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πŸ—“ QUICK FRESHES for Homeschool Families – Week of 5 May 2019

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For live links, click to: riverhouses.org/2019-05-05 😊

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

πŸ‡ΊπŸ‡Έβ€…OUR STATE-OF-THE-WEEK is Nevada, and our countries are Qatar πŸ‡ΆπŸ‡¦, Romania πŸ‡·πŸ‡΄, Russia πŸ‡·πŸ‡Ί, and Rwanda πŸ‡·πŸ‡Ό. (Our separate Sunday States & Countries post for the week went up just a few minutes ago.)

πŸŒ‘β€…THE MOON at the beginning of this week is new! That’s the best time of the month for stargazing since the sky will be darkest. 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).

πŸ—“β€…TODAY (Sunday, 5 May) β€” Today is the 124th day of 2019; there are 241 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 famous performance venue known today as Carnegie Hall opened in New York City on this day in 1891, with famed Russian composer Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky as guest conductor. 🎡

Monday (6 May) β€” Today is the birthday of the American admiral and polar explorer Robert Peary (1856–1920). 🎿 And on this day in 1954, British athlete Roger Bannister (1929–2018) ran history’s first four-minute mile. πŸƒ

Tuesday (7 May) β€” Two great “B’s” were born on this day: the English poet Robert Browning (1812–1889) and the German composer Johannes Brahms (1833–1897). πŸ–‹ 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 Artistic 700s. πŸ“š

Wednesday (8 May) β€” Today is the birthday of the great Austrian-British economist and Nobel laureate Friedrich Hayek (1899–1992). πŸ’° And today in 1945 was V-E Day, the end of World War II in Europe. ✌️ Our homeschool poem-of-the-week for the second week of May is Bruce Lansky’s “On Mother’s Day,” for all homeschool moms. πŸ‘©β€πŸ‘§β€πŸ‘¦ Print your own River Houses Poetry Calendar (riverhouses.org/calendars) and follow along with us throughout the year.

Thursday (9 May) β€” Lincoln Cathedral was consecrated on this day in the year 1092. It was the first building to surpass the Great Pyramid of Giza in height and was the tallest building in the world for more than 200 years. β›ͺ️

Friday (10 May) β€” On this day in 1775, in one of the great early successes of the American Revolution, a small group of colonial militia under the command of Ethan Allen and Benedict Arnold (not yet a traitor) seized British-held Fort Ticonderoga on Lake Champlain “in the name of the great Jehovah and the Continental Congress!” πŸ‡ΊπŸ‡Έ And on this day in 1869 at Promontory Point, Utah, a golden spike joined east and west and completed the First Transcontinental Railroad across the United States. πŸš‚

Saturday (11 May) β€” Today is the birthday or two great American composers: Irving Berlin (1888–1989) and William Grant Still (1895–1978). 🎡 And since this is the second Saturday of the month, we’ll learn today about one of the Great Stars of the northern hemisphere: Polaris, the North Star. 🌟

Sunday (12 May) β€” HAPPY MOTHER’S DAY to homeschool moms everywhere! ❀️ Today is the birthday of famed nurse and social reformer Florence Nightingale (1820–1910). πŸ‘©β€βš•οΈ It’s also the birthday of legendary American actress Katharine Hepburn (1907–2003). 🎭

πŸ₯‚β€…YOUR WEEKLY TOAST: “May the friends we love be sincere and the country we live in be free.”

❑ Toasts can be a fun educational tradition for your family table. We offer one each week β€” you can take it up, or make up one of your own (“To North American dinosaurs!”), or invite a different person to come up with one for each meal (“To variety in toasting!”). Our current set of toasts are mostly taken from an old anthology called Pocock’s Everlasting Songster (Gravesend, 1804). What will you toast this week?

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

The Olt River near Turnu Roşu in central Romania. (Image: Wikimedia Commons.)

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

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

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

🌎 πŸ‡ΊπŸ‡Έ SUNDAY STATES: Nevada, Qatar, Romania, Russia, and Rwanda

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

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:

  • πŸ‡ΊπŸ‡Έ
    Nevada State Quarter
    NEVADA (the 36th state, 31 October 1864) β€” The Silver State, the Sagebrush State. Capital: Carson City. Nevada can be found on page 578 in your almanac and on plates 37 and 142 in your atlas. Name origin: “Spanish, meaning β€˜snow-clad’” (almanac page 430). State bird: Mountain Bluebird (bird guide page 408). Website: nv.gov.

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

❑ Explore more: If you’re planning 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:

  • πŸ‡ΆπŸ‡¦β€…QATAR in the Middle East. Population: 2,363,569. Capital: Doha. Website: portal.www.gov.qa (in English and Arabic).
  • πŸ‡·πŸ‡΄β€…ROMANIA in southeastern Europe. Population: 21,457,116. Capital: Bucharest. Website: www.gov.ro (in Romanian, English, and French).
  • πŸ‡·πŸ‡Ίβ€…RUSSIA in eastern Europe and Asia. Population: 142,122,776. Capital: Moscow. Website: government.ru (in Russian and English).
  • πŸ‡·πŸ‡Όβ€…RWANDA in east-central Africa. Population: 12,187,400. Capital: Kigali. Website: www.gov.rw (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. ✈️ 🚞 πŸš— πŸ›³ 🐎 😊

❑ The great globe itself: This is one of our regular Sunday States & Countries posts. Print your own River Houses States & Countries Calendar (riverhouses.org/calendars) and follow along with us as we take a homeschool tour of the United States and the whole world over the course of the year. 🌎