Archives for March 2019

🗓 QUICK FRESHES for Homeschool Families – Week of 31 March 2019

31 March 2019 by Bob O'Hara

For live links, click to: riverhouses.org/2019-03-31 😊

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 calendar for the entire year.

🇺🇸 OUR STATE-OF-THE-WEEK is California, and our COUNTRIES are Myanmar 🇲🇲, Namibia 🇳🇦, Nauru 🇳🇷, and Nepal 🇳🇵. (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 a waning crescent — a good time for stargazing! You can dial up this week’s constellations and explore the moon’s features with your homeschool star atlas and world atlas (riverhouses.org/books).

🗓 TODAY (Sunday, 31 March) — Today is the 90th day of 2019; there are 275 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). ⬩ The great French philosopher and mathematician René Descartes was born on this day in 1596 📈 And on this day in 1774, Great Britain ordered the closure of the major trading port of Boston, escalating the tensions that would eventually lead to the American Revolution. 🇺🇸

MONDAY (1 April) — Monday is the birthday of the great English physician William Harvey (1578–1657), who first described the circulation of the blood in the human body. ❤️ It’s also the traditional date of the annual spaghetti harvest in Ticino, Switzerland. 🍝 Our homeschool poem-of-the-week for the first week of April is the Prologue to Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales, which opens with April showers. Print your own River Houses poetry calendar (riverhouses.org/calendars) and follow along with us throughout the year.

TUESDAY (2 April) — The United States Mint was established on this day in 1792. 💰 It’s also the birthday of the Danish novelist and children’s author Hans Christian Andersen (1805–1875). 📚 And since this is the first Tuesday of the month, today we’ll invite you to browse a new Dewey Decimal class with your students on your next visit to your local library. This month: the Technological 600s.

WEDNESDAY (3 April) — Today is the birthday of the great English poet George Herbert (1593–1633). 🖋 It’s also the birthday of the American naturalist and author John Burroughs (1837–1921). 🌲

THURSDAY (4 April) — Today is the birthday of the American Quaker artist Edward Hicks (1780–1849), famous for his “Peaceable Kingdom.” 🎨

FRIDAY (5 April) — Happy First Contact Day! 🖖 On this day in 2063, a Vulcan ship will land near Bozeman, Montana, bringing to an end our long galactic childhood. 🚀 And since this is 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. (No First Contact yet, alas.)

SATURDAY (6 April) — The Civil War Battle of Shiloh began on this day in 1862 near Shiloh, Tennessee. ⚔️

SUNDAY (7 April) — Today is the birthday of the great English poet William Wordsworth (1770–1850).

🥂 YOUR WEEKLY TOAST, for First Contact Day: “Peace and long life.” 🖖 Response: “Live long and prosper.”

❡ 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 Pocock’s Everlasting Songster (Gravesend, 1804). What will you toast this week?

🌎 EVERYTHING FLOWS: Namibia is one of our countries-of-the-week, so our Weekly World River is Namibia’s Fish River, a major tributary of the Orange River, which is one of the principal rivers of southern Africa. You can chart its course in your recommended homeschool atlas (riverhouses.org/books), and you can read more about it in the Fish River entry in Wikipedia or perhaps on your next visit to your local library.

The Fish River in Namibia. (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 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 calendar of educational events (riverhouses.org/calendars) and follow along with us. 👍

🇺🇸 🌎 SUNDAY STATES: California, Myanmar, Nepal, and More

31 March 2019 by Bob O'Hara

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:

🇺🇸
California State Quarter
CALIFORNIA (the 31st state, 9 September 1850) — The Golden State. Capital: Sacramento. California can be found on page 565 in your almanac and on plates 37 and 142 in your atlas. Name origin: “Bestowed by Spanish conquistadores (possibly Hernán Cortés). It was the name of an imaginary island in the 1510 Spanish novel Las Sergas de Esplandián (The Exploits of Esplandián), by Garci Rodríguez de Montalvo. The Spanish first visited Baja (Lower) California in 1533. The present-day U.S. state was called Alta (Upper) California” (almanac page 430). State bird: California Quail (bird guide page 56). Website: www.ca.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 some very valuable research skills. 😊

❡ 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:

🇲🇲 MYANMAR in southern Asia. Population: 55,622,506. Capital: Yangon. Website: www.president-office.gov.mm (in Burmese and English).
🇳🇦 NAMIBIA in southern Africa. Population: 2,533,224. Capital: Windhoek. Website: www.gov.na (in English).
🇳🇷 NAURU in the western Pacific Ocean. Population: 9,692. Capital: none. Website: www.naurugov.nr (in English).
🇳🇵 NEPAL in central Asia. Population: 29,717,587. Capital: Kathmandu. Website: www.nepal.gov.np (in Nepali and English).

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

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

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

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

❡ 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 a homeschool tour of the United States and the whole world over the course of the year. 🌎

🎨 NATURAL HISTORY ILLUSTRATION for Serious Homeschool Artists

30 March 2019 by Bob O'Hara

If you have a serious art student in your homeschool, here’s a remarkable opportunity: a free online course on natural history illustration from the University of Newcastle in Australia:

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“Drawing Nature, Science and Culture: Natural History Illustration 101” is being offered through edX, the online educational platform developed by MIT, Harvard, and a number of other leading universities.

“Whether an aspiring scientific or medical illustrator or someone who enjoys drawing nature’s wonders, this first-of-its-kind MOOC course is for you.

The field of Natural History Illustration is about observing and illustrating subjects from nature, science and culture, with their linkages to the environment being central.

Our natural world is a fascinating place. Being able to observe and replicate it through illustration provides insights into life that can change how we think about ourselves and our surroundings.

You will learn essential skills and techniques that form the base for creating accurate and stunning replications of subjects from the natural world. This art and culture course is suitable for people looking to enter the illustration discipline as a serious pursuit or just looking to explore a passion.

As world-standard instructors, we will show you practical ways to develop your skills from the outset. Step by step, we will cover the fundamentals of Natural History Illustration, from the first observation of a subject in the field to the final replication in the studio.“ (edX)

Scientific and technical illustration is a career field that many artistically oriented people go into and thrive in. This course looks like an excellent opportunity for serious homeschool artists to build some of the professional skills they will need to be successful. Take a look and see if it would be a good fit for the artists in your family.

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

🌠 WATCHERS OF THE SKIES: Ashokan Fireball

29 March 2019 by Bob O'Hara

For live links, click to: riverhouses.org/2019-ashokan-fireball 😊

One of the independent research activities we recommend to homeschoolers is reporting fireballs — unusually bright meteors — through the online system developed by the American Meteor Society. If you were out early yesterday morning in the northeastern United States, you might have seen a big one that has now been reported by more than 250 people in fourteen states.

Reporting locations for the New York fireball of 28 March 2019. (Image: American Meteor Society.)

Alas, I probably just missed seeing it by about fifteen minutes. 😖 Fireball reporting is a decidedly unpredictable activity, of course, but it’s worth reading about in advance so you’ll know what to look for and what record should one happen to cross your homeschool skies.

The many reports that AMS has received on this particular event indicate that the object traveled from southeast to northwest over the Catskill Mountains of New York. (Send your students to your family atlas to find them.) It was seen by observers as far north as Maine and as far south as West Virginia. AMS has also received one video of the event thus far:

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I’ve reported a couple of fireballs to AMS myself over the years. Keep your eyes on the sky and the next big fireball report might come from you. 🌠

What celestial wonders have you observed in your homeschool this week? 😊

🇲🇳 WEEKLY WORLD HERITAGE: Great Burkhan Khaldun Mountain in Mongolia

27 March 2019 by Bob O'Hara

Mongolia is one of our homeschool countries-of-the-week, so why not spend a few minutes learning about one of Mongolia’s World Heritage Sites this week: Great Burkhan Khaldun Mountain.

Burkhan Khaldun Mountain, Mongolia. (Image: Wikimedia Commons.)

“The site is situated in the north-east of the country in the central part of the Khentii mountain chain where the vast Central Asian steppe meets the coniferous forests of the Siberian taiga. Burkhan Khaldun is associated with the worship of sacred mountains, rivers and ovoo-s (shamanic rock cairns), in which ceremonies have been shaped by a fusion of ancient shamanic and Buddhist practices. The site is also believed to be the place of Genghis Khan’s birth and burial. It testifies to his efforts to establish mountain worship as an important part of the unification of the Mongol people.“ (UNESCO)

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.

What world treasures have you explored 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 world’s nations on pages 745–852; the endpapers of the atlas are index maps 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. 📚

📜 LIBRARY TUESDAY: A Free Course on the Book of Kells

26 March 2019 by Bob O'Hara

Tuesday is our regular Books & Libraries Day in the River Houses, and what better opportunity could present itself on such a day than a free course on one of the most famous books in the world, the Book of Kells.

Illuminated page from the Book of Kells. (Image: Wikimedia Commons.)

The Book of Kells is a medieval Irish manuscript of the New Testament Gospels, created around the year 800 and kept for centuries in the Abbey of Kells, north of Dublin. Now housed and exhibited at the Trinity College Library, it is one of the great artistic treasures of the European middle ages.

For the next few weeks, Trinity College is offering a free online course on the Book of Kells, and I know there are some talented homeschool history and art students out there who would be delighted by this opportunity. (And maybe some moms and dads, too.) You can read more about the course here:

➔ The Book of Kells: Exploring an Irish Medieval Masterpiece (Trinity College via FutureLearn)

And here’s a short video introduction to the course:

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Thanks to the wonders of modern technology, the entire Book of Kells has been digitized at high resolution and made available online by the Trinity College Library. Why not spend some time with your students this week at a large screen and explore its intricate designs:

➔ The Book of Kells (Trinity College Library)

Fantastical beasts, pious saints, glowing letters, woven knots, and so much more.

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

❡ Explore more: For a quick review of medieval European history, turn to page 188 in your River Houses history encyclopedia (riverhouses.org/books). It’s just the background you need for a wonderful homeschool history lesson.

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

🖋 WONDERFUL WORDS: Nothing Gold Can Stay

25 March 2019 by Bob O'Hara

Tomorrow is the birthday of Robert Frost (1874–1963), one of the most important American poets of the twentieth century. In his honor, our homeschool poem-of-the-week for this last week of March is Frost’s early-spring gem “Nothing Gold Can Stay”:

Nothing Gold Can Stay

Nature’s first green is gold,
Her hardest hue to hold.
Her early leaf’s a flower;
But only so an hour.
Then leaf subsides to leaf.
So Eden sank to grief,
So dawn goes down to day.
Nothing gold can stay.

This is a perfect poem for memorization. Why not memorize it yourself along with your students. (You can take turns, alternating lines.)

Like many of Frost’s poems, “Nothing Gold Can Stay” has a simple structure and a deep meaning. Invite your students investigate the structure first. What is the rhyme scheme? We have gold–hold, flower–hour, leaf–grief, and day–stay, so I make it out as AA BB CC DD — a set of four couplets. The rhythm (meter) is a bit irregular, and I don’t see a completely consistent pattern there; the lines vary from five to seven syllables. But the heavy rhyme provides a lot of structure, as does the poem’s “end-stopped” character: every line is either a full sentence or a full clause, making a pause in reading at the end of each line feel natural. (In more complex poems, the sentences and other grammatical units often run over the ends of the lines; such poems are said to be “enjambed” rather than end-stopped.)

The poem’s subject is early spring and the opening of the very first buds and flowers — which is why we chose it as this week’s poem. In temperate climes, little golden buds and tiny yellow flowers often appear on many trees before the leaves come out, but they only last for a short time until the canopy of green foliage unrolls and expands. Frost takes this simple observation and extends it to everything in the world. All the golden buds, all the early flowers — whatever they may be — give way with time. A Christian philosopher might read that as a sign of our fallen world (“So Eden sank to grief”), while a naturalist might see it as reflection of the ordinary cycles of nature all around us (“So dawn goes down to day”). Both are perfectly acceptable literary interpretations.

“Nature’s first green is gold.” (Image: Wikimedia Commons.)

As you explore your homeschool neighborhood this early spring, take special note of the earliest buds and flowers that are just beginning to open. And as you do, practice a line or two with your students: “Nature’s first green is gold.” “Her hardest hue to hold.”

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

❡ So dawn goes down to day: 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 Robert Frost) that are suitable for high school students and homeschool teachers.

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

🗓 QUICK FRESHES for Homeschool Families – Week of 24 March 2019

24 March 2019 by Bob O'Hara

🇺🇸 OUR STATE-OF-THE-WEEK is Wisconsin, and our COUNTRIES are Mongolia 🇲🇳, Montenegro 🇲🇪, Morocco 🇲🇦, and Mozambique 🇲🇿. (Our separate Sunday States & Countries post for the week went up just a few minutes ago.) We’re testing out the relatively new state flag emojis. This should be the Wisconsin state flag — let’s see if it works: 🏴󠁵󠁳󠁷󠁩󠁿 (I just see a black rectangle. What do you see?)

🌖 THE MOON at the beginning of this week is gibbous and waning — a good time for moon watching and an increasingly good time for stargazing! You can dial up this week’s constellations and explore the moon’s features with your homeschool star atlas and world atlas (riverhouses.org/books).

🗓 TODAY (Sunday, 24 March) — Today is the 83rd day of 2019; there are 282 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 Victorian artist and designer William Morris (1834–1896). 🖌 And the famous Hungarian-American magician Harry Houdini was born on this day in 1874. 🎩 Shazam!

MONDAY (25 March) — Monday is the birthday of the American agronomist and Nobel Laureate Norman Borlaug (1914–2009), who may have saved more lives than any human being in history. For some notes on his importance, see pages 464–465 in your River Houses history encyclopedia (riverhouses.org/books). 🌱

TUESDAY (26 March) — On this day in 1812, the Gerrymander was born! ☑️ And on this day in 1830, The Book of Mormon was first published in Palmyra, New York. 📖 Three great writers were also born on this day: A.E. Housman (1859–1936), Robert Frost (1874–1963), and Tennessee Williams (1911–1983). 🖋

WEDNESDAY (27 March) — Today is the birthday of the early Christian bishop and scholar Jerome (347–420), whose Latin translation of the Bible, called the Vulgate version, was the standard scriptural text in the Western world for more than a thousand years. ✝️ And on this day in 1912, the Japanese government presented a gift of 3000 cherry trees to the United States to line the banks of the Potomac River and other sites in Washington, D.C., where they and their successors may still be seen today. 🌸

THURSDAY (28 March) — The great Italian painter and architect Raphael was born on this day in 1483. 🎨

FRIDAY (29 March) — Today is the birthday of two unrelated Waltons: the English composer William Walton (1902–1983) and the American businessman Sam Walton (1918–1992), the founder of Walmart. 💵

SATURDAY (30 March) — On this day in 1867, the United States purchased Alaska from the Russian Empire for about two cents an acre. 🏴󠁵󠁳󠁡󠁫󠁿

SUNDAY (31 March) — The great French philosopher and mathematician René Descartes was born on this day in 1596 📈 And on this day in 1774, Great Britain ordered the closure of the major trading port of Boston, escalating the tensions that would eventually lead to the American Revolution. 🇺🇸

🥂 YOUR WEEKLY TOAST: “To constancy in love and sincerity in friendship.”

🌎 EVERYTHING FLOWS: Morocco is one of our countries-of-the-week, so our Weekly World River is the Ziz River, which rises on the eastern slopes of Morocco’s snow-capped Atlas Mountains and then flows east until it passes into Algeria and vanishes in the Sahara desert. You can chart its course in your recommended homeschool atlas (riverhouses.org/books), and you can read more about it in the Ziz River entry in Wikipedia or perhaps on your next visit to your local library.

The Ziz River in eastern Morocco. (Image: Wikimedia Commons.)

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

🇺🇸 🌎 SUNDAY STATES: Wisconsin, Mongolia, Mozambique, and More

24 March 2019 by Bob O'Hara

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.

🇺🇸
Wisconsin State Quarter
WISCONSIN (the 30th state, 29 May 1848) — The Badger State. Capital: Madison. Wisconsin can be found on page 589 in your almanac and on plates 41 and 142 in your atlas. Name origin: “Indian name, spelled Ouisconsin or Mesconsing by early chroniclers, believed to mean ‘grassy place’ in Chippewa. Congress made it Wisconsin” (almanac page 430). State bird: American Robin (bird guide page 414). Website: www.wisconsin.gov.

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

🇲🇳 MONGOLIA in central Asia. Population: 3,103,428. Capital: Ulaanbaatar. Website: president.mn (in Mongolian and English).
🇲🇪 MONTENEGRO in southeastern Europe. Population: 614,249. Capital: Podgorica. Website: www.gov.me (in Bosnian, Serbian, and English).
🇲🇦 MOROCCO in northwestern Africa. Population: 34,314,130. Capital: Rabat. Website: www.maroc.ma (in Arabic, English, and several other languages).
🇲🇿 MOZAMBIQUE in southeastern Africa. Population: 27,233,789. Capital: Maputo. Website: www.portaldogoverno.gov.mz (in Portuguese).

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

🎵 HOMESCHOOL ARTS & MUSIC: Happy Birthday Bach!

21 March 2019 by Bob O'Hara

Take a moment today to introduce your homeschool students to a four-minute musical masterpiece, the Little Fugue, written by one of the world’s greatest composers, Johann Sebastian Bach, who was born on this day in 1685.

Here’s the Little Fugue performed by Jonathan Scott in what might be called its natural habitat: the organ loft of a church. (Much of Bach’s music was church music written for the pipe organ, “the king of instruments.”) The video does a good job of showing the complex operation of the organ, which requires the performer to exercise not only both hands, but both feet as well:

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And here’s the same piece, Bach’s Little Fugue, but arranged in a very different way for a saxophone quartet by Staff Sergeant David Parks of the United States Army Field Band:

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If either of those performances catch your students’ attention, there’s a whole universe of Bach available online — more than enough to convert today’s little homeschool lesson into a week-long music festival of your own devising.

As one next step, you could watch this wonderful educational performance of a Bach concerto by the New York Philharmonic Orchestra, complete with a detailed introduction from a young Leonard Bernstein (1918–1990), and with a very young Glenn Gould (1932–1982) — one of Bach’s greatest twentieth-century interpreters — at the piano:

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One remarkable thing for your students to observe: Gould plays the entire piece with no sheet music. He kept every note, every inflection, all in his head.

What musical discoveries have you made and what artistic anniversaries have you marked in your homeschool this month? 😊

❡ Explore more: You can find several lists of noted musical composers and performers starting on page 221 in your recommended homeschool almanac (riverhouses.org/books). Why not use those lists and make up an impromptu homeschool research project: have your students copy out separate lists of composers from different centuries, or from different countries, and find examples of their music online. Can you get a sense for how musical styles changed from century to century? Are there distinct national styles that you can recognize?

🌕 RESEARCH PROJECTS for Homeschool Students – March 2019

20 March 2019 by Bob O'Hara

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

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

➔ The Lunar Society of the River Houses (riverhouses.org/lunar-society)

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 right now in these projects, and in many others too.

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

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

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

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

(See attached blog post for chart)

That’s just a simple graphing exercise — 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 and world atlas (which has an astronomical section) will help you orient yourself to the objects you are studying in the starry vault above. 🦉 🌠

🌷 SPRING is Here! (Astronomically Speaking)

20 March 2019 by Bob O'Hara

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

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

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

➔ March Equinox – Equal Day and Night, Nearly

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

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

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

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

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

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

🗓 QUICK FRESHES for Homeschool Families – Week of 17 March 2019

17 March 2019 by Bob O'Hara

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 Iowa, and our COUNTRIES are Mexico 🇲🇽, Micronesia 🇫🇲, Moldova 🇲🇩, and Monaco 🇲🇨. (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 waxing, heading toward full on the 20th. You can dial up this week’s constellations and explore the moon’s features with your homeschool star atlas and world atlas (riverhouses.org/books).

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

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

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

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

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

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

SATURDAY (23 March) — On this day in 1775 at St. Joseph’s Church in Richmond, Virginia, Patrick Henry delivered his famous speech “Give me liberty, or give me death!” 🇺🇸

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

🥂 YOUR WEEKLY TOAST: “To a light heart and a heavy purse.”

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

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

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

🇺🇸 🌎 SUNDAY STATES: Iowa, Mexico, Monaco, and More

17 March 2019 by Bob O'Hara

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.

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

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

🇲🇽 MEXICO in southern North America. Population: 125,959,205. Capital: Mexico City. Website: www.gob.mx (in Spanish).
🇫🇲 MICRONESIA in the western Pacific Ocean. Population: 103,643. Capital: Palikir. Website: www.fsmgov.org (in English).
🇲🇩 MOLDOVA in eastern Europe. Population: 3,437,720. Capital: Chișinău. Website: www.moldova.md (in Romanian, English, and Russian).
🇲🇨 MONACO on the Mediterranean coast of France. Population: 30,727. Capital: Monaco. Website: www.gouv.mc (in French and English).

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

🖋 WONDERFUL WORDS: “The Ides of March”

16 March 2019 by Bob O'Hara

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

The Ides of March

Constantine Cavafy
(Translated by Edmund Keeley and Philip Sherrard)

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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