Tour the United States and travel the countries of the world each week with the River Houses.
Many homeschoolers review the U.S. states and the nations of the world each year, and your River Houses 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 453), so this week’s state is:
Seal of LouisianaLOUISIANA (30 April 1812, the 18th state) — The Pelican State. Capital: Baton Rouge. Louisiana appears on pages 573–574 in your almanac, and on plates 40 and 142 in your atlas. Name origin: “Part of territory called Louisiana by René-Robert Cavelier Sieur de La Salle for French King Louis XIV” (almanac page 455, in telegraphic style). Official website:louisiana.gov.
❡ You can teach a hundred little lessons with the state of the week, using your reference library as a starting point. Find the state bird with your almanac and look it up in your bird guide. Trace the state’s outline with your atlas. 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 the library. The possibilities are endless, they can be as simple or as complex as you wish, and they can be easily adjusted according to each student’s age and interests.
This week’s countries, with their official websites, are:
GUINEA-BISSAU in West Africa. Capital: Bissau. Official website (Portuguese only): gov.gw.
GUYANA on the north coast of South America. Capital: Georgetown. Official website (English): gina.gov.gy.
HAITI in the West Indies. Capital: Port-au-Prince. Official website (French only): parlementhaitien.ht.
These all appear in your current almanac, atlas, and history encyclopedia as well. For example, you’ll find the main entries for the West Indian nation of Haiti on almanac pages 782–783, atlas plates 49 and 133, and history encyclopedia page 504, with illustrations, flags, and other mentions available through the indexes in each volume.
❡ 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.
What geographical discoveries have you made this week?
Take five minutes to teach a tiny literary lesson to your homeschool students tonight.
One of the most famous New Year’s Eve poems in English is “Ring out, wild bells” by Alfred Tennyson (1809–1892). It was first published in 1850 as part of Tennyson’s longer work In Memoriam, dedicated to his college friend Arthur Henry Hallam, who had died at the age of twenty-two. You can read more about Tennyson’s life at the Poetry Foundation website (poetryfoundation.org).
“Ring out, wild bells” takes the English tradition of church-bell ringing on New Year’s Eve, and the wish that the coming year will be better than the year departing, and enlarges it into a Christian wish for the coming of the heavenly kingdom that will do away with earthly suffering. Tennyson was one of the greatest English poets of the nineteenth century, and this is one of his best known and most accessible works. Spend a few minutes reading it with your homeschool students on this New Year’s Eve, as we all wish for peace, prosperity, health, and happiness in the New Year.
Ring out, wild bells
Alfred Tennyson
Ring out, wild bells, to the wild sky,
The flying cloud, the frosty light:
The year is dying in the night;
Ring out, wild bells, and let him die.
Ring out the old, ring in the new,
Ring, happy bells, across the snow:
The year is going, let him go;
Ring out the false, ring in the true.
Ring out the grief that saps the mind
For those that here we see no more;
Ring out the feud of rich and poor,
Ring in redress to all mankind.
Ring out a slowly dying cause,
And ancient forms of party strife;
Ring in the nobler modes of life,
With sweeter manners, purer laws.
Ring out the want, the care, the sin,
The faithless coldness of the times;
Ring out, ring out my mournful rhymes
But ring the fuller minstrel in.
Ring out false pride in place and blood,
The civic slander and the spite;
Ring in the love of truth and right,
Ring in the common love of good.
Ring out old shapes of foul disease;
Ring out the narrowing lust of gold;
Ring out the thousand wars of old,
Ring in the thousand years of peace.
Ring in the valiant man and free,
The larger heart, the kindlier hand;
Ring out the darkness of the land,
Ring in the Christ that is to be.
❡ Count and map. When you introduce your students to a new poem, especially one in a traditional form, the first thing to have them do is count the syllables and map the rhyme scheme. How many syllables in each line in this poem? Eight throughout. (And that gives you a clue about how certain words should be pronounced: valiant is two syllables, not three.) The eight syllables follow an iambic pattern with the accent on the second syllable of each pair. That makes this poem iambic tetrameter. What about the rhyme scheme? The first two stanzas are sky–light–night–die and new–snow–go–true. That looks like ABBA, and if you read down, you’ll see that pattern is followed throughout. Uncovering these details of structure teaches your students that a poem of this kind is a carefully crafted piece of work that required a great deal of literary labor.
What literary discoveries have you made in your homeschool this week? 😊
Quick freshes are our homeschooling notes on the week ahead.
December 31st (Sunday) is New Year’s Eve. Ring out, wild bells!
January 1st (Monday) is New Year’s Day 2018! It’s also the date of the first of two (two!) full moons that will be visible during the month of January.
On January 2nd (Tuesday) we’ll sit down for our regular Tuesday Tea at the Library.
January 5th (Friday) is Twelfth Night, also called the Twelfth Day of Christmas. Can you guess what song we’re going to share on that day?
Our state-of-the-week is Louisiana, and our countries are Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Guyana, and Haiti.
Your weekly toast: “To the village bells, may their sounds awaken the memories of the past and open the heart to reflection.”
❡ Toasts are a fun tradition for your family table. We offer one each week — 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 examples are adapted from two old collections: Marchant’s “Toasts and sentiments” (1888) and the anonymous Social and Convivial Toast-Master (1841). What did you toast this week?
What adventures do you have planned in your homeschool for the new year? 😊
Here at the River Houses we recommend six standard reference books for every homeschooling family — not children’s books, but family books that can serve both parents and students, that can support any curriculum you may choose to follow, and that can help to make you a better teacher. Five of these books are permanent volumes that should last for many years, but the sixth is one that must be renewed each year: the annual World Almanac and Book of Facts, now available from Amazon.com in its 2018 edition:
The annual World Almanac makes an ideal Christmas or New Year’s gift for your students, and my own copy of the 2018 almanac arrived just shortly before the holidays. It’s advertised as the 150th Anniversary Edition, attesting to its enduring value across many decades.
Modern almanacs are really one-volume desk encyclopedias, packed with information about everything from science and technology (page 277; did you know the top speed of a reindeer is 32 miles per hour?), to world history and geography (page 647; did you know the average depth of the Indian Ocean is 12,800 feet?), to artists, entertainers, and notable personalities (page 173; did you know Robert Penn Warren was the first Poet Laureate of the United States?), and much, much more.
If you have a fact-devouring student — and many students go through a fact-devouring stage — there’s no better entertainment than the annual World Almanac. (Did you know the island nation of Tuvalu has a population of only 11,052?) And for general reference questions on almost any subject, the World Almanac is almost always the best place to start.
To get the most out of your almanac, notice that the major sections are marked with black tabs along the book’s fore edge, and that these tabs are labeled on the back cover: “Special Features, Year in Review,” “Economy, Business, Energy,” “Health & Vital Statistics,” and so on. And while open-ended browsing of the almanac can be endlessly interesting, be sure that your students also know how to use the comprehensive alphabetical index at the end of the volume when they are trying to locate a specific piece of information.
We regularly refer to material from the World Almanac and Book of Facts in our River Houses postings, and starting next week our page references will change over from the 2017 edition to the 2018 edition. Add a new 2018 almanac to your homeschool library and join us as we teach and learn our way through the new year.
❡ Note that the World Almanac and Book of Facts is available in both paperback and hardcover editions. The paperback is slightly less expensive, but it’s also reduced in size making the type exceedingly small for grownup eyes, although your young scholars may have no trouble with it. I always use the hardcover edition.
Teach a little history lesson to your homeschool students today.
On December 29th in 1170, Thomas Becket, the Archbishop of Canterbury, was murdered at the foot of the altar in Canterbury Cathedral by four knights who may, or may not, have been acting under orders from King Henry II. Becket had been a long-time friend and counselor of King Henry, and Henry had appointed him archbishop with the expectation that Becket would allow the king to exert greater control over the church. But upon his elevation, Becket decided to be his own man, and he focused his loyalty on the church and the Pope, much to Henry’s dismay, until he became a thorn in the king’s side. The traditional account says that Henry one day shouted in a fit of rage, “Will no one rid me of this troublesome priest?” — and four of his knights, overhearing their master, took the king’s outburst as their license to kill.
Thomas Becket’s murder — the open assassination of the most senior religious figure in England, in his own church — has loomed large in the Western imagination ever since. It sent shockwaves through Europe and played a significant role in the struggles between church and state that continued for centuries. The site of Becket’s murder became a place of pilgrimage and has remained so for more than 800 years.
Archbishop Thomas Becket (ca. 1119–1170) in stained glass at Canterbury Cathedral, the site of his murder. (Image: Wikimedia Commons.)
Take five minutes today to teach your students the name of Thomas Becket, who he was, and how he met his fate on this day in 1170. Those little cultural facts will make it possible for them to understand centuries of subsequent references in literature, art, and history. They’ll understand Herman Melville’s description of the “ancient decks” of the whale-ship in Moby-Dick, which “were worn and wrinkled, like the pilgrim-worshipped flag-stone in Canterbury Cathedral where Becket bled.” And they’ll recognize the title and story behind one of the standard texts used in many college literature courses, T.S. Eliot’s famous twentieth-century play Murder in the Cathedral.
What historico-literary discoveries have you made in your homeschool this week? 😊
❡ Explore more: The history encyclopedia in your recommended River Houses reference library has an excellent review of church and state in medieval Europe on pages 194–197, with a specific mention of the murder of Thomas Becket as a significant event of the period. And you can have your students find the location of Canterbury in southeastern England on plate 61 in your atlas.
Many homeschooling families make a tradition out of regular trips to the local library — weekly, or monthly, or for some it may almost feel like daily! But are you sure you know all the libraries in your area that could be useful to you and your students?
WorldCat (worldcat.org) is the online global service that provides access to the individual collection catalogs of thousands of local libraries around the world. WorldCat also has a Library Finder feature that will let you type in your location and receive a list of all the libraries in your area. In the United States, I find the search works best using a zip code — give it a try:
For example, if you live in Boise, Idaho, and enter your zipcode of 83701, you’ll find that there are more than 100 school, college, and specialty libraries listed in your area, from the Pepper Ridge Elementary School Library, to the Brown Mackie College Library, to the Meridian Idaho East Family History Center Library.
Before WorldCat, the 750 volumes of the National Union Catalog were the only way to discover what libraries had copies of a given book. Not surprisingly, the NUC was generally available only in the largest libraries. It takes up 130 feet of shelf space and weighs three tons. (Image: Karin Dalziel.)
It may well be that your local town library is the only one near you, especially if you live in a remote area. But you may also discover, for example, that a local hospital has a medical library that could help a homeschool science student, or that a local courthouse has a specialty law library that would be suitable for a social studies project. There may also be small college and technical school libraries in your area that you haven’t yet explored.
Not all these specialized libraries will be open to the public or will have regular hours, of course. But the WorldCat Library Finder will generally give you street location and contact information for each collection, and if you call and ask whether a local homeschool student could use their facilities for a special project, you may receive a pleasantly positive answer.
Give the WorldCat Library Finder a try and make a list of new libraries to explore in the New Year. 😊
All wound up from too much Christmas activity? Then wind down (and wind your students down for the evening) with Percy Grainger’s beautiful setting of the Sussex Mummers’ Carol:
There’s lots of lovely detail in the score for your musicologically inclined students to study (perhaps tomorrow).
What music is playing in your homeschool this week? 😊
Merry Christmas to all! On Mondays we take a few minutes to visit one or two notable museums or monuments around the world, all in keeping with our comfortable philosophy of teaching with-out the curriculum. Explore a new place with your students, find it in your atlas, learn a new name or a new date, and you’re done.
Not everyone gets to spend Christmas Day sitting around a cozy fire with family and friends. On this day, take a moment to remember all the hard working people who might like to have the day off, but who are out keeping the world running — police officers, fire fighters, hospital workers, snow plow drivers, and many others, including sailors at sea. Herman Melville reminded us in Moby-Dick (1851) that somewhere, even on Christmas Day, ships are leaving port and heading out onto the freezing ocean.
At last the anchor was up, the sails were set, and off we glided. It was a short, cold Christmas; and as the short northern day merged into night, we found ourselves almost broad upon the wintry ocean, whose freezing spray cased us in ice, as in polished armor. The long rows of teeth on the bulwarks glistened in the moonlight; and like the white ivory tusks of some huge elephant, vast curving icicles depended from the bows.
Lank Bildad, as pilot, headed the first watch, and ever and anon, as the old craft deep dived into the green seas, and sent the shivering frost all over her, and the winds howled, and the cordage rang, his steady notes were heard, —
Sweet fields beyond the swelling flood,
Stand dressed in living green.
So to the Jews old Canaan stood,
While Jordan rolled between.
Never did those sweet words sound more sweetly to me than then. They were full of hope and fruition. Spite of this frigid winter night in the boisterous Atlantic, spite of my wet feet and wetter jacket, there was yet, it then seemed to me, many a pleasant haven in store; and meads and glades so eternally vernal, that the grass shot up by the spring, untrodden, unwilted, remains at midsummer.
Can you hear Bildad’s “steady notes” through the howling wind? Most of Melville’s readers would have been able to as they read along: he was singing the great hymn tune “Jordan” by the early American singing-master William Billings (1746–1800), written to accompany the verses of Isaac Watts (1674–1748):
Melville’s fictional account is full of foreshadowing that hints at the ultimate fate of the novel’s characters. But today we can read it as a straightforward reminder that even on Christmas, there are people out working in the ice and snow.
The Pequod at sea. Illustration: Barry Moser via Pinterest.
Here’s your little homeschool lesson for today, to furnish your students’ minds with a nugget of knowledge and a fact to reflect upon: “You know in Herman Melville’s famous sailing adventure Moby-Dick — a story you’ll read some day — the ship sets sail on Christmas Day. Even today, on Christmas, somewhere in the world there are sailors going to sea.”
Tour the United States and travel the countries of the world each week with the River Houses.
Many homeschoolers review the U.S. states and the nations of the world each year, and your River Houses reference library 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 453), so this week’s state, with a link to its official website, is:
Seal of OhioOhio (1 March 1803, the 17th state) — The Buckeye State. Capital: Columbus. Ohio appears on page 583 in your almanac, and on plates 41 and 142 in your atlas. Name origin: “Iroquois word for ‘fine or good river’” (almanac page 455).
❡ You can do a thousand things with the state of the week, using your reference library as a starting point. Find the state bird with your almanac and look it up in your bird guide. Trace the state’s outline with your atlas. 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 the library. The possibilities are endless, they can be as simple or as complex as you wish, and they can be easily adjusted according to each student’s age and interests.
This week’s countries, with links to their official websites, are:
Greece (Greek and English), in southeastern Europe. Capital: Athens.
Grenada (English), in the West Indies. Capital: St. George’s.
Guatemala (Spanish only), in Central America. Capital: Guatemala City.
These all appear in your current almanac, atlas, and history encyclopedia as well. For example, you’ll find the main entries for Greece on almanac page 780, atlas plates 72 and 133, and history encyclopedia page 551, with illustrations, flags, and other mentions available through the indexes in each volume. Your history encyclopedia in particular provides richly illustrated accounts of the history of Greece all through chapter three.
❡ 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.
Our state this week is Ohio, and our countries are Ghana, Greece, Grenada, and Guatemala.
Today (December 24th) is Christmas Eve, and tomorrow (December 25th) is Christmas Day. Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays to all friends of the River Houses!
Christmas Eve (today) is the day of the annual Festival of Nine Lessons and Carols from King’s College at Cambridge University in England. Don’t miss this opportunity to introduce your own homeschool students to one of the world’s great musical traditions — this is its 99th year! — and to one of the world’s most famous universities.
King’s College Chapel at Cambridge University. (Image: Wikimedia Commons.)
On Christmas Day (tomorrow) the River Houses will take literary notice of all those people who keep the world running on this holiday while others are relaxing cozily (and eating) at home with friends and family: the police officers, fire fighters, snow plow operators, emergency repairmen, train conductors, and all the other hard working people of the world — including sailors abroad on the wintry ocean.
Your weekly toast: “To absent friends and those at sea.”
❡ Toasts are a fun tradition for your family table. We offer one each week — 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 weekly examples are adapted from two 19th-century collections: Marchant’s “Toasts and sentiments” (1888) and the anonymous Social and Convivial Toast-Master (1841). What did you toast this week?
What do you have planned for this homeschool holiday week? 😊
Today, December 21st, is the winter solstice in the Northern Hemisphere — the official beginning of the season of winter. But because it’s the shortest day of the year it’s also traditionally considered midwinter, the day of the least light and the greatest darkness. (Send your students to your recommended River Houses dictionary to confirm this special meaning.)
One of the most beautiful carols of this season of winter darkness is “In the Bleak Midwinter,” originally a poem by the English poet Christina Rossetti (1830–1894) and later set to music by the English composer Gustav Holst (1874–1934).
Christina Rossetti (1830–1894), by her brother, the artist Dante Gabriel Rossetti. (Image: Wikimedia Commons.)
In your homeschool on this midwinter day, why not spend a few minutes introducing your students to some calm and peaceful music that points to the brightening days ahead. This beautiful performance of Holst’s setting of “In the Bleak Midwinter” is by Norwegian trumpet virtuosa Tine Thing Helseth (pronounced Tina Ting Helsett) and her accompanists Elise Båtnes on violin and Birgitte Volan Håvik on harp:
That performance is completely instrumental — see if you can follow along in Rossetti’s text and figure out how to sing it with that musical accompaniment:
In the Bleak Midwinter
Christina Rossetti
In the bleak mid-winter
Frosty wind made moan;
Earth stood hard as iron,
Water like a stone;
Snow had fallen, snow on snow,
Snow on snow,
In the bleak mid-winter
Long ago.
Our God, heaven cannot hold Him
Nor earth sustain,
Heaven and earth shall flee away
When He comes to reign:
In the bleak mid-winter
A stable-place sufficed
The Lord God Almighty —
Jesus Christ.
Enough for Him, whom Cherubim
Worship night and day,
A breastful of milk
And a mangerful of hay;
Enough for Him, whom Angels
Fall down before,
The ox and ass and camel
Which adore.
Angels and Archangels
May have gathered there,
Cherubim and seraphim
Thronged the air;
But only His Mother
In her maiden bliss
Worshipped the Beloved
With a kiss.
What can I give Him,
Poor as I am? —
If I were a Shepherd
I would bring a lamb;
If I were a Wise Man
I would do my part, —
Yet what I can I give Him, —
Give my heart.
What musico-literary traditions will you be observing in your homeschool this week? 😊
![[Seal of Louisiana]](data:image/svg+xml,%3Csvg%20xmlns='http://www.w3.org/2000/svg'%20viewBox='0%200%20150%20150'%3E%3C/svg%3E)
![[Seal of Louisiana]](https://riverhouses.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/12/Seal_of_Louisiana-150x150.jpg)
![[Tennyson]](https://media.poetryfoundation.org/m/image/1133/alfred-tennyson.jpg)
![[World Almanac 2018]](https://riverhouses.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/12/WA-2018-101x150.jpg)
![[Thomas Becket]](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/b1/Thomas-becket-window.jpg)
![[WorldCat logo]](https://riverhouses.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/09/worldcat-logo-150x147.png){kind=logo}
![[National Union Catalog]](https://farm3.staticflickr.com/2217/2035550177_08dcd45edb_b.jpg)
![[National Christmas Tree]](https://www.nps.gov/whho/planyourvisit/images/NCT_audience.jpg)
![[The Pequod at sea]](https://i.pinimg.com/originals/13/23/20/132320823e44ba3cb31397ec30214056.jpg)
![[Seal of Ohio]](https://riverhouses.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/12/Seal_of_Ohio-150x150.jpg)
![[King's College Chapel, Cambridge]](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/04/Cambridge_-_King%27s_Parade_-_View_WNW_on_King%27s_College_Chapel_1446-1544_-_Front_Court_Screen_1828.jpg)
![[Christina Rossetti]](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/46/Christina_Rossetti_2.jpg)
