The River Houses

A National Network of Local Homeschool Societies

You are here: Home > 2019 > February > 10

Archives for 10 February 2019

🗓 QUICK FRESHES for Homeschool Families – Week of 10 February 2019

by

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 Missouri, and our COUNTRIES are Kyrgyzstan 🇰🇬, Laos 🇱🇦, Latvia 🇱🇻, and Lebanon 🇱🇧. (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 waxing crescent — a good time for stargazing! You can dial up this week’s constellations with your homeschool star atlas (riverhouses.org/books).

🗓 TODAY (Sunday, 10 February) — Today is the 41st day of 2019; there are 324 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). ⬩ It’s also the traditional Christian feast day of Saint Scholastica (ca. 480–543), the patroness of schools and education. 🎓

MONDAY (11 February) — Today is the birthday of the great American inventor Thomas Edison (1847–1931).💡

TUESDAY (12 February) — Two major historical figures of the nineteenth century were both born on this day in 1809: Abraham Lincoln (1809–1865) and Charles Darwin (1809–1882).

WEDNESDAY (13 February) — Today is the birthday of the American artist Grant Wood (1891–1942). ⬩ It’s also the birthday of the American aviator Chuck Yeager (b. 1923), the first person to break the sound barrier

THURSDAY (14 February) — Happy Valentine’s Day! ❤️ Here’s hoping your little home academy will be full of love on this day and every day throughout the year.

FRIDAY (15 February) — Today is the birthday of the Italian astronomer and physicist Galileo Galileo (1564–1642), one of the most important figures in the history of science. 🔭 It’s also the birthday of the American women’s rights advocate Susan B. Anthony (1820–1906). ⬩ Our homeschool poem-of-the-week for third week of February is Stephen Spender’s minor masterpiece “The Truly Great,” for the remarkable collection of important people born in February. Print your own River Houses poetry calendar (riverhouses.org/calendars) and follow along with us.

SATURDAY (16 February) — This is the first day of the 2019 Great Backyard Bird Count! It’s an ideal homeschool activity, sponsored by Cornell University. Visit birdcount.org and join in the fun! 🐦

SUNDAY (17 February) — Today is the birthday of the great Italian violinist and composer Arcangelo Corelli (1653–1713).

🥂 YOUR WEEKLY TOAST is our traditional naval offering for Valentine’s Day: “To the wind that blows, and the ship that goes, and the lass that loves a sailor.”

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

The Litani River in southern Lebanon. (Image: Wikimedia Commons.)

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

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

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. 🗓

🌎 🇺🇸 SUNDAY STATES: Missouri, Kyrgyzstan, Lebanon, and More

by

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:

  • 🇺🇸
    Missouri State Quarter
    MISSOURI (the 24th state, 10 August 1821) — The Show Me State. Capital: Jefferson City. Missouri can be found on page 576 in your almanac and on plates 39 and 142 in your atlas. Name origin: “Algonquin Indian term meaning ‘river of the big canoes’” (almanac page 430). State bird: Eastern Bluebird (bird guide page 408). Website: www.mo.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:

  • 🇰🇬 KYRGYZSTAN in central Asia. Population: 5,849,296. Capital: Bishkek. Website: www.gov.kg (in Kyrgyz and Russian).
  • 🇱🇦 LAOS in southeastern Asia. Population: 7,234,171. Capital: Vientiane. Website: na.gov.la (in Lao and English).
  • 🇱🇻 LATVIA in eastern Europe. Population: 1,923,559. Capital: Riga. Website: mk.gov.lv (in Latvian).
  • 🇱🇧 LEBANON in the Middle East. Population: 6,100,075. Capital: Beirut. Website: presidency.gov.lb (in Arabic).

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. ✈️ 🚞 🚗 🛳 🐎 😊