 December 1787) β€” The Garden State. Capital: Trenton. New Jersey can be found on page 579 in your almanac and on plates 43 and 142 in your atlas. Name origin: “The Duke of York, in 1664, gave a patent to Lord John Berkeley and Sir George Carteret for Nova Caesaria, or New Jersey, after England’s Isle of Jersey” (almanac page 430). State bird: American Goldfinch (bird guide page 442). Website: nj.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, as well as a host of valuable reading and research skills. 😊

❑ Explore more: If you’re planning an extended unit-study of one or more of the U.S. states, be sure to look into the primary source materials for teachers available at the Library of Congress.

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

  • πŸ‡¦πŸ‡Ί AUSTRALIA between the southwestern Pacific and Indian Oceans. Population: 23,470,145. Capital: Canberra. Website: australia.gov.au (in English).
  • πŸ‡¦πŸ‡Ή AUSTRIA in south-central Europe. Population: 8,793,370. Capital: Vienna. Website: bundeskanzleramt.gv.at (in German and English).
  • πŸ‡¦πŸ‡Ώ AZERBAIJAN in southwestern Asia. Population: 10,046,516. Capital: Baku. Website: president.az (in Azerbaijani, Russian, and English).
  • πŸ‡§πŸ‡Έ THE BAHAMAS in the Atlantic Ocean off the coast of Florida. Population: 332,634. Capital: Nassau. Website: www.bahamas.gov.bs (in 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 exercise their critical reading and thinking skills. πŸ”

❑ 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 is 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 an educational tour of the United States and the whole world over the course of the homeschool year. πŸ‡ΊπŸ‡Έ 🌎

πŸŒ• RESEARCH OPPORTUNITIES for Homeschool Students – September 2019

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For live links, click to: riverhouses.org/2019-09-lunar

(This is our first monthly “Lunar Society” report for the 2019–2020 homeschool year. Browse through our listing of some of the real scientific and scholarly projects, investigations, transcriptions, analyses, and computations that your students can work on from the comfort of your little home academy, and add your name to our free weekly mailing list to get great homeschool teaching ideas delivered right to your mailbox all through the year.)

There’s a full moon tonight, 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 to 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 or two that would be a good fit for your family and a good match for your interests. Before you know it, your students will be learning a host of valuable skills and your little home academy will be well 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 accomplishments.

As a simple example, here’s my own personal report for the past lunar 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 so far contributed a total of 590 checklists (daily observation reports) for this locality β€” it’s a site that had never been documented before. When all the checklists are combined and charted automatically by eBird you can really get a sense of the seasonal distribution and migration patterns for the year β€” take a look:

Here’s a sample checklist so you can see what they look like:

There was a record for one new species this month, never before seen at this locality: aΒ Marsh Wren.

You can start keeping a similar eBird 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 useful 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 (whenever my laptop is plugged in) to three of these: (1)Β the SETI@Home project, sponsored by the University of California, which searches for extraterrestrial intelligence (really!); (2)Β the Einstein@Home project, which studies neutron stars; and (3)Β 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 processed and how much your team has processed β€” they’re just the thing for your homeschool bulletin board. (And while they are running, both Einstein@Home and SETI@Home have cool screensavers that show you in real time what your computer is analyzing.) πŸ“‘

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:

Facebook users click to: riverhouses.org/2019-09-lunar

That’s just a simple graphing exercise β€” it’s something that can be refined, developed, and expanded 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? 😊

❑ The friends who made the future: You can learn more about the original Lunar Society of Birmingham in “The Lunar Men,” a fine short video from History West Midlands. πŸŒ•

❑ Featured this month at Zooniverse: Looking for a place to start? Zooniverse.org is one of the biggest clearinghouses for citizen science projects, and each month on their front page they specially feature one of their many research projects that you can join. This month’s featured project is “Planetary Response Network: Hurricane Dorian.” (Yes, that’s something you and your students can really help with from your home computer.) If you’re looking for a project to get yourself started, this might be a good choice. 😊

❑ 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 backyard night-sky guide 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¦‰ 🌠

❑ Whether they work together or apart: This is one of our regular Lunar Society Bulletins about the many cooperative research projects we recommend to homeschool students. Add your name to our free weekly mailing list (riverhouses.org/newsletter) and get more great homeschool teaching ideas delivered right to your mailbox all through the year. πŸ—ž

🌟 STAR BRIGHT: Deneb for September

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For live links, click to: riverhouses.org/2019-deneb

(This is the first of our monthly “Star Bright” posts for the 2019–2020 homeschool year. Print your own River Houses Star Calendar and follow along with us, and add your name to our free weekly mailing list to get great homeschool teaching ideas delivered right to your mailbox all through the year.)

September is the first month of Cygnus Term in the River Houses, and as our monthly star calendar will show you, September’s Great Star is Deneb, the brightest star in the constellation Cygnus the Swan. Its formal designation is Ξ±Β Cygni β€” “alpha of Cygnus.” Cygnus and Deneb are high in the east at dusk now, passing overhead in the early evening and flying to the west as the night goes on.

Star chart of the constellation Cygnus and its alpha star, Deneb, marking the tail of the Great Swan. The plane of the Milky Way passes right along the axis of Cygnus and this whole area is rich with stars. (Image: Wikimedia Commons.)

If you want to introduce your students to Deneb and Cygnus, you can start with some basic astronomy from your backyard star guide (riverhouses.org/books):

“Cygnus lies in what for observers is a dense and fascinating part of the sky. The bird’s wings span the Milky Way at a location packed with stars and an assortment of deep-sky objects. Owing to the positions of its bright stars it is sometimes called the Northern Cross β€” the northern parallel to the brilliant Southern Cross constellation in the Southern Hemisphere. You will see Cygnus highest in the sky in late summer and early fall, with its head pointing south like a bird on its migratory path toward warmer climates.

“Deneb, the alpha star and tail of the bird, is a brilliant magnitude-1 star that joins Altair and Vega to form the Summer Triangle. Deneb is 25 times more massive than our sun and 60,000 times more luminous.“ (Backyard Guide to the Night Sky, page 216)

That’s plenty for beginning students β€” your little lesson is done. If you want to get more advanced, the Wikipedia page on Deneb is packed with additional information on everything from astrometry to cultural history.

A magnificent annotated image of the whole region of Cygnus, with its alpha star Deneb in the lower left, and with the Swan “flying” diagonally up to the right. This image has been processed to reveal the vast areas of hydrogen gas, glowing here in red, all through this region of the sky. (Image: Rolf Geissinger via apod.nasa.gov.)

Deneb is an enormous blue-white supergiant, about 200 times the diameter of our sun. If it were placed at the center of our solar system it would extend out to engulf the orbits of Mercury, Venus, and the Earth. Deneb is estimated to be about 2,600 light years away, so the photons striking your eye when you gaze upon it were actually emitted by the star 2,600 years ago β€” when the ancient Greek poet Sappho was composing her lyrics in the eastern Aegean β€” and they have been traveling at the speed of light to greet us ever since. The name Deneb is Arabic for tail β€” it’s the tail of the swan for us, but for medieval Arabic astronomers it was usually imagined as the tail of a heavenly hen.

Some time during this first month of Cygnus Term, take your homeschool students out at dusk and introduce them to this giant 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€” as well as 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±β€…(alpha, brightest), Ξ²β€…(beta, second brightest), Ξ³β€…(gamma, third brightest), Ξ΄β€…(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±β€…Lyrae (“alpha of Lyra”), the brightest star in Canis Major (the star Sirius) becomes Ξ±β€…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 Οƒβ€…(sigma) star of Orion to be? Not very bright β€” it’s far down the alphabet β€” but Οƒβ€…Orionis happens to mark the top of Orion’s sword, so even though it’s not very bright it’s still notable and easy to locate on a dark night. ✨

❑ Star bright: The brightness of a star as we see it in our night sky is its magnitude β€” or more properly speaking, its apparent magnitude. The scale of star magnitudes was developed centuries ago, long before modern measuring instruments were invented, so it can be a little bit confusing for beginners. Originally, the brightest stars in the sky were called “first magnitude” and the less-bright stars “second magnitude,” “third magnitude,” and so on, down to the dimmest stars visible to the naked eye, which were called “sixth magnitude.” In the nineteenth century the star Vega (our August star) was chosen as the standard brightness reference and its value on the magnitude scale was defined to be zero (0.0). Five steps in magnitude (from 0.0 to 5.0 or from 1.0 to 6.0) was defined to be a change in brightness of 100 times: a star 100 times dimmer than Vega (0.0) was defined to be a magnitude 5.0 star. Vega is not quite the brightest star is the sky, however, so the scale also had to be extended into negative numbers: Sirius, for example, is magnitude –1.5, about three times brighter than Vega (at 0.0). The planet Venus at its brightest is about magnitude –4.2; the full moon is about magnitude –12.9; the sun is magnitude –26.7. By contrast, the dimmest stars visible to the naked eye in a populated, light-polluted area are about magnitude 3.0; the dimmest stars visible under very dark conditions are about magnitude 6.5. The Hubble Space Telescope has imaged distant stars and galaxies below magnitude 30, the dimmest celestial objects humans have seen so far. πŸ”­

❑ Watchers of the skies: Teaching your students to recognize the constellations is one of the simplest and most enduring gifts you can give them. We recommend the handy Backyard Guide to the Night Sky (riverhouses.org/books) as a general family reference β€” it will help you identify all the northern hemisphere constellations and will point out many highlights, including the names and characteristics of the brightest stars. Your recommended world atlas also has beautiful maps of the whole northern and southern hemisphere night skies on plates 121–122. Why not find a dark-sky spot near you this month and spend some quality homeschool time beneath the starry vault. 🌠 πŸ”­ 🌌 🌟

❑ First star I see tonight: This is one of our monthly “Great Star” posts featuring twelve of the most notable stars of the northern hemisphere night sky. Download and print your own copy of our River Houses Star Calendar (riverhouses.org/calendars) and follow along with us as we visit a different Great Star each month β€” and make each one of them a homeschool friend for life. 🌟

πŸ¦† FRIDAY BIRD FAMILIES: Ducks, Geese, and Swans (I)

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For live links, click to: riverhouses.org/2019-anatidae

Every Friday in the River Houses we invite you and your students to learn about a different group of North American birds from your recommended homeschool bird guide (riverhouses.org/books) β€” it’s a great way to add a few minutes of informal science, geography, natural history, and imagination to your homeschool schedule. (We started this new feature last week with an introduction to your bird guide.)

This week’s family is the Ducks, Geese, and Swans β€” the Anatidae (bird guide page 14). Usually we’ll cover a couple of families each week, but the ducks, geese, and swans are such a large group we’ll spread them out over two weeks.

[Follow attached blog link for media]

With smaller children, you can take our Friday Bird Families posts as opportunities to just use your bird guide as a picture book and spend a few minutes looking at all the wonderful wildlife. For older students, one of our objectives is to help them become fluent with a technical reference book that’s packed with dense information. Here’s the introduction to this bird family β€” you’ll find it on page 14:

“DUCKSΒ Β· GEESE Β· SWANS β€” Family Anatidae. Worldwide family. Web-footed, gregarious birds, ranging from small ducks to swans. Largely aquatic, but geese, swans, and some ‘puddle ducks’ also graze on land. Species: 160 World, 66 N.A. [North America].“

If you’re training young naturalists, teach them to ask and answer from the reference guide the very first questions any naturalist would ask about a new group: How many species? (160.) Where do they occur? (Worldwide.) Are there any near us? (Yes, 66 species in North America, and the individual maps will give us more detail.) What are their distinctive features? (Web-footed, varying in size, mostly aquatic, and as you can see from scanning the pictures, most have fairly plump bodies, short legs, and long necks.) And by the way, “gregarious” is a beautiful word, isn’t it β€” be sure to send someone to your homeschool dictionary to look that one up. πŸ”Ž

Pick a representative species to look at in detail each week and read the entry aloud, or have your students study it and then narrate it back to you, explaining all the information it contains. This week, for example, why not investigate one of the most familiar of all North American birds: the Canada Goose (pages 20–21).

All sorts of biological information is packed into the brief Canada Goose species description on page 20 β€” can your students tease it out? How big is this bird? (30–43 inches long β€” quite variable!) What’s its scientific name? (Branta canadensis.) Canada Goose is a species that has a lot of geographical variation across the continent, so part of the description explains that in detail, and the illustrations on the facing page show some of that variation as well. What does it sound like? (Honk-a-lonk.😊) Where does this species occur? Will you be able to find it where you live? At what times of year? (Study the range description and range map carefully to answer those questions, and see the book’s back flap for a map key.)

[Follow attached blog link for media]

Like many other geese, Canada Geese are famous for their large “vees” β€” migratory flight formations β€” surely one of the most magnificent sights in the natural world. (That photo is one of my own.)

And of course everyone loves Canada Geese because they honk. πŸ”Š

[Follow attached blog link for media]

You can do a little ten-minute study just like this with any of the species in your bird guide that catch your interest. Take a look at the four species of swans on page 22, for example β€” can your students figure out how they differ from each other? (They are very tricky to identify β€” you’re teaching your students to pay attention to fine details here.) Our fall term in the River Houses, just getting underway, is Cygnus Term. Where might that name come from? 🦒

In all these Friday Bird Families posts, our aim will not be to have you teach specific facts. What we hope to do instead is to provide starting points that you and your students can branch away from in many different directions, and also to show how you can help your students develop the kind of careful reading, observation, and interpretation skills that they will use in all their future academic work.

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

❑ 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 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. 🐦

❑ Words for birds: You may not think of your homeschool dictionary (riverhouses.org/books) as a nature reference, but aΒ comprehensive dictionary will define many of the standard scientific terms you will encounter in biology and natural history, although it will not generally contain the proper names of species or other taxonomic groups that aren’t part of ordinary English. (In other words, you’ll find “flamingo” but not Phoenicopterus, the flamingo genus.) One of the most important things students should learn to look for in the dictionary is the information on word origins: understanding the roots of scientific terms makes it much easier to understand and remember their meaning.Β πŸ“–

❑ Come, here’s the map: Natural history and geography are deeply interconnected. One of the first questions you should teach your students to ask about any kind of animal or plant is, “What is its range? Where (in the world) does it occur?” Our recommended homeschool reference library (riverhouses.org/books) includes an excellent world atlas that will help your students understand many aspects of biogeography β€” the science of the geographical distribution of living things. 🌎

❑ Rivers in the sky: How many birds are migrating this week? You can find out from the BirdCast website, also sponsored by Cornell University, which offers daily bird migration forecasts in the spring and fall for the entire United States.Β πŸ¦…

❑ State birds: One member of our bird-family-of-the-week is a United States state bird: the Hawaiian Goose or Nene (Branta sandvicensis). Paradoxically, you won’t be able to find the Hawaiian Goose in your North American bird guide, however, because Hawaii, while part of the United States, isn’t part of North America! But don’t despair: the Hawaiian Goose species profile on the eBird website will let you learn more about it. πŸ‡ΊπŸ‡Έ

❑ Nature notes: This is one of our regular Homeschool Natural History posts. Add your name to our free weekly mailing list (riverhouses.org/newsletter) and get great homeschool teaching ideas delivered right to your mailbox all through the year. πŸ¦†

βš”οΈ REMEMBERING the Battle of Marathon, 490 B.C.

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For live links, click to: riverhouses.org/2019-marathon

Today is the traditional anniversary date of the Battle of Marathon in 490 B.C., one of the most consequential battles in the history of the Western world. It’s a name and an event every homeschool student should know, so why not remember it with your students today and perhaps engage in a little “what-if” speculation.

The Battle of Marathon took place on the east coast of mainland Greece near a small town called Marathon, about 26 miles northeast of Athens. Soldiers from the fledgling democracy of Athens and its ally Plataea defeated a much larger army sent by DariusΒ I, ruler of the Persian Empire, to conquer mainland Greece. The Athenian and Persian forces formed up in lines facing each other on the plain beside the shoreline, and in a classic military maneuver, the Greeks fell back in the center of the line, drawing the Persians toward them, and then closed around with both flanks. The Persian army was crushed in the jaws of this vise and collapsed. The Greeks rushed back to Athens, 26 miles away β€” which is why we call a 26-mile race a Marathon β€” fearing that the Persians would reassemble on their ships and launch a second attack, but the second attack never came.

[Marathon tumulus]
Burial mound of the Athenian soldiers at Marathon. (Image: Battles of the Ancients.)

This battle took place in 490 B.C., and the century that followed is what we now think of as the Golden Age of Greek literature, art, and science. If the Persians had won at Marathon and Athens had fallen, all of mainland Greece would probably have fallen in turn. All that came after β€” Socrates and Plato, Sophocles and all the Greek playwrights, the art and architecture of Classical Greece, the science and philosophy of Aristotle and his successors β€” all might never have appeared. (“What-if” history is always speculation, but it’s good for your students’ imaginations even so.)

The American essayist Guy Davenport wrote a wonderful modern poem about the importance of remembering Marathon, using fellow-poet and former teacher Marianne Moore (1887–1972) as his example. Moore, who had lived for many years in Brooklyn, New York, made a pilgrimage to Marathon in her old age to pay tribute to the Athenian army.

At Marathon

Marianne Moore saluted the battlefield.
Her frail hand at the brim of her hat
round as a platter, she stood at attention
in her best Brooklyn Navy Yard manner,
or as years before she and Jim Thorpe
raised the school flag at Carlisle.
Here in long scarlet cloaks the ranks
advanced with ashlared shields, singing
to the thrashed drums and squealing fife
the pitiless hymn of Apollo the Wolf,
spears forward, horsetails streaming
from the masked helmets with unearthly eyes.
The swordline next and the javelineers,
More red cloaks, Ares wild in their blades.
The javelins whistled up like partridges
flushed in a brake and fell like sleet.
The Persians bored in, an auger of hornets.
The Greeks flowed around their thrust
as fire eats a stick. Wise to the ruse,
the Persians pulled back to the sea
and made hard in their ships for Athens,
which, the Greek army there on the plain,
lay naked to their will, tomorrow’s victory.
But the Greeks were there on the morrow
to cut them back. They had run all the way
from Marathon, twenty miles, in bronze.
Two thousand, four hundred and fifty-five
years ago. There are things one must not
leave undone, such as coming from Brooklyn
in one’s old age to salute the army
at Marathon. What are years?

Perhaps you and your students, like Marianne Moore, will visit the Plain of Marathon someday to give a salute of your own. The Athenian soldiers are still there. Although it was generally the custom in Greece to return war casualties to their home city for burial, the victory at Marathon was deemed so important that in Homeric fashion, the Athenians raised a great burial mound and interred their fallen comrades on the field where they fell, and there they remain today.

What are years?

❑ Come, here’s the map: Be sure to track down the location of Marathon in your recommended world atlas (riverhouses.org/books) β€” you’ll find it on plate 72, marked by the standard βš”οΈ symbol used on most maps for historic battle sites. (Have your students discovered all the information that is packed into map symbols?) Your recommended history encyclopedia also has a well-illustrated spread on the conflicts between Greece and the Persian Empire on pages 92–93. 🌍

❑ Follow along with us: This is one of our occasional Homeschool Holidays & Anniversaries posts. Add your name to our free weekly mailing list (riverhouses.org/newsletter) and get great homeschool teaching ideas delivered right to your mailbox all through the year. πŸ—ž