Archives for December 2019

🖋 🎉 WONDERFUL WORDS (and Music!): Auld Lang Syne

30 December 2019 by Bob O'Hara

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

The year has run its course, and the days that have passed will never come again. Should we remember them, or let them go? Our final homeschool poem-of-the-week for this last week of December is one of Scotland’s gifts to the world: “Auld Lang Syne” by Robert Burns (1759–1796). Burns wrote many of his poems in the Scots dialect of English, and you can use “Auld Lang Syne” to teach a few simple lessons about language to your students this week.

Here’s Scottish singer-songwriter Dougie MacLean (b. 1954) singing Burns’ lyrics to the traditional tune they were written for, in a voice that Burns would have recognized:

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“Auld Lang Syne” has entered true folk-song territory at this point in history, and thousands of performers have felt free to revise, adjust, and rewrite the words as they please (often without quite understanding what they mean). But MacLean’s performance is quite close to Burns’ original text, which looks like this (with links to the authoritative Dictionary of the Scots Language):

Auld Lang Syne

Should auld acquaintance be forgot,
   and never brought to mind?
Should auld acquaintance be forgot,
   and auld lang syne?

For auld lang syne, my dear,
   for auld lang syne,
We’ll tak’ a cup o’ kindness yet,
   for auld lang syne.

We twa hae run about the braes,
   and pu’d the gowans fine;
But we’ve wander’d mony a weary fit,
   sin’ auld lang syne. (Chorus.)

We twa hae paidl’d in the burn,
   frae morning sun till dine;
But seas between us braid hae roar’d
   sin’ auld lang syne. (Chorus.)

And there’s a hand, my trusty fiere!
   and gie’s a hand o’ thine!
And we’ll tak’ a right gude-willie waught,
   for auld lang syne. (Chorus.)

Is it English? Well, yes and no. If you send your students to your recommended family dictionary (riverhouses.org/books) to look up “Scots” they’ll be able to report that it is “the language traditionally spoken by people living in the Lowlands of Scotland. Scots is sometimes classified as a variety of English, and sometimes as a separate language” (page 1573). And therein lies a tiny lesson.

All languages vary — from person to person, from place to place, and from time to time. The more distinctive (and usually regional) variants are called dialects, and they arise when communities of speakers are more or less isolated from each other and so develop their own distinctive pronunciations, vocabulary, and syntax. If the isolation continues long enough, dialects become separate languages: French, Spanish, Portuguese, Italian, and Romanian were, a thousand or more years ago, all regional dialects of Latin.

And that family tree of languages extends still further back in time. If you open the back cover of your dictionary you’ll see a beautiful chart of the whole Indo-European language family — the group to which Latin and the Romance languages belong, along with English and its Germanic relatives, the Gaelic languages, the Scandinavian languages, ancient and modern Greek, Persian, Hindi, and more.

English — just one twig on that vast Indo-European tree — varies greatly around the world today, and Scots English is one of its oldest and most distinctive dialects, one that traces its history back into the late Middle Ages. Auld Lang Syne literally means Old Long Since — in other words, the days of long ago. Here’s my own fairly close translation of Burns’ Scots English into standard modern English:

Days of Long Ago

Should our old friendships be forgot,
   and never brought to mind?
Should our old friendships be forgot,
   and the days of long ago?

For the days of long ago, my dear,
   for the days of long ago,
We’ll drink a toast to kindness yet,
   for the days of long ago.

We two once ran along the hills,
   and picked the daisies fine;
But we’ve wandered many a weary foot
   since those days of long ago. (Chorus.)

We two once paddled in the streams,
   from morning sun till eve;
But seas between us broad have roared
   since those days of long ago. (Chorus.)

So here’s a hand, my trusty friend,
   and give us a hand of thine!
And we’ll take a hearty good-will drink,
   for the days of long ago. (Chorus.)

MacLean’s peaceful version above is just right for a family circle. But people today know “Auld Lang Syne” best from the thousands of public performances it receives at New Year’s Eve celebrations all around the world. He’s “Auld Lang Syne” in that grand style in London, by popular violinist and conductor André Rieu (b. 1949) and his Johann Strauss Orchestra — it’s a beautiful version to play for your students as the year comes to a close:

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What wonderful words, poetical productions, and musical masterpieces will you be studying in your homeschool in the year ahead? 😊

❡ We’ve wandered many a weary foot: 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. Add your name to our River Houses mailing list (riverhouses.org/newsletter) to get posts like these delivered right to your mailbox, and print your own River Houses Poetry Calendar (riverhouses.org/calendars) to follow along with us as we visit forty-eight of our favorite friends over the course of the year. 📖

🗓 QUICK FRESHES for Homeschool Families – Week of 29 December 2019

29 December 2019 by Bob O'Hara

For live links, click to: riverhouses.org/2019-12-29

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. (And try our new printable weekly planner!)

🎵 🎄 December is Holiday Music Month in the River Houses, and throughout the month (all the way until Twelfth Night, actually) we’re sharing an assortment of seasonal favorites — classical and modern, sacred and secular, serious and silly — along with educational notes that will help you teach little musical homeschool lessons all along the way.

🇺🇸 OUR STATE-OF-THE-WEEK is Louisiana, and our COUNTRIES are Guatemala 🇬🇹, Guinea 🇬🇳, Guinea-Bissau 🇬🇼, and Guyana 🇬🇾. (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 waxing crescent — a good time for 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 (29 December 2019) — Today is the 363rd day of 2019; there are only two 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 1170, Archbishop of Canterbury Thomas Becket was murdered in Canterbury Cathedral by followers of King Henry II. For an illustrated review of history of church and state in the Middle Ages, turn to pages 194–197 in your homeschool history encyclopedia (riverhouses.org/books). 🗡 And on this day in 1890, soldiers of the 7th U.S. Cavalry massacred 300 Lakota men, women, and children at Wounded Knee Creek, South Dakota. 🖤

Monday (30 December 2019) — Today is the birthday of the English composer and organist William Croft (1678–1727), whose short choral works for funeral services are among the most beautiful pieces of music ever written. 🎵 Today is also the birthday of Indian–English author and Nobel laureate Rudyard Kipling (1865–1936). 🖋

Tuesday (31 December 2019) — It’s New Year’s Eve! 🎉 Ring Out, Wild Bells! 🔔 It’s also the birthday of the great French artist Henri Matisse (1869–1954). 🎨

Wednesday (1 January 2020!) — HAPPY NEW YEAR! 🎊 The Julian Calendar went into effect on this day in the year 45 B.C. It was the principal calendar system used in the Western world for more than 1500 years (before it was largely replaced by the Gregorian Calendar). 🗓 Today is the birthday of Betsy Ross (1752–1836), who, tradition says, sewed the first American flag. 🇺🇸 And our homeschool poem-of-the-week for first week of January is Philip Larkin’s winter poem of promise, “First Sight.” ❄️ Print your own River Houses Poetry Calendar (riverhouses.org/calendars) and follow along with us throughout the year. 🖋

Thursday (2 January 2020) — On this day in 1860, French mathematician and astronomer Urbain Le Verrier announced the discovery of Vulcan, a planet circling the sun inside the orbit of Mercury. No subsequent research has been able to confirm the existence of this planet. 🔭 Perhaps coincidentally, or perhaps not, today is also the birthday of the great science fiction writer Isaac Asimov (1920–1992). 🤖

Friday (3 January 2020) — Today is the birthday of the great Roman writer and statesman Marcus Tullius Cicero (106–43 B.C.). 🏛 It’s also the birthday of English writer J.R.R. Tolkien (1892–1973), author of The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings. 🌋 Our Friday Bird Families post this week will introduce you to some birds of the open ocean: the Shearwaters, Petrels, and Storm-Petrels. Print your own River Houses Calendar of American Birds (riverhouses.org/calendars) and follow along with us throughout the year. 🦅

Saturday (4 January 2020) — Today is the birthday of French educator Louis Braille (1809–1852), the inventor of the famous tactile writing system for the blind. ⠗⠓ It’s also the birthday of the real James Bond. 🐦 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 (5 January 2020) — Today is the Twelfth Day of Christmas, and tonight is Twelfth Night, and that means it’s the end of our Holiday Music Month — and you know what song we’ll be going out with. 🍐🌳 😊

🥂 OUR WEEKLY TOAST, for the New Year, is one of Scotland’s little gifts to the world: “To auld lang syne.”

❡ 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: Guinea in western Africa is one of our countries-of-the-week, so our Weekly World River is the Bafing River, which rises in the Guinea highlands and flows east into Mali. You can find its location in your recommended homeschool atlas (riverhouses.org/books), and you can read more about it in the Bafing River entry in Wikipedia or perhaps on your next visit to your local library.

The upper Bafing River in the highlands of Guinea. (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: Louisiana, Guatemala, Guyana, and More

29 December 2019 by Bob O'Hara

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

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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Louisiana State Bird and Flower
LOUISIANA (the 18th state, 30 April 1812) — The Pelican State. Capital: Baton Rouge. Louisiana can be found on page 572 in your almanac and on plates 40 and 142 in your atlas. Name origin: “Part of territory called Louisiana by René-Robert Cavelier Sieur de La Salle for French King Louis XIV” (almanac page 430). State bird: Brown Pelican (bird guide page 256). Website: www.louisiana.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:

🇬🇹 GUATEMALA in Central America. Population: 16,581,273. Capital: Guatemala City. Government: Presidential republic. Website: www.guatemala.gob.gt (in Spanish).
🇬🇳 GUINEA on the west coast of Africa. Population: 11,855,411. Capital: Conakry. Government: Presidential republic. Website: gouvernement.gov.gn (in French).
🇬🇼 GUINEA-BISSAU on the west coast of Africa. Population: 1,833,247. Capital: Bissau. Government: Semi-presidential republic. Website: CIA World Factbook entry (in English).
🇬🇾 GUYANA in northern South America. Population: 740,685. Capital: Georgetown. Government: Parliamentary republic. Website: parliament.gov.gy (in English).

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 explorations will you be making in your homeschool this Orion Term? 😊

❡ 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. 🇺🇸 🌎

🗡♗ HOMESCHOOL HISTORY: Murder in the Cathedral

29 December 2019 by Bob O'Hara

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

Teach a little medieval history lesson to your homeschool students today and give them some historical landmarks for life.

On December 29th in the year 1170, Thomas Becket, the Archbishop of Canterbury, was murdered at the foot of the altar in Canterbury Cathedral by four knights who may, or may not, have been acting under orders from King Henry II. Becket had been a long-time friend and counselor of King Henry, and Henry had appointed him archbishop with the expectation that Becket would allow the king to exert greater control over the church. But upon his elevation, Becket decided to be his own man, and he focused his loyalty on the church and the Pope, much to Henry’s dismay, until he became a thorn in the king’s side. The traditional account says that Henry one day shouted in a fit of rage, “Will no one rid me of this troublesome priest?” — and four of his knights, overhearing their master, took the king’s outburst as their license to kill.

Archbishop Thomas Becket (ca. 1119–1170) in stained glass at Canterbury Cathedral, the site of his murder. (Image: Wikimedia Commons.)

Thomas Becket’s murder — the open assassination of the senior religious figure in England, in the sanctuary of his own church — has loomed large in the Western imagination ever since. It sent shockwaves through Europe and played a significant role in the struggles between church and state that continued for centuries. The site of Becket’s murder soon became a place of pilgrimage and has remained so for more than 800 years.

Take five minutes today to teach your students the name of Thomas Becket, who he was, and how he met his fate on this day in 1170. Those little cultural facts — “mental furnishings” — will make it possible for them to understand centuries of subsequent references in literature, art, and history.

If your students don’t know Becket, they won’t be able to understand the setting of Geoffrey Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales (ca. 1390), the text that stands at the root of all English literature. Who are the characters in the Canterbury Tales? A group of travelers on a pilgrimage to the site of Becket’s murder, “the hooly blisful martir for to seke.”

And if your students don’t know Becket and Chaucer, they won’t be able to understand, for example, Herman Melville’s description of the ancient decks of the whale-ship in Moby-Dick (1851), which “were worn and wrinkled, like the pilgrim-worshipped flag-stone in Canterbury Cathedral where Becket bled.” And they won’t recognize the title and story behind a standard work that is taught in college literature courses, T. S. Eliot’s famous twentieth-century play Murder in the Cathedral (1935).

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And that’s just an elementary beginning. Students who don’t learn historical landmarks like these pass through the world as though they were blind. All around them in society and culture people are pointing to things, holding up examples, demonstrating ideas and principles, painting pictures — and they see nothing. Furnishing your students’ minds with historical facts — about a seemingly obscure crime that happened almost a thousand years ago, for example — opens their eyes to a world of understanding throughout their lives.

What historico-literary discoveries have you made in your homeschool this Orion Term? 😊

❡ Explore more: The history encyclopedia in your recommended River Houses reference library (riverhouses.org/books) has an excellent review of church and state in medieval Europe on pages 194–197, with a specific mention of the murder of Thomas Becket as a significant event of the period — and if you look close, you’ll even find a little picture of Chaucer’s pilgrims. You can also have your students track down the location of Canterbury on plate 61 in your homeschool atlas. 📚

❡ Stay in the loop: This is one of our occasional Homeschool Holidays & Anniversaries 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. 🗞

🎵 🎄 HOLIDAY MUSIC MONTH: The Sussex Mummers’ Carol

28 December 2019 by Bob O'Hara

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

You’ve had a busy week! Ready to wind down? There’s no better way than with Percy Grainger’s beautiful piano arrangement of this old English carol:

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December is Holiday Music Month in the River Houses, and throughout the month we’re sharing an assortment of seasonal favorites in a great variety of styles and genres — classical and modern, sacred and secular, serious and silly — along with (of course) a collection of educational notes that will help you teach little homeschool lessons all along the way.

The Australian-born British and American composer Percy Grainger (1882–1961) was a key figure in the folk-music revival movement in the early 20th century, and he produced modern professional arrangements of many traditional melodies that folklorists had collected all through the British Isles. This piano composition is based on a folk carol known to have been sung in the county of Sussex at least as far back as the early 1800s, and probably much earlier.

Granger’s refined and peaceful arrangement is rather far removed from the original setting in which a carol like this would have been performed. All across Europe there are a great variety of carnival-like Christmas and New Year traditions that stretch back into the Middle Ages and beyond, and one of these is the tradition of “Mummery.” In many villages around the New Year it was customary for the townsfolk to dress up in harlequin-like costumes and go from door to door acting out traditional pantomimes and begging for money and food. These troops of Mummers — a bit like rowdy Christmas trick-or-treaters — would sing carols and other songs to inspire generosity on the part of their hosts (and to implicitly threaten trickery if gifts were not forthcoming).

Here’s a grand and slightly irregular (i.e., realistic) performance of the original Sussex Mummers’ Carol by a winter festival group called the California Revels — it offers a glimpse of how such a performance might have once looked in the wild:

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You can perhaps see why we at the River Houses have a special fondness for the lyrics:

God bless the master of this house
   With happiness beside;
Where e’re his body rides or walks,
   His God must be his guide,
   His God must be his guide.

God bless the mistress of this house
   With gold chain round her breast;
Where e’re her body sleeps or wakes,
   Lord, send her soul to rest,
   Lord, send her soul to rest.

God bless your house, your children too,
   Your cattle and your store;
The Lord increase you day by day
   And send you more and more,
   And send you more and more.

What marvelous musical discoveries are you making in your homeschool during this Holiday Music Month? 🎵 🎄 😊

❡ Musical memories: If you’d like to fill your homeschool with some beautiful background sounds this December, why not tune in to the 24-hour Holiday Channel from WQXR, the famous classical music station in New York City. “Enjoy the sounds of orchestras, choirs, brass ensembles and more as we celebrate the sacred and secular sounds of the season.” I have it on as background music almost all day. Won’t you join me? 📻 🎵 🎄

❡ Stay in the loop: This is one of our occasional posts on Homeschool Arts & Music. 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. 🗞

🦅 FRIDAY BIRD FAMILIES: Tropicbirds, Loons, and Albatrosses

27 December 2019 by Horace the Otter 🦦

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

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 (three different families) are the Tropicbirds (pages 214–215), the Loons (pages 216–219), and the Albatrosses (pages 220–223).

[See attached blog post for images and video]

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, the kind of book they will encounter in many different fields of study. Here are the bird guide’s introductions to this week’s groups, written in the customary telegraphic style:

“TROPICBIRDS — Family Phaethontidae. Long central tail feathers identify adults. They are usually seen far out to sea, where they are solitary and mostly silent. Here, each of these glossy white species is often first spotted right over the highest point of the boat; they circle a few times and then fly off. They swim buoyantly with their tails raised. Species: 3 World, 3 N.A. [North America]“

“LOONS — Family Gaviidae. In all species, juvenal-like plumage held for over a year. Species: 5 World, 5 N.A.“

“ALBATROSSES — Family Diomedeidae. Gliding on extremely long, narrow wings, these largest of seabirds spend most of their lives at sea, alighting on the water whenever becalmed or when feeding on squid, fish, and refuse. Pelagic; most species nest in colonies on oceanic islands; pairs mate for life. A number of species, especially those in the Southern Hemisphere, are threatened by long-line fishing. Species: 15 World, 10 N.A.“

When you’re training your 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 Loons, for example. How many species? (5 worldwide.) Are there any near us? (All 5 species occur in North America, and the individual maps will give us more detail.) What are their distinctive features? (The guide’s description is a bit weak this time, except to say that they take more than one year to acquire adult plumage.)

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 Loon family, why not investigate a bird that occurs across all of North America: the Common Loon (page 218).

[See attached blog post for images and video]

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 Common Loon? (32 inches long — a big bird.) What is its scientific name? (Gavia immer.) 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 can you distinguish it from similar species? (The text and illustrations should answer all these questions.)

Loons are aquatic birds, inhabiting both fresh and salt water. They are larger than ducks, with sharp, pointed bills, and they ride very low in the water — more like a submarine than a ship. They are great divers and capture all their food under water. And they’re famous for carrying their downy chicks around on their backs.

[See attached blog post for images and video]

It’s only by a stretch that this week’s other two families, the Tropicbirds and Albatrosses, can be considered North American birds — they’re really oceanic birds that are occasionally seen off the North American coast. As an example from the Albatross family, why not look at the Laysan Albatross (page 220), which, while it isn’t really a North American bird, is indeed a United States bird, since it is named for Laysan Island in Hawaii, one of its main nesting localities. (Your River Houses atlas will show you the location of Laysan Island.)

[See attached blog post for images and video]

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. For example, in this week’s third family, the Tropicbirds, take a look at the White-tailed Tropicbird (page 214), a beautiful, solitary wanderer of tropical seas. You’ll notice that the name of the tropicbird genus is Phaethon. Do your students know who Phaethon was? Send them to your recommended family dictionary (riverhouses.org/books) to find out!

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 examples and 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 observations and naturalistical notes will you be making in your homeschool this Orion Term? 😊

❡ 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) (pages 6–13) 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 define and explain 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 be taught to look for in the dictionary is the information on word origins: knowing the roots of scientific terms makes it much easier to understand them 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. 🌎

❡ State birds: One species covered this week is a United States state bird: the Common Loon (Gavia immer), the state bird of Minnesota. 🇺🇸

❡ Nature notes: This is one of our regular Friday Bird Families posts for homeschool naturalists. 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. 🐦 🦉 🦆 🦃 🦅

🎵 🌹 HOLIDAY MUSIC MONTH: Lo, How a Rose E’er Blooming

26 December 2019 by Bob O'Hara

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

Many of the Christmas carols that are sung today are the product, not of a single author or composer, but of centuries of accumulated tradition. One such carol is the ancient German song “Es ist ein Ros entsprungen,” or as it’s usually known in English, “Lo, how a Rose e’er Blooming.” Here’s a grand version from the great gospel singer Mahalia Jackson (1911–1972):

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“Es ist ein Ros entsprungen” — literally, “There is a rose that has sprouted” — is an ancient German carol that was in print at least as early as 1599. The words have been translated into many languages and the tune has been given many different arrangements — the most notable, and the one most often performed today, being that of the prolific German composer and music scholar Michael Pretorius (1571–1621).

The carol is known to English speakers as “Lo, how a rose e’er blooming,” the title it was given in an 1894 translation by the American musicologist Theodore Baker (1851–1934):

Lo, how a rose e’er blooming,
From tender stem hath sprung.
Of Jesse’s lineage coming,
As men of old have sung;
It came, a flow’ret bright,
Amid the cold of winter,
When half spent was the night.

Isaiah ’twas foretold it,
The Rose I have in mind,
With Mary we behold it,
The virgin mother kind;
To show God’s love aright,
She bore to men a Savior,
When half spent was the night.

Here’s a gorgeous version in the original German, sung in Ely Cathedral in Britain by the contemporary vocal group The Gesualdo Six — this is close to how it would have sounded in the time of Pretorius:

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What marvelous musical discoveries will you be making in your homeschool during this Holiday Music Month? 🌹

🎵 🐑 HOLIDAY MUSIC MONTH: The Shepherd’s Carol

25 December 2019 by Bob O'Hara

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

One last carol for Christmas night. 😊 Not all great carols of the Christmas season are old and traditional. Some are modern creations, and one of the greatest modern carols, written in 2001 and now sung around the world, is “The Shepherd’s Carol” by British composer and choir-master Bob Chilcott (b. 1955), with words from Australian poet Clive Sansom (1910–1981):

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The above performance of “The Shepherd’s Carol” is from the choir of King’s College at Cambridge University, one of the world’s most famous choirs and a group that Chilcott himself sang in as a boy and as a university student. Sansom’s words tell the Christian Nativity story from the perspective of the shepherds keeping watch over their flocks by night:

We stood on the hills, Lady,
Our day’s work done,
Watching the frosted meadows
That winter had won.

The evening was calm, Lady,
The air so still,
Silence more lovely than music
Folded the hill.

There was a star, Lady,
Shone in the night,
Larger than Venus it was
And bright, so bright.

Oh, a voice from the sky, Lady,
It seemed to us then
Telling of God being born
In the world of men.

And so we have come, Lady,
Our day’s work done,
Our love, our hopes, ourselves,
We give to your son.

Ancient stories in modern hands continue to give rise to beautiful music.

Here’s hoping you and your family have had a wonderful Christmas. 😊

🌊 “IT WAS a short, cold Christmas”

25 December 2019 by Bob O'Hara

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

Not everyone gets to spend Christmas Day sitting around a cozy fire with family and friends. On this holiday, why not invite your students to remember all the hard working people who might like to be at home and warm, but who are instead out keeping our world running — police officers, fire fighters, hospital workers, snow plow drivers, and many others, including sailors at sea.

Herman Melville reminds us in Moby-Dick (1851) that somewhere in the world, even on Christmas Day, ships are leaving port and heading out onto the freezing ocean:

“At last the anchor was up, the sails were set, and off we glided. It was a short, cold Christmas; and as the short northern day merged into night, we found ourselves almost broad upon the wintry ocean, whose freezing spray cased us in ice, as in polished armor. The long rows of teeth on the bulwarks glistened in the moonlight; and like the white ivory tusks of some huge elephant, vast curving icicles depended from the bows.

“Lank Bildad, as pilot, headed the first watch, and ever and anon, as the old craft deep dived into the green seas, and sent the shivering frost all over her, and the winds howled, and the cordage rang, his steady notes were heard, —

‘Sweet fields beyond the swelling flood,
Stand dressed in living green.
So to the Jews old Canaan stood,
While Jordan rolled between.‘

“Never did those sweet words sound more sweetly to me than then. They were full of hope and fruition. Spite of this frigid winter night in the boisterous Atlantic, spite of my wet feet and wetter jacket, there was yet, it then seemed to me, many a pleasant haven in store; and meads and glades so eternally vernal, that the grass shot up by the spring, untrodden, unwilted, remains at midsummer.“

Can you hear Bildad’s “steady notes” through the howling wind? Most of Melville’s contemporaries would have been able to as they read along: Bildad was singing the great hymn tune “Jordan” by the early American composer William Billings (1746–1800), someone we learned about just the other day. “Jordan” was written to accompany the verses of Isaac Watts (1674–1748):

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Melville’s fictional account is full of foreshadowing that hints at the ultimate fate of the novel’s characters. But today we can read it as a straightforward reminder that even on Christmas, there are people out working in the ice and snow.

So here’s a little homeschool lesson for today, to furnish your students’ minds with a nugget of knowledge to reflect upon: “You know in Herman Melville’s famous sailing adventure Moby-Dick — a story you’ll read some day — the ship sets sail on Christmas Day. Even today, on Christmas, somewhere in the world there are sailors going to sea.”

What holiday traditions are you observing in your homeschool this week? 😊

❡ Looking in the lexicon: Today’s little extract has some good vocabulary that your students can look up in your family dictionary (riverhouses.org/books): bulwarks, lank, cordage, fruition, boisterous, meads, vernal — wonderful words, every one. And what about “So to the Jews old Canaan stood, / While Jordan rolled between”? That’s from the Book of Deuteronomy in the Hebrew Bible — your dictionary will identify those proper names as well, and your atlas will help you locate the storied River Jordan in the Middle East. 📖

🌍 🇩🇪 WEEKLY WORLD HERITAGE: The Old Town of Regensburg in Germany

25 December 2019 by Bob O'Hara

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

Germany is one of our homeschool countries-of-the-week, so why not spend a few minutes today learning about one of Germany’s World Heritage Sites: the Old Town of Regensburg.

St. Peter’s Cathedral and the Old Town Hall in Regensburg, Germany. (Image: Wikimedia Commons.)

The medieval city of Regensburg was one of the most important population centers in the Bavarian region of Germany:

“Located on the Danube River, the Old Town of Regensburg with Stadtamhof is an exceptional example of a central-European medieval trading centre, which illustrates an interchange of cultural and architectural influences. The property encompasses the city centre on the south side of the river, two long islands in the Danube, the so-called Wöhrde (from the old German word waird, meaning island or peninsula), and the area of the former charity hospital St Katharina in Stadtamhof, a district incorporated into the city of Regensburg only in 1924. A navigable canal, part of the European waterway of the Rhine-Main-Danube canal, forms the northern boundary of Stadtamhof.

“A notable number of buildings of outstanding quality testify to its political, religious, and economic significance from the 9th century. The historic fabric reflects some two millennia of structural continuity and includes ancient Roman, Romanesque, and Gothic buildings. Regensburg’s 11th to 13th century architecture still defines the character of the town marked by tall buildings, dark and narrow lanes, and strong fortifications. The buildings include medieval Patrician houses and towers, a large number of churches and monastic ensembles, as well as the 12th century Stone Bridge.“ (UNESCO World Heritage Centre #1155)

The city’s medieval Stone Bridge, built in the twelfth century, is one of Regensburg’s civic emblems.

The medieval Stone Bridge over the Danube River in Regensburg, Germany. (Image: Wikimedia Commons.)

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 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 Orion Term? 😊

❡ 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 brief 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 weekly mailing list (riverhouses.org/newsletter) to get great homeschool teaching ideas delivered right to your mailbox all through the year. 🌎

📡 🎅 🦌 NORAD’s Santa Tracker is Up!

24 December 2019 by Bob O'Hara

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

When will your presents arrive? Don’t ask Amazon, ask NORAD! The North American Air Defense Command’s annual Santa Tracker is up, and you can follow the reindeer on radar over the course of the next day.

It’s already Christmas in the Far East, and as I type, Santa is passing over South Korea. You and your students can keep track of his track in real time right here:

➢ NORAD’s Santa Tracker (www.noradsanta.org)

Here’s a clip from Santa’s recent passage over Sydney, Australia, a place we visited just a little while ago (see how everything fits together in the River Houses?):

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What grand geographical explorations and gigantic global excursions will you be making in your homeschool this Orion Term? 🎅 😊

❡ Come, here’s the map: You can use this amusing annual event to teach some informal geography lessons! Just get out your family atlas (riverhouses.org/newsletter) and have your students put a little post-it markers on the map to designate Santa’s route across the time zones. (And you can use it to learn about time zones, too — there’s a whole atlas plate showing the time zones!) 📡 🎅 🌏🌍🌎

❡ There is magic in it: This is one of our occasional Homeschool Holidays & Anniversaries 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. 🗞

🖋 🎅 ’TWAS the Night Before Christmas

24 December 2019 by Bob O'Hara

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

Merry Christmas to all! Is this poem by Clement Clarke Moore (who?) the most popular poem in the world? Some people think so. (It’s our homeschool poem-of-the-week, so that’s means something.) Why not make an annual reading of it a tradition in your homeschool, if it isn’t already — you can join millions of others who read it every year all around the world.

A Visit from St. Nicholas

’Twas the night before Christmas, when all through the house
Not a creature was stirring, not even a mouse;
The stockings were hung by the chimney with care,
In hopes that St. Nicholas soon would be there;
The children were nestled all snug in their beds;
While visions of sugar-plums danced in their heads;

And mamma in her ’kerchief, and I in my cap,
Had just settled our brains for a long winter’s nap,
When out on the lawn there arose such a clatter,
I sprang from my bed to see what was the matter.
Away to the window I flew like a flash,
Tore open the shutters and threw up the sash.

The moon on the breast of the new-fallen snow,
Gave a lustre of midday to objects below,
When what to my wondering eyes did appear,
But a miniature sleigh and eight tiny rein-deer,
With a little old driver so lively and quick,
I knew in a moment he must be St. Nick.

More rapid than eagles his coursers they came,
And he whistled, and shouted, and called them by name:
“Now, Dasher! now, Dancer! now Prancer and Vixen!
On, Comet! on, Cupid! on, Donner and Blitzen!
To the top of the porch! to the top of the wall!
Now dash away! dash away! dash away all!”

As leaves that before the wild hurricane fly,
When they meet with an obstacle, mount to the sky;
So up to the housetop the coursers they flew
With the sleigh full of toys, and St. Nicholas too —
And then, in a twinkling, I heard on the roof
The prancing and pawing of each little hoof.

As I drew in my head, and was turning around,
Down the chimney St. Nicholas came with a bound.
He was dressed all in fur, from his head to his foot,
And his clothes were all tarnished with ashes and soot;
A bundle of toys he had flung on his back,
And he looked like a pedler just opening his pack.

His eyes, how they twinkled! his dimples, how merry!
His cheeks were like roses, his nose like a cherry!
His droll little mouth was drawn up like a bow,
And the beard on his chin was as white as the snow;
The stump of a pipe he held tight in his teeth,
And the smoke, it encircled his head like a wreath;

He had a broad face and a little round belly
That shook when he laughed, like a bowl full of jelly.
He was chubby and plump, a right jolly old elf,
And I laughed when I saw him, in spite of myself;
A wink of his eye and a twist of his head
Soon gave me to know I had nothing to dread;

He spoke not a word, but went straight to his work,
And filled all the stockings; then turned with a jerk,
And laying his finger aside of his nose,
And giving a nod, up the chimney he rose;
He sprang to his sleigh, to his team gave a whistle,
And away they all flew like the down of a thistle.

But I heard him exclaim, ere he drove out of sight —
“Happy Christmas to all, and to all a good night!”

Clement Clarke Moore (1779–1863) was a professor of ancient languages and divinity at the Protestant Episcopal seminary in New York City. (Would you have guessed?) He wrote “A Visit from St. Nicholas” for his own children, little expecting that it would become a national and now an international favorite. It was first published anonymously in a local newspaper in Troy, New York, in 1823, and it has since gone on to become a Christmas standard, responsible in many ways for the modern conception of who “Santa Claus” is. 🎅

Readings and performances of “A Visit from St. Nicholas” take place all around the world every December. Here’s a wonderful version from the grand old singer Perry Como:

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In Washington, the Librarian of Congress — first James Billington and now Carla Hayden — has given a public reading of the poem in the Library’s Great Hall nearly every year for the last two decades.

“Librarian of Congress Carla Hayden reads ‘A Visit from St. Nicholas’ at the Library’s holiday celebration on December 13, 2017, in the Great Hall. (Image: Library of Congress.)

Maybe the librarian of your little home academy (that would be you) will also be giving an annual reading, this year and for many years to come. 🤶 🎅 😊

❡ Not a creature was stirring: 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.

❡ Little literary lessons: It’s Christmas Eve and this is just a poem to have fun with today, so there’s really no need to point out that it’s a lovely example of anapestic tetrameter, is there? 😊 And look at that magnificent simile in stanza five: “As leaves that before the wild hurricane fly … So … the coursers they flew.” It’s so natural and extended you could almost call it a Homeric simile — if you wanted to be technical, that is. 😊

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