Archives for October 2019

🎃 🦇 👻 HAPPY HOMESCHOOL HALLOWEEN from Horace the Otter!

31 October 2019 by Horace the Otter 🦦

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

We have two mascots here at the River Houses: Horace the River Otter and Cheryl the Belted Kingfisher. Cheryl hasn’t taken form yet, but Horace has, and he’s proved to be an adventurous otter indeed.

This week, Horace and all his riverside friends wish you and your family a Happy Halloween — and a big haul of goodies for all homeschool trick-or-treaters! 🍬🍭🍫

Happy homeschool Halloween from Horace the Otter and all his friends at the River Houses!

What spooky Halloween plans do you have for your homeschool this week? 😊

❡ Boo! This is one of our occasional Homeschool Holidays & Anniversaries posts. Add your name to our free weekly mailing list (riverhouses.org/newsletter) and get great homeschool teaching ideas delivered right to your mailbox all through the year. 🎃

🌍 🇨🇫 WEEKLY WORLD HERITAGE: Manovo-Gounda St. Floris National Park in the Central African Republic

30 October 2019 by Bob O'Hara

For live links, click to: riverhouses.org/2019-central-african-republic

The Central African Republic is one of our homeschool countries-of-the-week, so why not spend a few minutes today learning about one of the Central African Republic’s World Heritage Sites: Manovo-Gounda St. Floris National Park.

Rhino in Manovo-Gounda St. Floris National Park, Central African Republic. (Image: worldatlas.com.)

World Heritage Sites are not only places of historical importance in human culture, they are also places of exceptional biological and scientific value:

“With an area of 1,740,000 ha, Manovo-Gounda St Floris is the largest park in the Central African savannas. Straddling the two ecological zones, Manovo-Gounda St Floris National Park owes its importance to its rich flora and fauna. It is home to many endangered species including the black rhino, elephant, hippopotamus and red-fronted gazelle as well as large concentrations of herbivores.

“This Park is an interesting example of a “crossroads” where the species from savanna communities of East and West Africa, as well as those of the forest communities of the South, cross paths. The Park is a valuable area for the study of environmental changes occurring throughout the Sahel and Sudan under pressure from drought and overgrazing.“ (UNESCO World Heritage Centre #475)

Sadly, extensive poaching and violence in the region has led this important park to be included on the current list of World Heritage Sites in Danger.

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.

The UNESCO World Heritage Centre also has a free and comprehensive World Heritage education kit for teachers, as well as a wonderful full-color wall map of World Heritage Sites (riverhouses.org/2019-wh-map), available for the cost of shipping. Why not add them both to your own homeschool library. 🗺

What world treasures will you be exploring 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 nations of the world on pages 745–852; the endpapers of the atlas are indexes 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. For an ideal little lesson, just write the name of the Weekly World Heritage Site on your homeschool bulletin board, find its location in your atlas, read the WHC’s one-paragraph description aloud, look at a picture or two, and you’re done. Over the course of the year, without even realizing it, your students will absorb a wealth of new historical, geographical, and cultural information. 🇨🇫

❡ The great globe itself: This is one of our regular Homeschool States & Countries posts featuring historic sites of international importance. Download your own copy of our River Houses World Heritage Calendar (riverhouses.org/calendars) and follow along with us as we tour the planet, and add your name to our free weekly mailing list (riverhouses.org/newsletter) to get great homeschool teaching ideas delivered right to your mailbox all through the year. 🌍

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

27 October 2019 by Bob O'Hara

For live links, click to: riverhouses.org/2019-10-27

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.

🇺🇸 OUR STATE-OF-THE-WEEK is New Hampshire, and our COUNTRIES are the Central African Republic 🇨🇫, Chad 🇹🇩, Chile 🇨🇱, and China 🇨🇳. (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 new — that’s the best time of the month for dark-sky stargazing! You can explore the night sky and the features of the moon in your recommended backyard astronomy guide and your homeschool world atlas, and you can learn a host of stellar and lunar facts on pages 342–357 in your almanac (riverhouses.org/books).

🗓 TODAY, Sunday (27 October 2019) — Today is the 300th (!) day of 2019; there are 65 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). 📚 On this day in the year 312, the armies of rival Roman emperors Constantine and Maxentius fought one another in the Battle of Milvian Bridge north of Rome. ⚔️ Tradition says that Constantine secured victory after having a vision of the Christian cross the night before, leading to his conversion and the eventual adoption of Christianity as the religion of the Roman Empire. ✝️ Today is also the birthday of the mellifluous Welsh poet and playwright Dylan Thomas (1914–1953). 🖋

Monday (28 October 2019) — The great Dutch Renaissance philosopher Erasmus of Rotterdam was born on this day in 1466. 📖 On this day in 1886, President Grover Cleveland dedicated the Statue of Liberty in New York Harbor. 🗽 And today is the birthday of the American medical researcher Jonas Salk (1914–1995), developer of the polio vaccine. 💉

Tuesday (29 October 2019) — On this day (or night) in 1964, three men broke into the American Museum of Natural History in New York and executed the largest jewel theft in American history, netting more than $400,000 worth of gems. The thieves were soon caught and most of the gems were recovered, including the Star of India, one of the world’s largest sapphires, which had been hidden in a bus station locker in Miami. 💎

Wednesday (30 October 2019) — Today is the birthday of the American modernist poet Ezra Pound (1885–1972). 🖋 On this day in 1938, Orson Welles broadcast his famous radio version of H.G. Wells’ “The War of the Worlds,” leading many people across the country to believe that a Martian invasion of the earth had begun. 👽

Thursday (31 October 2019) — Happy Halloween! 🎃👻🦇 The Protestant Reformation began on this day in 1517 when Martin Luther nailed his 95 Theses to the door of All Saints’ Church in Wittenberg, Germany. 📜 Today is the birthday of the great English poet John Keats (1795–1821). 🖋 And it’s also the birthday of Juliette Gordon Low (1860–1927), founder of the Girl Scouts of America. 👧🏼

Friday (1 November 2019) — Today is the birthday of the German geophysicist and meteorologist Alfred Wegener (1880–1930), who developed the theory of continental drift. 🌍 Our Friday Bird Families post this week will introduce you to the Limpkins, Rails, Gallinules, Coots, and Cranes. 🐦 Print your own River Houses Calendar of American Birds (riverhouses.org/calendars) and follow along with us throughout the year. 🦅 And our homeschool poem-of-the-week for the first week of November is Robert Frost’s “A Leaf-Treader,” for the falling leaves. 🍂 Print your own River Houses Poetry Calendar (riverhouses.org/calendars) and follow along with us as well! 🖋

Saturday (2 November 2019) — Today is the birthday of the American frontiersman and folk-hero Daniel Boone (1734–1820). 🐻 And since this is the first Saturday of the month, we’ll post our regular monthly preview today of some of the astronomical events you and your students can watch for over the next few weeks. 🔭

Sunday (3 November 2019) — Today is the birthday of the great Italian artist and sculptor Benvenuto Cellini (1500–1571). 🎨 And on this day in 1534, the English Parliament passed the Act of Supremacy, declaring King Henry VIII (rather than the Pope) to be the head of the English church. 👑

🥂 OUR WEEKLY TOAST is an old Halloween wish, for all the cheerful young trick-or-treaters who will be out on the town this week:

May witches, fays, and grinning cats,
Owls and sprites and sable bats,
Have good cheer on Hallowe’en,
And add enchantment to the scene,
With revels wild and free.

❡ 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!”). What will you toast this week? 🥂

🌍 EVERYTHING FLOWS: The landlocked Central African Republic is one of our countries-of-the-week, so our Weekly World River is the Mbomou River, which flows along the border between the Central African Republic and Democratic Republic of the Congo. You can chart its course in your recommended homeschool atlas (riverhouses.org/books), and you can read more about it in the Mbomou River entry in Wikipedia or perhaps on your next visit to your local library.

Fishermen beside the Mbomou River along the border between the Central African Republic and Democratic Republic of the Congo. (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. 🗓

🌎 🇺🇸 SUNDAY STATES: New Hampshire, the Central African Republic, China, and More

27 October 2019 by Bob O'Hara

For live links, click to: riverhouses.org/2019-new-hampshire

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 our 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. Our annual review begins at the start of the River Houses year in September and goes through the states in the traditional order of admission to the Union (almanac page 429), so this week’s state is:

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New Hampshire State Bird and Flower
NEW HAMPSHIRE (the 9th state, 21 June 1788) — The Granite State. Capital: Concord. New Hampshire can be found on page 578 in your almanac and on plates 44 and 142 in your atlas. Name origin: “Named by Capt. John Mason of Plymouth Council, in 1629, for his home county in England” (almanac page 430). State bird: Purple Finch (bird guide page 438). Website: www.nh.gov.

❡ Little lessons: You can teach a hundred little lessons with our 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 wealth of new geographical and historical information, as well as a host of valuable reading and research skills. 😊

❡ Explore more: If you’re planning an extended unit-study of one or more of the U.S. states, be sure to look into the primary source materials for teachers available at the Library of Congress.

We go through the countries of the world in alphabetical order, so this week’s countries, with their official websites, are:

🇨🇫 CENTRAL AFRICAN REPUBLIC in central Africa. Population: 5,745,062. Capital: Bangui. Government: Presidential republic. Website: CIA World Factbook entry (in English).
🇹🇩 CHAD in central Africa. Population: 15,833,116. Capital: N’Djamena. Government: Presidential republic. Website: www.gouvernement.td (in English, French, and Arabic).
🇨🇱 CHILE in South America. Population: 17,925,262. Capital: Santiago. Government: Presidential republic. Website: www.gob.cl (in Spanish and English).
🇨🇳 CHINA in eastern Asia. Population: 1,384,688,986. Capital: Beijing. Government: Communist Party–led state. Website: www.gov.cn (in English and Chinese).

These all appear in your current almanac, atlas, and history encyclopedia as well (riverhouses.org/books). The almanac, for example, has profiles of 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 exercise their critical reading and thinking skills. 🕵

❡ Come, here’s the map: Teaching your students to be fluent with high-quality maps — not just basically competent, but fluent — is one of the best educational gifts you can give them. Why not look up any one of our selected states or countries each week in your recommended homeschool atlas (riverhouses.org/books) and show your students how to locate rivers, lakes, marshes, water depths, mountains and their elevations, highway numbers, airports, oil fields, railroads, ruins, battle sites, small towns, big cities, regional capitals, national capitals, parks, deserts, glaciers, borders, grid references, lines of longitude and latitude, and much more. There is so much information packed into professional maps of this kind that a magnifying glass is always helpful, even for young folks with good eyesight. The endpapers of the atlas and the technical map-reading information on Plate 2 will guide you in your voyages of discovery. 🗺

❡ 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 an educational tour of the United States and the whole world over the course of the homeschool year. And don’t forget to add your name to our free mailing list (riverhouses.org/newsletter) to get more great homeschool teaching ideas delivered right to your mailbox every week. 🇺🇸 🌎

👑 “FROM THIS DAY to the ending of the world”

25 October 2019 by Bob O'Hara

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

October 25th is the anniversary of the Battle of Agincourt in 1415. That clash between the French army and the soldiers of King Henry V of England would be little remembered today had not Shakespeare immortalized it in one of the most famous speeches in all of English literature, a speech every young homescholar should know.

First Folio edition of Shakespeare’s *Henry V* (1623). (Image: Folger Library.)

It’s called the St. Crispin’s Day Speech because October 25th happens to be, on the church calendar, the feast day of two early Christian saints, the brothers Crispin and Crispinian, the patrons of cobblers and leather-workers. In 1415, King Henry rallied his men against “fearful odds” by declaring that the feast day of Saints Crispin and Crispinian would never again pass, “from this day to the ending of the world, but we in it shall be rememberèd.”

Here in the River Houses we fulfill King Henry’s prophecy every year — and you and your students can too, joining a tradition that is centuries old. Here’s one famous demonstration of how to do it:

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But I really think this fine young man’s example is even more impressive:

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So on this St. Crispin’s Day 2019, the 604th anniversary of the Battle of Agincourt, break out your homeschool copy of Henry V, turn to Act IV, Scene iii, and read along:

WESTMORLAND. O that we now had here
But one ten thousand of those men in England
That do no work to-day!

KING. What’s he that wishes so?
My cousin, Westmorland? No, my fair cousin;
If we are mark’d to die, we are enow
To do our country loss; and if to live,
The fewer men, the greater share of honour.
God’s will! I pray thee, wish not one man more.

By Jove, I am not covetous for gold,
Nor care I who doth feed upon my cost;
It yearns me not if men my garments wear;
Such outward things dwell not in my desires.
But if it be a sin to covet honour,
I am the most offending soul alive.
No, faith, my coz, wish not a man from England.
God’s peace! I would not lose so great an honour
As one man more methinks would share from me
For the best hope I have. O, do not wish one more!

Rather proclaim it, Westmorland, through my host,
That he which hath no stomach to this fight,
Let him depart; his passport shall be made,
And crowns for convoy put into his purse;
We would not die in that man’s company
That fears his fellowship to die with us.

This day is call’d the feast of Crispian.
He that outlives this day, and comes safe home,
Will stand a tip-toe when this day is nam’d,
And rouse him at the name of Crispian.
He that shall live this day, and see old age,
Will yearly on the vigil feast his neighbours,
And say “To-morrow is Saint Crispian.”
Then will he strip his sleeve and show his scars,
And say “These wounds I had on Crispin’s day.”

Old men forget; yet all shall be forgot,
But he’ll remember, with advantages,
What feats he did that day. Then shall our names,
Familiar in his mouth as household words —
Harry the King, Bedford and Exeter,
Warwick and Talbot, Salisbury and Gloucester —
Be in their flowing cups freshly rememb’red.
This story shall the good man teach his son;
And Crispin Crispian shall ne’er go by,
From this day to the ending of the world,
But we in it shall be rememberèd —
We few, we happy few, we band of brothers;
For he to-day that sheds his blood with me
Shall be my brother; be he ne’er so vile,
This day shall gentle his condition;
And gentlemen in England now a-bed
Shall think themselves accurs’d they were not here,
And hold their manhoods cheap whiles any speaks
That fought with us upon Saint Crispin’s day.

What oratorical discoveries have you made in your homeschool this week? 👑

❡ They call it Agincourt: Where was this memorable speech first spoken in its original form? Why not send your students to your homeschool atlas (riverhouses.org/books) to find out! There’s a trick to this search, however: you have to know that our modern atlas uses the modern French spelling Azincourt for the location. Once you know that, just turn to index page 9 to find the name, and that entry will point you to atlas plate 63, section H10. Incroyable! 🌍

❡ We happy few: This is one of our occasional Homeschool Holidays & Anniversaries posts. Add your name to our free weekly mailing list (riverhouses.org/newsletter) and get great homeschool teaching ideas delivered right to your mailbox all through the year. 🗞

🦅 FRIDAY BIRD FAMILIES: Swifts and Hummingbirds

25 October 2019 by Horace the Otter 🦦

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

Every Friday we invite you and your homeschool students to learn about a different group of North American birds in your recommended bird guide (riverhouses.org/books). It’s a great way to add a few minutes of informal science, geography, natural history, and imagination to your homeschool schedule throughout the year.

This week’s birds (two different families) are the Swifts (pages 88–91) and the Hummingbirds (pages 92–105).

[See attached blog post for images and sounds]

If you’re teaching younger children, the way to use these posts is just to treat your bird guide as a picture book and spend a few minutes each week looking at all the interesting birds they may see one day. With that, your little lesson is done.

If you have older students, one of your objectives should be to help them become fluent with a technical reference book that’s packed with dense information. Here are the guide’s introductions to this week’s bird groups, written in the customary telegraphic style:

“SWIFTS — Family Apodidae. These fast-flying birds spend the day aloft. Long wings bend closer to the body than on similar swallows. Species: 100 World, 9 N.A. [North America]“

“HUMMINGBIRDS — Family Trochilidae. These birds hover at flowers to sip nectar with needlelike bills. Adult males distinctive; others often identified to species by calls and subtle plumage and structural differences. Males’ iridescent throat feathers (gorget) look black in poor light. Species: 340 World, 24 N.A.“

When you’re training young naturalists, teach them to ask and answer from their bird guide some of the first questions any naturalist would ask about a new group — about the Hummingbirds, for example. How many species? (340 worldwide.) Are there any near us? (24 species in North America, and the individual maps will give us more detail.) If only 24 of 340 are in North America, where are the rest? (In Central and South America, world hummingbird headquarters!) What are their distinctive features? (Tiny nectar-feeders; males often have iridescent throats; and so on.) (And “gorget” is certainly a wonderful word, isn’t it — be sure to send someone to your homeschool dictionary to look that one up.) 🔎

Pick a representative species or two to look at in detail each week and read the entry aloud, or have your students study it and then narrate it back to you, explaining all the information it contains. This week, for the Hummingbird family, why not investigate the Rufous Hummingbird if you’re in the West (page 102), or the Ruby-throated Hummingbird if you’re in the East (page 96).

[See attached blog post for images and sounds]

All sorts of biological information is packed into the brief species descriptions in your bird guide — can your students tease it out? How big is the Rufous Hummingbird? (Only 3.5 inches long — the hummingbirds as a group are the smallest birds in the world) What is its scientific name? (Selasphorus rufus.) Will you be able to find this species where you live? At what times of year and in what habitat? (Study the range map and range description carefully to answer those questions, and see the book’s back flap for a map key.) Do the males and females look alike? The adults and juveniles? What song or call does this species make? How do you tell it apart from similar species? (The text and illustrations should answer all these questions.)

For the Swift family, why not look at either the White-throated Swift (page 88), common in the West, or the Chimney Swift (also page 88), common in the East.

[See attached blog post for images and sounds]

The Swifts are masters of the air, and the group includes some of the fastest birds in the world. They are all feeders on “aerial plankton” — flying and floating insects that they catch in flight. Some species are known to reach exceptional altitudes — as high as 10,000 feet — and most of our North American temperate-zone species are highly migratory.

You can do little ten-minute lessons of this kind with any of the species in your bird guide that catch your interest. Pick a species that is near you, or one that looks striking, or one that has a strange name, and explore.

In all these Friday Bird Families posts, our aim is not to present a specific set of facts to memorize. We hope instead to provide starting points that you and your students can branch away from in many different directions. We hope also to show how you can help your students develop the kind of careful skills in reading, observation, and interpretation that they will need in all their future academic work.

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

❡ 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 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. 🐦

❡ Vade mecum: The front matter in your bird guide (riverhouses.org/books) explains a little bit about basic bird biology and about some of the technical terminology used throughout the book — why not have your students study it as a special project. Have them note particularly the diagrams showing the parts of a bird (pages 10–11) so they’ll be able to tell primaries from secondaries and flanks from lores. 🦉

❡ Words for birds: You may not think of your homeschool dictionary (riverhouses.org/books) as a nature reference, but a comprehensive dictionary will also define many of the standard scientific terms you will encounter in biology and natural history, although it will not generally contain the proper names of species or other taxonomic groups that aren’t part of ordinary English. (In other words, you’ll find “flamingo” but not Phoenicopterus, the flamingo genus.) One of the most important things students should learn to look for in the dictionary is the information on word origins: knowing the roots of scientific terms makes it much easier to understand and remember their meaning. 📖

❡ Come, here’s the map: Natural history and geography are deeply interconnected. One of the first questions you should teach your students to ask about any kind of animal or plant is, “What is its range? Where (in the world) does it occur?” Our recommended homeschool reference library (riverhouses.org/books) includes an excellent world atlas that will help your students appreciate many aspects of biogeography — the science of the geographical distribution of living things. 🌎

❡ Nature notes: This is one of our regular Friday Bird Families posts. Why not print your own copy of our River Houses Calendar of American Birds and follow along with us. You can also add your name to our free weekly mailing list (riverhouses.org/newsletter) to get great homeschool teaching ideas delivered right to your mailbox all through the year. 🐦 🦅 🦉 🦆 🦃

👨‍👦 “THIS STORY shall the good man teach his son”

24 October 2019 by Bob O'Hara

For live links, click to: riverhouses.org/2019-saint-crispin

Invite your students to become part of a centuries-old tradition today. It will only take a few minutes, and it will be theirs to the ending of the world.

At your evening feast, on this vigil, raise your glass and offer the most famous toast in English literature: “To-morrow is Saint Crispian.” 🍻

“Then shall our names, familiar in their mouths as household words — Harry the king, Bedford and Exeter, Warwick and Talbot, Salisbury and Gloucester — be in their flowing cups freshly rememb’red.”

That’s the only anniversary you need to mark in your homeschool this week. 😊

🖋 🌅 WONDERFUL WORDS (and Music!): Turning Toward the Morning

23 October 2019 by Bob O'Hara

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

The temperature’s expected to go down into the 30’s tonight. There is still a lot of color in the trees, but brisk winds are beginning to take some of it down and there are a few bare branches showing through on the hills.

October’s growing thin, and the prospect of winter can make us uneasy. Will the house be warm enough? Will the darkness drag us down? Will we be sick again this winter? Will we make it all the way to spring?

The great Maine folksinger and songwriter Gordon Bok offers us some reassurance as the seasons begin to change and the cold closes in around us with this lyrical translation of a true astronomical observation.

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Read along with your students, or sing along, as Bok provides us with our homeschool poem-of-the-week for the last week of October.

Turning Toward the Morning

When the deer has bedded down
And the bear has gone to ground,
And the northern goose has wandered off
To warmer bay and sound,
It’s so easy in the cold to feel
The darkness of the year
And the heart is growing lonely
For the morning.

Oh, my Joanie, don’t you know
That the stars are swinging slow,
And the seas are rolling easy
As they did so long ago?
And if I had a thing to give you,
I would tell you one more time
That the world is always turning
Toward the morning.

Now October’s growing thin
And November’s coming home;
You’ll be thinking of the season
And the sad things that you’ve seen,
And you hear that old wind walking,
Hear him singing high and thin,
You could swear he’s out there singing
Of your sorrow. (Chorus)

When the darkness falls around you
And the north wind comes to blow,
And you hear him call your name out
As he walks the brittle snow:
That old wind don’t mean you trouble,
He don’t care or even know,
He’s just walking down the darkness
Toward the morning. (Chorus)

It’s a pity we don’t know
What the little flowers know.
They can’t face the cold November,
They can’t take the wind and snow:
They put their glories all behind them,
Bow their heads and let it go,
But you know they’ll be there shining
In the morning. (Chorus)

Now, my Joanie, don’t you know
That the days are rolling slow,
And the winter’s walking easy,
As he did so long ago?
And if that wind should come and ask you,
“Why’s my Joanie weeping so?”
Won’t you tell him that you’re weeping
For the morning? (Chorus)

You can find more of Gordon Bok’s words and music at his website (gordonbok.com), and also at his publisher’s website, Timberhead Music (timberheadmusic.com).

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

❡ The world is always turning toward the morning: 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. 😊

❡ 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. 📖

🌍 🇨🇻 WEEKLY WORLD HERITAGE: Cidade Velha in Cabo Verde

23 October 2019 by Bob O'Hara

For live links, click to: riverhouses.org/2019-cabo-verde

The island-nation of Cabo Verde in the eastern Atlantic is one of our homeschool countries-of-the-week, so why not spend a few minutes today learning about one of Cabo Verde’s World Heritage Sites: Cidade Velha, the historic center of Ribeira Grande.

Pillory Square, Cidade Velha, Cabo Verde. (Image: Wikimedia Commons.)

The “Old City” (“Cidade Velha”) of Cabo Verde was the first Portuguese colony established outside of Europe:

“The town of Ribeira Grande, renamed Cidade Velha in the late 18th century, was the first European colonial outpost in the tropics. Located in the south of the island of Santiago, the town features some of the original street layout [and] impressive remains including two churches, a royal fortress and Pillory Square with its ornate 16th century marble pillar.

Ribeira Grande [marked] a decisive step in European expansion at the end of the 15th century towards Africa and the Atlantic area. Ribeira Grande was subsequently, in the 16th and 17th centuries, a key port of call for Portuguese colonisation and its administration. It was an exceptional centre in the routes for international maritime trade … between Africa and the Cape, Brazil and the Caribbean. It provides an early image of transcontinental geopolitical visions. Its insular position, isolated but close to the coasts of Africa, made it an essential platform for the Atlantic trade of enslaved persons in modern times. A place of concentration of enslaved persons and the inhuman practices of the trade of enslaved persons, Ribeira Grande was also exceptional in terms of the intercultural encounters from which stemmed the first developed Creole society. The valley of Ribeira Grande experimented with new forms of colonial agriculture on the boundary between the temperate and tropical climates. It became a platform for the acclimatisation and dissemination of plant species across the world.“ (UNESCO World Heritage Centre #1310)

What world treasures will you be exploring in your homeschool this week? 😊

🗺 MARVELOUS MAPS: A Geology Lesson from the Library of Congress

22 October 2019 by Bob O'Hara

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

Tuesday is our regular Books & Libraries Day in the River Houses when we recommend book-related resources you can browse, bookmark, and share with your students. The Library of Congress has an excellent education blog, and this week they’re featuring a great little sample lesson on geology that you can teach with some of the beautiful maps from their collection.

“Seismicity of the earth, 1960–1980. A.F. Espinosa, 1982.” (Image: Library of Congress.)

A suggested set of questions and discussion items will guide your students through a consideration of earthquakes and plate tectonics as illustrated by primary sources:

➢ Understanding Tectonic Plates with Primary Sources (Teaching with the Library of Congress)

You’ll also find some dramatic historical footage of the aftermath of the San Francisco earthquake of 1906 that will help connect planetary-scale structures to their local effects.

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

❡ Dukedoms large enough: Have you found all the local libraries in your area? There may be more than you realize, and there’s no better homeschool field trip than a field trip to a new library! The WorldCat Library Finder will help you find all the library collections near you — public and private, large and small — and the WorldCat catalog itself will help you locate the closest copy of almost any book in the world. 😊

❡ When in doubt, go to the library: This is one of our regular Homeschool Books & Libraries posts. Add your name to our weekly mailing list (riverhouses.org/newsletter) and get great homeschool teaching ideas delivered right to your mailbox all through the year. 📚

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

20 October 2019 by Bob O'Hara

For live links, click to: riverhouses.org/2019-10-20

🇺🇸 OUR STATE-OF-THE-WEEK is South Carolina, and our COUNTRIES are Cabo Verde 🇨🇻, Cambodia 🇰🇭, Cameroon 🇨🇲, and Canada 🇨🇦. (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 — a good time for moon watching! You can explore the night sky and the features of the moon in your recommended backyard astronomy guide and your homeschool world atlas, and you can learn a host of stellar and lunar facts on pages 342–357 in your almanac (riverhouses.org/books).

🗓 TODAY, Sunday (20 October 2019) — Today is the 293rd day of 2019; there are 72 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 the birthday of the architect Sir Christopher Wren (1632–1732), who rebuilt much of central London after the Great Fire of 1666. 🏛 And on this day in the year 1803, the United States Senate ratified the Louisiana Purchase. 🇺🇸

Monday (21 October 2019) — Today is the birthday of the great English poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772–1834). 🖋 And since we talked a lot about apples this past week, it’s only fitting to note that today is celebrated as Apple Day in the United Kingdom. 🍎

Tuesday (22 October 2019) — Today is the birthday of the great Hungarian composer and pianist Franz Liszt (1811–1886). 🎹 On this day in 1836, Sam Houston (1793–1863) was inaugurated as the first president of the Republic of Texas. 🌵 And our homeschool poem-of-the-week, as October grows thin, is a song for the coming cold by the great Maine folk artist Gordon Bok. 🌅 Print your own River Houses Poetry Calendar (riverhouses.org/calendars) and follow along with us throughout the year. 🖋

Wednesday (23 October 2019) — On this day in 1739, England declared war on Spain in the conflict memorably known as the War of Jenkins’ Ear. 👂 Today is the birthday of the popular naturalist and children’s author Neltje Blanchan (1865–1918). 🐦 And sometime between 6:02 a.m. and 6:02 p.m. today, chemistry students will want raise a cheer in honor of International Mole Day (6.02 × 10²³). ⚗️

Thursday (24 October 2019) — One of the most famous buildings in the world, Chartres Cathedral, was consecrated on this day in the year 1260. 🇫🇷 Today is the birthday of the pioneering Dutch microscopist Anton van Leeuwenhoek (1632–1732). 🔬 And, to-morrow is Saint Crispian. 🍻

Friday (25 October 2019) — On this day in the year 285 (or perhaps 286), the early Christian saints Crispin and Crispinian, patrons of cobblers and leather workers, were executed in Rome by the emperor Diocletian. 👞 And on this day in 1415, the feast day of Saints Crispin and Crispinian, Henry V of England, outnumbered, defeated the armies of France in the Battle of Agincourt. 🏹 And Crispin–Crispian shall ne’er go by, from this day unto the ending of the world, but they in it shall be rememberèd. 🎭

Saturday (26 October 2019) — The Erie Canal connecting New York City to the Great Lakes opened on this day in 1825. 🚢 And today is the birthday of the great American gospel singer Mahalia Jackson (1911–1972). 🎵

Sunday (27 October 2019) — On this day in the year 312, the armies of rival Roman emperors Constantine and Maxentius fought one another in the Battle of Milvian Bridge north of Rome. ⚔️ Tradition says that Constantine secured victory after having a vision of the Christian cross the night before, leading to his conversion and the eventual adoption of Christianity as the religion of the Roman Empire. ✝️ Today is also the birthday of the great Welsh poet and playwright Dylan Thomas (1914–1953). 🖋

🥂 OUR WEEKLY TOAST, perhaps the most famous in all of English literature, to be offered this Thursday and on the 24th of every October unto the ending of the world, is from Shakespeare: “To-morrow is Saint Crispian.”

🌍 EVERYTHING FLOWS: The rocky island nation of Cabo Verde is one of our countries-of-the-week, so our Weekly World River is the Ribeira do Rabil, which, like many rivers on volcanic islands, is a seasonal stream dependent on occasional heavy rainfall. You can find its location in your recommended homeschool atlas (riverhouses.org/books), and you can read more about it in the Ribeira do Rabil entry in Wikipedia or perhaps on your next visit to your local library.

Ribeira do Rabil in Boa Vista, Cabo Verde. (Image: Wikimedia Commons.)

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

🌎 🇺🇸 SUNDAY STATES: South Carolina, Cabo Verde, Canada, and More

20 October 2019 by Bob O'Hara

For live links, click to: riverhouses.org/2019-south-carolina

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.

🇺🇸
South Carolina State Bird and Flower
SOUTH CAROLINA (the 8th state, 23 May 1788) — The Palmetto State. Capital: Columbia. South Carolina can be found on page 584 in your almanac and on plates 42 and 142 in your atlas. Name origin: “In 1619, Charles I gave patent to Sir Robert Heath for Province of Carolana, from Carolus, Latin name for Charles. Charles II granted a new patent to Earl of Clarendon and others. Divided into North and South Carolina in 1710″ (almanac page 430). State bird: Carolina Wren (bird guide page 392). Website: www.sc.gov.

❡ Little lessons: You can teach a hundred little lessons with our 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 an extended unit-study of one or more of the U.S. states, be sure to look into the primary source materials for teachers available at the Library of Congress.

We go through the countries of the world in alphabetical order, so this week’s countries, with their official websites, are:

🇨🇻 CABO VERDE in the eastern Atlantic Ocean. Population: 568,373. Capital: Praia. Government: Parliamentary republic. Website: www.governo.cv (in Portuguese).
🇰🇭 CAMBODIA in southeastern Asia. Population: 16,449,519. Capital: Phnom Penh. Government: Parliamentary constitutional monarchy. Website: www.evisa.gov.kh (in English and several other languages).
🇨🇲 CAMEROON in west-central Africa. Population: 25,640,965. Capital: Yaoundé. Government: Presidential republic. Website: www.prc.cm (in English and French).
🇨🇦 CANADA in North America. Population: 35,881,659. Capital: Ottawa. Government: Federal parliamentary democracy under constitutional monarchy. Website: www.canada.ca (in English and French).

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

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