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🎵 NOTABLE NOTES: Franz Schubert and Name-Dropping

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Here in the River Houses we believe in name-dropping. It’s one of the easiest educational techniques you can practice and it helps to “furnish the mind” — and that’s one of the main objects of education.

Today is the birthday of the great classical composer Franz Schubert (1797–1828), a name every student should recognize. On Schubert’s birthday, just drop his name into conversation somewhere during the course of the day: “The calendar says this is Franz Schubert’s birthday. He’s a famous composer we can study in a music lesson someday.” And with that, you’ve created a mental “hook” that your students can hang more facts and ideas on as their understanding increases.

If you want to do just a tiny bit more, play a little Schubert yourself today — from YouTube or some other source — and mention that he’s the composer of the piece you’re playing.

What should you choose? It depends on the effect you want to achieve.

Do you need people to get up and start moving? Then you need Schubert’s stirring “March Militaire” — it’s just the thing to get everyone up off the couch and parading around the living room. Here are two fine young students, perhaps the same age as yours, giving us a sprightly rendition:

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Or perhaps you’re in need of the opposite effect: to calm everyone down for the evening. Then why not try Schubert’s “Ave Maria,” performed here on cello and piano by Alexandra Moiseeva and Dmitriy Krasny — this is Schubert at his peaceful best:

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As you’re moving through your homeschool day and week, never miss an opportunity to drop a name, or a place, or a date into casual conversation. You may be surprised how many of the names you drop will be picked up, remembered, and made a part of the picture of the world that your students are building for themselves week by week, month by month, and year by year.

Happy birthday, Franz! 😊

👨‍🚀👨‍🚀👨‍🚀👨‍🚀👩‍🚀👨‍🚀👩‍🚀 REMEMBERING CHALLENGER

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On this day in 1986, the Space Shuttle Challenger exploded just 73 seconds after launch. All seven members of the crew were lost: Francis Scobee, Michael Smith, Ronald McNair, Ellison Onizuka, Judith Resnik, Gregory Jarvis, and Christa McAuliffe.

The Challenger disaster had a disproportionate effect on young people in the United States because crew member Christa McAuliffe was the first “Teacher in Space,” scheduled to broadcast classroom lessons from earth orbit. Tens of thousands of school children across the country watched the launch on live TV and saw the explosion as it happened.

We mark the Challenger anniversary each year with two readings that you may like to share with your students. The first is John Masefield’s famous poem “Sea Fever.”

I must go down to the seas again, to the lonely sea and the sky,
And all I ask is a tall ship and a star to steer her by;
And the wheel’s kick and the wind’s song and the white sail’s shaking,
And a grey mist on the sea’s face and a grey dawn breaking.

I must go down to the seas again, for the call of the running tide
Is a wild call and a clear call that may not be denied;
And all I ask is a windy day with the white clouds flying,
And the flung spray and the blown spume, and the sea-gulls crying.

I must go down to the seas again, to the vagrant gypsy life,
To the gull’s way and the whale’s way where the wind’s like a whetted knife;
And all I ask is a merry yarn from a laughing fellow-rover,
And quiet sleep and a sweet dream when the long trick’s over.

The second, from the film Chariots of Fire, is the dinner speech given by the master of Caius College at Cambridge University to the college’s new students in 1919, just after the end of World War I.

“I take the war list and I run down it. Name after name, which I cannot read, and which we who are older than you cannot hear, without emotion; names which will be only names to you, the new college, but which to us summon up face after face, full of honesty and goodness, zeal and vigor, and intellectual promise; the flower of a generation, the glory of England; and they died for England and all that England stands for.

“And now by tragic necessity their dreams have become yours. Let me exhort you: examine yourselves. Let each of you discover where your true chance of greatness lies.

“For their sakes, for the sake of your college and your country, seize this chance, rejoice in it, and let no power or persuasion deter you in your task.“

Roger, go at throttle up.

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🗓 QUICK FRESHES for Homeschool Families – Week of 27 January 2019

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

🇺🇸 OUR STATE-OF-THE-WEEK is Alabama, and our COUNTRIES are Jordan 🇯🇴, Kazakhstan 🇰🇿, Kenya 🇰🇪, and Kiribati 🇰🇮. (Our separate Sunday States & Countries post for the week went up just a few minutes ago.)

🌖 THE MOON at the beginning of this week is gibbous and waning, an increasingly good time for stargazing! Dial up this week’s constellations with your homeschool star atlas (riverhouses.org/books).

🗓 TODAY (Sunday, 27 January) — Today is the 27th day of 2019; there are 338 days remaining in the year. Learn more about different kinds of modern and historical calendars on pages 358–364 in your River Houses almanac (riverhouses.org/books). ⬩ Today is also the birthday of the great classical composer Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756–1791).

MONDAY (28 January) — On this day in 1986, the Space Shuttle Challenger exploded just 73 seconds after launch, killing all seven members of the astronaut crew. ⬩ It’s also the birthday of the great modern choral composer John Taverner (1944–2013).

TUESDAY (29 January) — Today is the birthday of Revolutionary war general Moses Cleaveland (1754–1806), the founder of Cleveland, Ohio. ⬩ It’s also the birthday of the great Russian writer Anton Chekhov (1860–1904).

WEDNESDAY (30 January) — Today is the birthday of U.S. president Franklin Roosevelt (1882–1945). ⬩ It’s also the birthday of pioneering computer scientist Douglas Engelbart (1925–2013), inventor of the computer mouse and many other standard features of modern computers.

THURSDAY (31 January) — Today is the birthday of the great Austrian pianist and composer Franz Schubert (1797–1828). ⬩ It’s also the birthday of baseball great Jackie Robinson (1919–1972), the first African-American to play in the Major Leagues. ⚾️ And on this day in 1930, Scotch Tape first went on the market.

FRIDAY (1 February) — On this day in 1942, the Voice of America, the official overseas radio service of the U.S. government, began broadcasting to territories in Europe controlled by the Axis powers. 📻 Our homeschool poem-of-the-week for first week of February is Robert Frost’s wintry classic “Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening.” Print your own River Houses poetry calendar (riverhouses.org/calendars) and follow along with us throughout the year. ⬩ And since this is also the first Friday of the month, we’ll post our regular monthly preview today of some of the astronomical events you and your students can be on the lookout for over the next few weeks.

SATURDAY (2 February) — It’s Groundhog Day! ⬩ On this day in 1653, the city of New Amsterdam was incorporated. We know it today as the city of New York.

SUNDAY (3 February) — Calling all artists: it’s Color Our Collections Week! ⬩ The Soviet Union’s Luna 9 spacecraft made the first-ever soft landing on the moon on this day in 1966. ⬩ And today is the birthday of the American painter and illustrator Norman Rockwell (1894–1978).

🥂 YOUR WEEKLY TOAST: “May old friends never be forgot for new ones.”

❡ Toasts can be a fun educational 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 set of toasts are mostly taken from an old anthology called The Pic-Nic, a Collection of Recitations, and Comic Songs, Toasts, Sentiments, &c. (London, 1816). What will you toast this week?

🌎 EVERYTHING FLOWS: Kenya is one of our countries-of-the-week, so our Weekly World River is the Turkwel River, which rises from Kenya’s Mount Elgon and flows into Lake Turkana. You can chart its course in your recommended homeschool atlas (riverhouses.org/books), and you can read more about it in the Turkwel River entry in Wikipedia or perhaps on your next visit to your local library.

The Turkwel River in Kenya, flowing into Lake Turkana. (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? 😊

🇺🇸 🌎 SUNDAY STATES: Alabama, Jordan, Kiribati, and More

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

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

  • 🇺🇸 ALABAMA (the 22nd state, 14 December 1819) — The Camellia State. Capital: Montgomery. Alabama can be found on page 563 in your almanac and on plates 42 and 142 in your atlas. Name origin: “Choctaw word for a Chickasaw tribe. First noted in accounts of Hernando de Soto expedition” (almanac page 430). State bird: Northern Flicker (bird guide page 316). Website: www.alabama.gov.

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

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

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

  • 🇯🇴 JORDAN in the Middle East. Population: 10,458,413. Capital: Amman. Website: jordan.gov.jo (in Arabic and English).
  • 🇰🇿 KAZAKHSTAN in central Asia. Population: 18,744,548. Capital: Astana. Website: www.government.kz (in English, Russian, and Kazakh).
  • 🇰🇪 KENYA in eastern Africa. Population: 48,397,527. Capital: Nairobi. Website: www.president.go.ke (in English).
  • 🇰🇮 KIRIBATI in the Pacific Ocean. Population: 109,367. Capital: Tarawa. Website: www.president.gov.ki (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 practice their critical reading and thinking skills.

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

🌹 WONDERFUL WORDS: Happy Birthday to Robbie Burns (1759–1796)

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Take a few homeschool minutes this weekend to remember (and listen to) Robert Burns, the national poet of Scotland, born on this day in 1759.

[Robert Burns stamp]
One of a series of 1996 British postage stamps commemorating the poetry of Robert Burns.

The poetry of Robert Burns has been read and sung around the world for more than 200 years. Many of Burns’ poems are written in the Scottish dialect of English, which is sometimes a bit difficult for beginners, but with a little practice and thought (and with occasional help from a good dictionary) their structure and imagery are easily understood. His famous poem of the departing lover who promises to return, “A Red, Red Rose,” is an excellent Burns introduction for any young poetry student:

A Red, Red Rose

O my Luve is like a red, red rose
That’s newly sprung in June;
O my Luve is like the melody
That’s sweetly played in tune.

So fair art thou, my bonnie lass,
So deep in luve am I;
And I will luve thee still, my dear,
Till all the seas gang dry.

Till all the seas gang dry, my dear,
And the rocks melt wi’ the sun;
I will love thee still, my dear,
While the sands of life shall run.

And fare thee weel, my only luve!
And fare thee weel awhile!
And I will come again, my dear,
Though it were ten thousand miles.

But “A Red, Red Rose” isn’t just a poem, it’s a song, and this fine version by the Scottish-Canadian singer John McDermott may help your students understand and appreciate it more — I think it even works as a lullaby:

Happy birthday, Robbie — may your songs be remembered till all the seas gang dry!

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

❡ Though it were ten thousand miles: 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 — that’s all it takes to begin a new poetical friendship and learn a few lovely words that will stay with you for life. 😊

🏞 NATURE NOTES: Real Live River Otters

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We had heavy snow last Saturday night and Sunday morning, and on Sunday afternoon some light snow and freezing rain were continuing, so I thought about skipping my usual walk to the river. But I decided to go, and if I hadn’t gone to look, I wouldn’t have seen our River Houses mascot in the flesh: a handsome River Otter swimming and diving in the icy water, and chowing down on a nice catfish he had caught.

River Otter in the North Nashua River in Massachusetts, 20 January 2019. (Image: RJO.)

I only had a pocket camera with me, so the photos aren’t the best, but they’re quite good enough for documentary purposes, and the classic otter shape is unmistakable.

River Otter (with catfish) in the North Nashua River in Massachusetts, 20 January 2019. (Image: RJO.)

Fifty years ago, this section of the Nashua River — an old industrial river in New England — was so polluted that almost nothing could live in it. Now it’s home to fish in abundance, mink, beaver, muskrat, otter, and a great variety of birds.

The North American River Otter (Lontra canadensis) lives in rivers and streams over much of our continent. There may be some near you! If you look, you just might see.

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

🖋 READING ALOUD: In Memory of W.B. Yeats

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The great Irish poet William Butler Yeats died on the 28th of January in 1939, and so our homeschool poem-of-the-week for this last week of January is W.H. Auden’s encomium on his fellow poet, “In Memory of W.B. Yeats.” And as a special treat, we have Auden himself reading it aloud for us:

Great writers are not necessarily great readers, just as great playwrights may not necessarily be great actors. But Auden does very well, I think, and helps to make the sense clear throughout.

The poem is divided into three distinct sections; the shift at the beginning of the third section is easiest to hear in Auden’s reading because the third section is fully rhymed and metrical.

In Memory of W.B. Yeats

I

He disappeared in the dead of winter:
The brooks were frozen, the air-ports almost deserted,
And snow disfigured the public statues;
The mercury sank in the mouth of the dying day.
O all the instruments agree
The day of his death was a dark cold day.

Far from his illness
The wolves ran on through the evergreen forests,
The peasant river was untempted by the fashionable quays;
By mourning tongues
The death of the poet was kept from his poems.

But for him it was his last afternoon as himself,
An afternoon of nurses and rumours;
The provinces of his body revolted,
The squares of his mind were empty,
Silence invaded the suburbs,
The current of his feeling failed: he became his admirers.

Now he is scattered among a hundred cities
And wholly given over to unfamiliar affections;
To find his happiness in another kind of wood
And be punished under a foreign code of conscience.
The words of a dead man
Are modified in the guts of the living.

But in the importance and noise of to-morrow
When the brokers are roaring like beasts on the floor of the Bourse,
And the poor have the sufferings to which they are fairly accustomed,
And each in the cell of himself is almost convinced of his freedom;
A few thousand will think of this day
As one thinks of a day when one did something slightly unusual.

O all the instruments agree
The day of his death was a dark cold day.

II

You were silly like us: your gift survived it all;
The parish of rich women, physical decay,
Yourself; mad Ireland hurt you into poetry.
Now Ireland has her madness and her weather still,
For poetry makes nothing happen: it survives
In the valley of its saying where executives
Would never want to tamper; it flows south
From ranches of isolation and the busy griefs,
Raw towns that we believe and die in; it survives,
A way of happening, a mouth.

III

Earth, receive an honoured guest;
William Yeats is laid to rest:
Let the Irish vessel lie
Emptied of its poetry.

Time, that is intolerant
Of the brave and innocent,
And indifferent in a week,
To a beautiful physique,

Worships language and forgives
Everyone by whom it lives;
Pardons cowardice, conceit,
Lays its honours at their feet.

In the nightmare of the dark
All the dogs of Europe bark,
And the living nations wait,
Each sequestered in its hate;

Intellectual disgrace
Stares from every human face,
And the seas of pity lie
Locked and frozen in each eye.

Follow, poet, follow right
To the bottom of the night,
With your unconstraining Voice
Still persuade us to rejoice;

With the farming of a verse
Make a vineyard of the curse,
Sing of human unsuccess
In a rapture of distress;

In the deserts of the heart
Let the healing fountain start,
In the prison of his days
Teach the free man how to praise.

There are a great many lines here that have become famous: “The death of the poet was kept from his poems”; “he became his admirers”; “Earth, receive an honoured guest; / William Yeats is laid to rest: / Let the Irish vessel lie / Emptied of its poetry”; and more.

Listen to Auden’s reading a couple of times with your students, pick out a few favorite phrases, and copy them onto your homeschool bulletin board. That’s how you begin a new poetical friendship that can last for life.

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

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

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

✝️ RIGHTEOUSNESS Like a Mighty Stream: Remembering Martin Luther King Jr.

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Today is Martin Luther King Jr. Day in the United States, and in honor of the occasion, why not pay a (virtual) homeschool visit to the Martin Luther King Jr. National Historical Park in Atlanta, Georgia, operated by the U.S. National Park Service.

[Ebenezer Baptist Church]
The Ebenezer Baptist Church, now part of the Martin Luther King Jr. National Historical Park in Atlanta, Georgia. (Image: Wikimedia Commons.)

The King National Historical Park includes a modern visitor center and a collection of adjacent sites that were important in the life of the great American civil rights leader, including King’s birth home, the historic Ebenezer Baptist Church where King and his father both preached, and the gravesite of King and his wife Coretta Scott King:

Browse the National Park Service’s website to learn more, and maybe make plans for a future visit in person!

What other notable museums and historical sites have you visited in your homeschool lately? 😊

❡ A mighty stream: The riverine title of today’s post comes from King’s famous “I have a dream” speech, delivered 28 August 1963 at the Lincoln Memorial in Washington: “We cannot be satisfied so long as the Negro in Mississippi cannot vote and the Negro in New York believes he has nothing for which to vote. No, no, we are not satisfied and will not be satisfied until justice rolls down like waters and righteousness like a mighty stream.” King was quoting the Old Testament book of Amos (5:23–24): “Take thou away from me the noise of thy songs; for I will not hear the melody of thy viols. But let justice roll down as waters, and righteousness as a mighty stream.”

❡ Explore more: Your River Houses history encyclopedia (riverhouses.org/books) has an excellent illustrated summary of the life and work of Martin Luther King on pages 432–433 — just what you need to teach a excellent homeschool history lesson this week. 😊

🌕 RESEARCH PROJECTS for Homeschool Students – January 2019

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Last night was the night of a full moon, and that means it’s time for a report from the Lunar Society of the River Houses.

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

Browse through that project list and find one that would be a good fit for your family. Before you know it, your students will be learning a host of valuable skills and your little home academy will be on its way to becoming an international research powerhouse. 🔬 🔭 🖥 🦋 🔍 ⚗️ ⛏ 📖 🌲 😊

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

As a simple example, here’s my own personal report for the past month on the two types of projects I participate in: eBird monitoring of bird populations, and distributed computing research using the Berkeley open infrastructure application. You and your students can participate in these projects (and 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 since our last Lunar Society report I’ve added 21 new checklists (daily observation reports), bringing my total for that locality to 356. When all the checklists are combined you can really see the seasonal distribution and migration chart for the year develop. By the end of next month I will have completed a full year’s monitoring of this one small park.

You can start keeping a similar list for a location near you — your backyard, or a local park or other natural area. (Helping to track a public park or eBird “hotspot” will let you generate more interesting results.) You can even add photos and sound recordings to your reports if you wish. Just pay a visit to the eBird website (ebird.org) and start exploring. Note that the Great Backyard Bird Count, coming up in February, is an associated project and a great way to get started.

Distributed computing projects use idle time on your computer to perform scientific calculations on various kinds of complex data. The most popular distributed computing projects run on the Berkeley Open Infrastructure for Network Computing platform (BOINC), and I contribute computer time to three of these: (1) the SETI@Home project, sponsored by the University of California, which searches for extraterrestrial intelligence (really!); (2) the Einstein@Home project, which studies neutron stars; and (3) 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 print “certificates of computation” that show how much data you’ve individually analyzed and how much your team has analyzed — they’re just the thing for your homeschool bulletin board. 😊

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

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

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

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

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

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

🗓 QUICK FRESHES for Homeschool Families – Week of 20 January 2019

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

🇺🇸 OUR STATE-OF-THE-WEEK is Illinois, and our COUNTRIES are Israel 🇮🇱, Italy 🇮🇹, Jamaica 🇯🇲, and Japan 🇯🇵. (Our separate Sunday States & Countries post for the week went up just a few minutes ago.)

🌕 THE MOON at the beginning of this week is FULL and there is a TOTAL LUNAR ECLIPSE TONIGHT! Dial up this week’s constellations with your homeschool star atlas (riverhouses.org/books).

🗓 TODAY (Sunday, 20 January) — Today is the 20th day of 2019; there are 345 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). ⬩ There will be a TOTAL LUNAR ECLIPSE tonight (20–21 January), visible across all of North and South America. It will be a homeschool event not to be missed! 🌕 And fittingly, one of the first two men to walk on the moon, American astronaut Buzz Aldrin, was born on this day in 1930.

MONDAY (21 January) — Today is Martin Luther King Jr. Day, a federal holiday in the United States. Lift every voice and sing! ⬩ And, since there was a full moon this past night (and an eclipse!), that means today we’ll have a report on student research projects from the River Houses Lunar Society.

TUESDAY (22 January) — Today is the birthday of two great English poets: John Donne (1573–1631) and George Gordon, Lord Byron (1788–1824). 🖋 And speaking of poets, our homeschool poem-of-the-week for last week of January is W.H. Auden’s “In Memory of W.B. Yeats,” for Yeats, who died 29 January 1939. Print your own River Houses poetry calendar (riverhouses.org/calendars) and follow along with us throughout the year.

WEDNESDAY (23 January) — Today is the birthday of John Hancock (1737–1793), president of the Continental Congress and the most flamboyant signer of the Declaration of Independence. ☤ And on this day in 1849, Elizabeth Blackwell graduated from the Geneva Medical College in New York, becoming the first woman to receive a medical degree in the United States.

THURSDAY (24 January) — On this day in 1848, James W. Marshall discovered gold at Sutter’s Mill, California, touching off the great California Gold Rush. 🍏 And on this day in 1984, Apple Computer introduced the Macintosh, and 1984 wasn’t like 1984.

FRIDAY (25 January) — Today is the birthday of the great Scottish poet Robert Burns (1759–1796), aye.

SATURDAY (26 January) — The world’s largest diamond, the Cullinan diamond, was found on this day in 1905 in the Premier mine near Pretoria, South Africa. 🏞 And on this day in 1915, Rocky Mountain National Park was established by an act of the U.S. Congress.

SUNDAY (27 January) — Today is the birthday of the great classical composer Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756–1791).

🥂 YOUR WEEKLY TOAST: “May we be rich in friends rather than money.”

❡ Toasts can be a fun educational 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 set of toasts are mostly taken from an old anthology called The Pic-Nic, a Collection of Recitations, and Comic Songs, Toasts, Sentiments, &c. (London, 1816). What will you toast this week?

🌎 EVERYTHING FLOWS: Italy is one of our countries-of-the-week, so our Weekly World River is the ancient Po River, the longest river in Italy. You can chart its course in your recommended homeschool atlas (riverhouses.org/books), and you can read more about it in the Po River entry in Wikipedia or perhaps on your next visit to your local library.

The Po River near Turin, Italy. (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? 😊

🇺🇸 🌎 SUNDAY STATES: Illinois, Israel, Japan, and More

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

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

  • 🇺🇸
    Illinois State Quarter
    ILLINOIS (the 21st state, 3 December 1818) — The Prairie State. Capital: Springfield. Illinois can be found on page 569 in your almanac and on plates 41 and 142 in your atlas. Name origin: “French for Illini or ‘land of Illini,’ Algonquin word meaning ‘men’ or ‘warriors’” (almanac page 430). State bird: Northern Cardinal (bird guide page 522). Website: illinois.gov.

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

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

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

  • 🇮🇱 ISRAEL in the Middle East. Population: 8,424,904. Capital: Jerusalem. Website: www.gov.il (in Hebrew, English, and several other languages).
  • 🇮🇹 ITALY in southern Europe. Population: 62,246,674. Capital: Rome. Website: www.governo.it (in Italian).
  • 🇯🇲 JAMAICA in the West Indies. Population: 2,812,090. Capital: Kingston. Website: jis.gov.jm (in English).
  • 🇯🇵 JAPAN off the east coast of Asia. Population: 126,168,156. Capital: Tokyo. Website: www.japan.go.jp (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 practice their critical reading and thinking skills.

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

🖋 WONDERFUL WORDS: The Stellar Gauge of Earthly Show

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We have an extra homeschool poem this week, for tonight’s grand astronomical event: a beautiful sonnet-masterpiece from Thomas Hardy (1840–1928) that asks three questions and gives no answers. Why not read it with your students tonight.

At a Lunar Eclipse

Thy shadow, Earth, from Pole to Central Sea,
Now steals along upon the Moon’s meek shine
In even monochrome and curving line
Of imperturbable serenity.

How shall I link such sun-cast symmetry
With the torn troubled form I know as thine,
That profile, placid as a brow divine,
With continents of moil and misery?

And can immense Mortality but throw
So small a shade, and Heaven’s high human scheme
Be hemmed within the coasts yon arc implies?

Is such the stellar gauge of earthly show,
Nation at war with nation, brains that teem,
Heroes, and women fairer than the skies?

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

❡ 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? Ten throughout. (And that gives you a clue about how certain words should be pronounced: Heaven’s is one long syllable, not two.) The ten syllables in each line follow a generally iambic pattern, with the accent on the second syllable of each pair (most of the time). That makes this poem iambic pentameter. What about the rhyme scheme? The first two stanzas are sea–shine–line–serenity and symmetry–thine–divine–misery. That looks like ABBA ABBA. The next six lines follow a different pattern: CDE CDE. By uncovering these details of structure your students will come to appreciate good poems as carefully crafted pieces of literary labor.

❡ The stellar gauge of earthly show: 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 — that’s all it takes to begin a new poetical friendship and learn a few lovely words that will stay with you for life. 😊

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

☀️🌏🌕 LUNAR ECLIPSE Sunday Night and Monday Morning (20–21 January 2019)

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Just a reminder that there is a total lunar eclipse coming this Sunday night and Monday morning (20–21 January 2019). It will be visible across all of North and South America, weather permitting, and will be a homeschool event not to be missed.

For full details on the exact time for your location, visit the timeanddate.com eclipse page:

Speaking of weather permitting, it’s not looking good here in the northeast. The snow and sleet just started an hour ago and is expected to continue all through Sunday with six to eight inches of total accumulation. If you find yourself in that position, don’t despair. Thanks to the miracle of modern technology, you can watch the eclipse live as it happens across the country:

🎥

So if it’s too snowy or too rainy or too cold to go out, you and your homescholars can spend a successful eclipse-viewing evening right at home by your fireside.

What other celestial observations have you been making in your homeschool lately? 😊

❡ Watchers of the skies: Teaching your students to recognize the constellations is one of the simplest and most enduring gifts you can give them. The planisphere on the front of your River Houses star atlas (riverhouses.org/books) will let you dial up the northern hemisphere sky for any night of the year, and the descriptions and maps of each constellation will point out the highlights. Find a dark-sky spot near you this month and spend some quality homeschool time beneath the starry vault. 🌠 🔭 🌌

🐦 NATURE NOTES: The Great Backyard Bird Count is Coming!

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If you’re looking for a simple homeschool science and nature project this winter, you won’t find anything better than the Great Backyard Bird Count scheduled for 15–18 February. Now’s the time to put it on your calendar.

The Great Backyard Bird Count is sponsored by Cornell University and several other organizations, and each year it produces a snapshot of birdlife across the United States and around the world:

Anyone who participates (like you and your students) is making a genuine contribution to our understanding of global bird populations:

“Launched in 1998 by the Cornell Lab of Ornithology and National Audubon Society, the Great Backyard Bird Count was the first online citizen-science project to collect data on wild birds and to display results in near real-time.

“Now, more than 160,000 people of all ages and walks of life worldwide join the four-day count each February to create an annual snapshot of the distribution and abundance of birds.

“We invite you to participate! For at least 15 minutes on one or more days of the count, February 15-18, 2019, simply tally the numbers and kinds of birds you see. You can count from any location, anywhere in the world, for as long as you wish!“ (birdcount.org)

If you’re a beginner, the easiest way to get started is with a backyard feeder. Here are some selections at Amazon.com that you can explore — browse around and find one or two that would fit well in your own backyard setting:

Your participation in the GBBC doesn’t have to be just feeder-watching, of course, and it doesn’t literally have to be in a “backyard.” Just pick any nearby location of interest — a farm field, a city park, a local lake, a patch of woods, or your backyard — count the birds you see for at least 15 minutes, and then report your observations on birdcount.org. And then watch as thousands of other reports come in from all around the world. It’s homeschool science at its best. 😊

What outdoor discoveries have your students made lately?

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

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

📜 ON EXHIBIT: Tolkien – Maker of Middle-Earth

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If you have fans of The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings in your homeschool, you’ll want to look into the major Tolkien exhibit that will open this month at the Morgan Library and Museum in New York. Here’s a comprehensive illustrated write-up about the exhibit from the neighboring Metropolitan Museum:

The exhibit will feature many of Tolkien’s own drawings and illustrations of characters and scenes as he envisioned them.

“Conversation with Smaug.” (Image: mymodernmet.com.)

Can’t get to New York? (Me either!) Don’t despair: a beautifully illustrated companion book and exhibit catalog has just been published, and you can order your own or request it at your local library:

The exhibit in New York will run from 25 January to 12 May, and will include a wide range of on-site special events, some of which may be recorded and posted online. Keep an eye on the Morgan Library’s exhibit page for details as they develop.

What treasures have you discovered in your library lately? 😊

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