Archives for March 2020

📜 NEW ONLINE CLASSES FOR KIDS at the National Archives

31 March 2020 by Bob O'Hara

Click to: riverhouses.org/2020-archives-online

The U.S. National Archives is hosting a steady supply of online programs for students at every grade level in the next two months — they’re just the thing for homeschoolers who are having to spend more time away from their usual library resources. Here’s the list:

March 30, Presidential Reading Program, Preschool–3rd Grade
April 1, Herbert Hoover and the Hoover Dam, Grades 4–7
April 3, Segregation and a Controversial White House Tea Party, Grades 9–12
April 6, Article II For Kids!, Preschool–3rd Grade
April 8, Reorganizing the Executive Branch, Grades 4–7
April 10, Herbert Hoover and the Bonus March: Presidential Blunder or Necessary Action?, Grades 9–12
April 14, World War II Propaganda, Grades 6–12
April 16, The Story Behind the Titanic, Grades 3–5
April 21, Decoding the Declaration, Grades 6–12
April 28, Ending the War in Japan, Grades 9–12
April 30, The Space Shuttle Challenger, Grades 8–12
May 12, Candy Bomber and the Berlin Airlift, Grades 3–8
May 14, President Reagan and the Cold War, Grades 11–12
May 19, The Constitution at Work: Elementary Edition, Grades 4–6
May 21, The Constitution at Work: Middle and High School Edition, Grades 7–12
May 28, Presidential Reading Program, Preschool–3rd Grade

You can find all the details on each one of these offerings, and learn how to register, right here on the Archives website:

➢ Online Student Programs with the Presidential Libraries and National Archives

We are truly fortunate to live in a time when so many wonderful educational opportunities are available!

What historical treasures have you discovered in your homeschool this Leo Term? 😊

❡ Books in the running brooks: The sidebar on the River Houses website (riverhouses.org) has links to several important online library collections that we like to explore, as well as permanent links to WorldCat and the WorldCat Library Finder. Why not sit yourself down at a large screen for a while (rather than a phone) and give them a browse. 😊

❡ 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 29 March 2020

29 March 2020 by Bob O'Hara

Click to: riverhouses.org/2020-03-29

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 (and planners!) for the entire year.

🇺🇸 OUR STATE-OF-THE-WEEK is California, and our COUNTRIES are Mozambique 🇲🇿, Myanmar (Burma) 🇲🇲, Namibia 🇳🇦, and Nauru 🇳🇷. (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). Browse through our many astronomy posts for even more!

🗓 TODAY, Sunday (29 March 2020) — Today is the 89th day of 2020; there are 277 days remaining in this leap year. Learn more about different kinds of modern and historical calendars on pages 350–356 in your River Houses almanac (riverhouses.org/books). 📚 Today is also the birthday of two unrelated Waltons: the English composer William Walton (1902–1983), and the American businessman Sam Walton (1918–1992), the founder of Walmart. 🎼 🛒

Monday (30 March 2020) — On this day in 1867, the United States purchased Alaska from the Russian Empire for about two cents an acre. 🏔

Tuesday (31 March 2020) — The great French philosopher and mathematician René Descartes was born on this day in 1596. 📈 (And bonus points for anyone today who can tell why I chose that emoji for Descartes.) 😊 Also, on this day in 1774, Great Britain ordered the closure of the major trading port of Boston, escalating the tensions that would eventually lead to the American Revolution. 🇬🇧⚔️🇺🇸

Wednesday (1 April 2020) — Today is the birthday of the great English physician William Harvey (1578–1657), who first described the circulation of the blood in the human body. ❤️ It’s also the traditional date of the annual spaghetti harvest in Ticino, Switzerland. 🍝 Our Wednesday tour of World Heritage Sites this week will take you to the Island of Mozambique. 🇲🇿 And our homeschool poem-of-the-week for this first week of April is the Prologue to Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales, which opens with April showers. ☔️ Print your own River Houses Poetry Calendar (riverhouses.org/calendars) and follow along with us throughout the year. 🖋

Thursday (2 April 2020) — The United States Mint was established on this day in 1792. 💰 And today is also the birthday of the Danish novelist and children’s author Hans Christian Andersen (1805–1875), which means that it’s International Children’s Book Day too! 📚

Friday (3 April 2020) — Today is the birthday of the great English poet George Herbert (1593–1633). 🖋 It’s also the birthday of the American naturalist and author John Burroughs (1837–1921). 🏞 Our Friday Bird Families post this week will introduce you to the friendly and familiar Larks and Swallows. Print your own River Houses Calendar of American Birds (riverhouses.org/calendars) and follow along with us throughout the year. 🦅

Saturday (4 April 2020) — Today is the birthday of the American Quaker artist Edward Hicks (1780–1849), famous for his “Peaceable Kingdom.” 🎨 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 April 2020) — Happy First Contact Day! 🖖 On this day in 2063, a Vulcan ship will land near Bozeman, Montana, bringing to an end our long galactic childhood. 🚀

🥂 OUR WEEKLY TOAST: “May the sunshine of comfort dispel the clouds of despair.”

❡ 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: Mozambique in southeastern Africa is one of our countries-of-the-week, so our Weekly World River is the Limpopo River, which crosses Mozambique from northwest to southeast and empties into the Indian Ocean. You can find its location in your recommended homeschool atlas (riverhouses.org/books), and you can read more about it in the Limpopo River entry in Wikipedia or perhaps on your next visit to your local library.

The Limpopo River in Mozambique. (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: California, Mozambique, Nauru, and More

29 March 2020 by Bob O'Hara

Click to: riverhouses.org/2020-california

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 420), so this week’s state is:

🇺🇸
California State Bird and Flower
CALIFORNIA (the 31st state, 9 September 1850) — The Golden State. Capital: Sacramento. California can be found on page 565 in your almanac and on plates 37 and 142 in your atlas. Name origin: “Bestowed by Spanish conquistadores (possibly Hernán Cortés). It was the name of an imaginary island in the 1510 Spanish novel Las Sergas de Esplandián (The Exploits of Esplandián), by Garci Rodríguez de Montalvo. The Spanish first visited Baja (Lower) California in 1533. The present-day U.S. state was called Alta (Upper) California” (almanac page 422). State bird: California Quail (bird guide page 56). Website: www.ca.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:

🇲🇿 MOZAMBIQUE in southeastern Africa. Population: 27,910,300. Capital: Maputo. Government: Presidential republic. Website: www.portaldogoverno.gov.mz (in Portuguese).
🇲🇲 MYANMAR (Burma) in southern Asia. Population: 56,111,671. Capital: Yangon. Government: Parliamentary republic. Website: www.president-office.gov.mm (in Burmese and English).
🇳🇦 NAMIBIA in southern Africa. Population: 2,581,689. Capital: Windhoek. Government: Presidential republic. Website: www.gov.na (in English).
🇳🇷 NAURU in the western Pacific Ocean. Population: 9,740. Capital: none. Government: Parliamentary republic. Website: www.naurugov.nr (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 global geographical excursions have you been making in your homeschool this Leo 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. 🇺🇸 🌎

🌟 SUNSET and Evening Star

28 March 2020 by Bob O'Hara

Click to: riverhouses.org/2020-venus

Be sure to get outside and see the big light show this weekend: the crescent moon and Venus will be up in the southwest at sunset, and Venus will be higher and brighter than it’s been in many years. The Old Farmer’s Almanac has all the details:

“One way to have fun at home is simply to step onto your backyard, deck, or roof, and look up at the sky. From this weekend (March 27 to 29) through April, you’ll see something extraordinary. Venus, also known as The Evening Star, is so unusually high and brilliant, it’s safe to say that you’ve never seen it looking better, not in your whole life.

“Venus is that unbelievably dazzling “star” you’ve probably already noticed. The thing is, while the Evening Star shows up every two years or so, it’s usually rather low, and normally not this bright. But right now it’s as high as it can get — about halfway up the sky as darkness falls. And it’s so bright it will actually make you cast a Venus shadow on a sheet or snowy surface if you’re away from all artificial lights.“ (Old Farmer’s Almanac)

And while you’re gazing admiringly at Venus, don’t forget the brightest true star in the sky, Sirius, our homeschool Great Star for the month for March. Look to the left of Venus, more toward the direct south, and you’ll see it burning bright.

What astronomical alignments and planetary apparitions have you been observing in your homeschool this Leo Term? 🔭

❡ Sunset and evening star: In light of current events, this may not exactly be the best time to introduce your students to famous poems about mortality — nevertheless, one of the greatest of all evening star poems is Tennyson’s short mortality-minded masterpiece “Crossing the Bar.” Enjoy it yourself, and bookmark it for study on some future shining night of star-made shadows, when all is health. 🌟

❡ Choose something like a star: Teaching your students to recognize the constellations is one of the simplest and most enduring gifts you can give them. Your recommended backyard star guide and homeschool world atlas (riverhouses.org/books) both contain charts of the constellations that will show you the all the highlights. Find a dark-sky spot near you this month and spend some quality homeschool time beneath the starry vault. 🌌

❡ Watchers of the skies: This is one of our regular Homeschool Astronomy posts. Add your name to our River Houses mailing list (riverhouses.org/newsletter) and get great homeschool teaching ideas delivered right to your mailbox every week. 🔭

🌸 VISIT THE CHERRY BLOSSOMS in Washington, D.C.

27 March 2020 by Bob O'Hara

Click to: riverhouses.org/2020-bloomcam

On this day in 1912, the Japanese government presented a gift of 3000 cherry trees to the United States to line the banks of the Potomac River and other sites in Washington, D.C., where they and their successors may still be seen today. It’s the week of the National Cherry Blossom Festival, but sadly, like so many other events around the country during this season of illness, many of the customary events have been cancelled. But don’t despair! You and your students can view the cherry trees live from the comfort of your home, no matter where you are, thanks to BloomCam Live, sponsored by the Trust for the National Mall.

There doesn’t seem to be a way to embed the live feed, but you can find it right here:

➢ BloomCam Live (nationalmall.org)

Have you made a homeschool visit to Washington to see the sights? If not, perhaps you will in the next few years. If you schedule your trip for late March, you can visit the cherry blossoms in person.

Cherry blossoms by the Jefferson Memorial in Washington, D.C. (Image: Wikimedia Commons.)

What phenological observations have you made in your homeschool this Leo Term? 😊 (“Oh my, phenological is a lovely word. Let’s go look that up in our homeschool dictionary.”)

❡ 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. 🌸

🦅 FRIDAY BIRD FAMILIES: Crows and Jays (II)

27 March 2020 by Horace the Otter 🦦

Click to: riverhouses.org/2020-crows-ii

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 are (once again) the Crows and Jays (pages 364–373). Usually we cover one or two different families each week, but we’ve spread the Crows and Jays out over two weeks: last week we looked at the Crows, and this week the Jays.

[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 again is the bird guide’s introduction to this week’s group, written in the customary telegraphic style:

“CROWS · JAYS — Family Corvidae. Harsh voice and aggressive manner draw attention to these large, often gregarious birds. Powerful, all-purpose bill efficiently handles a varied diet. Species: 126 World, 21 N.A. [North America]“

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. How many species? (126 worldwide.) Are there any near us? (21 species in North America, and the individual maps will give us more detail.) What are their distinctive features? (Loud, gregarious, varied diet, and so on.)

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 example, why not investigate a bird of the Rocky Mountains and the West: the Steller’s Jay (page 366).

[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 Steller’s Jay? (11½ inches long.) What is its scientific name? (Cyanocitta stelleri.) 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.)

The two most common jays in the United States are the Steller’s Jay of the West and the Blue Jay of the East. In fact, these two species sometimes hybridize (cross-breed) in the eastern Rockies where their ranges overlap. As a good comparative exercise, invite your students to look also at the Blue Jay and see how these two species differ.

[See attached blog post for images and video]

The Steller’s Jay is obviously darker, but note that both species are almost exactly the same size and shape, with similar behavior, matching crests, and even similar black and blue barring on the wings. They are what biologists call “sister species” — one another’s closest evolutionary relatives.

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 an additional species this week, why not take a look at the Black-billed Magpie (page 370), a large and long-tailed jay-like bird that’s found throughout much of the West. (Our Black-billed Magpie is very similar to the Eurasian Magpie of the eastern hemisphere, a bird well known in folklore and literature.)

[See attached blog post for images and video]

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 also hope 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 have you been making in your homeschool this Leo 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. 🌎

❡ 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. 🐦 🦉 🦆 🦃 🦅

🏹 HOMESCHOOL LITERARY LESSONS: Apollo, God of Plague

25 March 2020 by Bob O'Hara

Click to: riverhouses.org/2020-apollo

If you’re a classically minded homeschooler with older kids who are coping well with current events, you might like to point out this month that Homer’s Iliad, written more than 2500 years ago, opens with a plague, and with a plea from the soldiers to their leaders to hurry up and do something about it.

The Greek commander Agamemnon has insulted a priest of Apollo by refusing to return his daughter, the war-captive Cryseis. Seeking revenge, the priest asks Apollo, the archer-god of health and disease, to send a plague to punish Agamemnon and his men. And Apollo obliges.

From Iliad, Book I

[The priest’s] prayer went up and Phoebus Apollo heard him.
Down he strode from Olympus’ peaks, storming at heart
with his bow and hooded quiver slung across his shoulders.
The arrows clanged at his back as the god quaked with rage,
the god himself on the march, and down he came like night.
Over against the ships he dropped to a knee, let fly a shaft
and a terrifying clash rang out from the great silver bow.
First he went for the mules and circling dogs but then,
launching a piercing shaft at the men themselves,
he cut them down in droves —
and the corpse‑fires burned on, night and day, no end in sight.

That’s Robert Fagles’ translation. Here it is with the surrounding context, beautifully read by Derek Jacobi:

➢

(And speaking of classics, did you know there’s a whole chapter in Moby-Dick about an epidemic and a quarantine, and about how different people reacted to them? It’s true!) 🐳

What literary discoveries have you made in your homeschool this Leo Term? 😷

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

🌏 🇲🇳 WEEKLY WORLD HERITAGE: The Orkhon Valley Cultural Landscape in Mongolia

25 March 2020 by Bob O'Hara

Click to: riverhouses.org/2020-mongolia

Mongolia in central Asia is one of our homeschool countries-of-the-week, so why not spend a few minutes today learning about one of Mongolia’s World Heritage Sites: the Orkhon Valley Cultural Landscape.

The Orkhon River Valley in Mongolia. (Image: Wikimedia Commons.)

The Orkhon Valley has been a site of human habitation for thousands of years:

“The Orkhon Valley Cultural Landscape (OVCL) lies in the central part of Mongolia, some 360 km southwest of [the Mongolian capital] Ulaanbaatar. The site covers 121,967 ha of grassland along the historic Orkhon River, and includes a buffer zone of 61,044 ha. The archaeologically rich Orkhon River basin was home of successive nomadic cultures which evolved from prehistoric origins in harmony with the natural landscape of the steppes and resulted in economic, social and cultural polities unique to the region. Home for centuries to major political, trade, cultural and religious activities of successive nomadic empires, the Orkhon Valley served as a crossroads of civilizations, linking East and West across the vast Eurasian landmass.

“Over successive centuries, the Orkhon Valley was found very suitable for settlement by waves of nomadic people. The earliest evidence of human occupancy dates from the sites of Moiltyn Am (40,000–15,000 years ago) and “Orkhon-7” which show that the Valley was first settled about 62,000–58,000 years ago. Subsequently the Valley was continuously occupied throughout the Prehistoric and Bronze ages and in proto-historic and early historic times was settled successively by the Huns, Turkic peoples, the Uighurs, the Kidans, and finally the Mongols.

“At the height of its cultural ascendancy, the inscribed property was the site of historic Kharakhorum — the grand capital of the vast Mongol Empire established by Chinggis Khaan in 1220.“ (UNESCO World Heritage Centre #1081)

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 feature 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 are you exploring in your homeschool this Leo 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 historical and natural sites of international importance. Download a 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. 🌏

🖋 WONDERFUL WORDS: A Shakespearean Sonnet a Day from Patrick Stewart

24 March 2020 by Bob O'Hara

Click to: riverhouses.org/2020-sonnets

Here’s a treat for everyone spending a little more time at home than usual these days: Patrick Stewart — Star Trek’s Captain Picard and a long-time Shakespearean actor — is reading a Shakespearean Sonnet a day online for your enjoyment. They’re apparently available only via Facebook video at the moment — here’s the first one:

➢ Shakespeare’s Sonnet #1 read by Patrick Stewart

You’ll want the text in front of you to read along, and you can find it beautifully presented at the Folger Shakespeare Library:

➢ Shakespeare’s Sonnets at the Folger Library

I get the impression that he plans to through all 154 — now there’s a homeschool literary treat! Why not “assign” them to your students and watch, listen, and read along together. 📖

What other wonderful words and poetical productions are you studying in your homeschool this Leo Term? 😊

❡ The world’s fresh ornament: If a special line or turn of phrase happens to strike you in one of the poems we regularly post, 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 is one of our occasional posts on Homeschool Language & Literature. Add your name to our River Houses mailing list (riverhouses.org/newsletter) to get more great homeschool teaching ideas delivered right to your mailbox every week. 📖

🖋 🌱 WONDERFUL WORDS: Nothing Gold Can Stay

23 March 2020 by Bob O'Hara

This coming Thursday (the 26th) is the birthday of Robert Frost (1874–1963), one of the most important American poets of the twentieth century. In his honor, our homeschool poem-of-the-week for this last week of March is Frost’s early-spring gem “Nothing Gold Can Stay”:

Nothing Gold Can Stay

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

This is a perfect poem for memorization. Why not memorize it yourself along with your students this week. (You can take turns, alternating lines, until you have it all down.)

Like many of Frost’s poems, “Nothing Gold Can Stay” has a simple structure and a deep meaning. Invite your students to investigate the structure first. What is the rhyme scheme? We have gold–hold, flower–hour, leaf–grief, and day–stay, so I make it out as AA BB CC DD — a set of four couplets. The rhythm (meter) is mostly iambic trimeter, a very compact form, with six syllables in each line (all except the last). The poem’s “end-stopped” character is also prominent: every line is either a full sentence or a full clause, making a pause in reading at the end of each line feel natural. (In more complex poems, the sentences and other grammatical units often run over the ends of the lines; such poems are said to be enjambed rather than end-stopped.)

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

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

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

What wonderful words and poetical productions are you studying in your homeschool this Leo Term? 😊

❡ So dawn goes down to day: If a special line or turn of phrase happens to strike you in one of our weekly poems, just copy it onto your homeschool bulletin board for a few days and invite your students to speak it aloud — that’s all it takes to begin a new poetical friendship and learn a few lovely words that will stay with you for life. 😊

❡ Literary lives: The website of the Poetry Foundation includes biographical notes and examples of the work of many important poets (including Robert Frost) that are suitable for high school students and homeschool teachers. 🖋

❡ Here, said the year: This post is one of our regular homeschool poems-of-the-week. 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 22 March 2020

22 March 2020 by Bob O'Hara

Click to: riverhouses.org/2020-03-22

🇺🇸 OUR STATE-OF-THE-WEEK is Wisconsin, and our COUNTRIES are Monaco 🇲🇨, Mongolia 🇲🇳, Montenegro 🇲🇪, and Morocco 🇲🇦. (Our separate Sunday States & Countries post for the week went up just a few minutes ago.)

🌘 THE MOON at the beginning of this week is a waning crescent — a good time for stargazing! You can 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). Browse through our many astronomy posts for even more!

🗓 TODAY, Sunday (22 March 2020) — Today is the 82nd day of 2020; there are 284 days remaining in this leap year. Learn more about different kinds of modern and historical calendars on pages 350–356 in your River Houses almanac (riverhouses.org/books). 📚 Today is the birthday of the English artist Randolph Caldecott (1846–1886), for whom the famous Caldecott awards for illustrated children’s books are named. 🎨 Our homeschool poem-of-the-week for the fourth week of March is Robert Frost’s lyrical meditation “Nothing Gold Can Stay,” for early spring. 🌱 Print your own River Houses Poetry Calendar (riverhouses.org/calendars) and follow along with us throughout the year. 🖋

Monday (23 March 2020) — On this day in 1775 at St. John’s Church in Richmond, Virginia, Patrick Henry delivered his famous speech “Give me liberty, or give me death!” 🇺🇸

Tuesday (24 March 2020) — Today is the birthday of the great Victorian artist and designer William Morris (1834–1896). 🖌 It’s also the birthday of the Hungarian-American magician Harry Houdini (1874–1926). Shazam! 🎩 🐇

Wednesday (25 March 2020) — Today is the birthday of the American agronomist and Nobel Laureate Norman Borlaug (1914–2009), who may have saved more lives than any human being in history. 🌽 🌾 🌱 For some notes on his importance, see pages 464–465 in your River Houses history encyclopedia (riverhouses.org/books). 🔍 Our Wednesday tour of World Heritage Sites this week will take you to the Orkhon Valley Cultural Landscape in Mongolia. 🇲🇳

Thursday (26 March 2020) — On this day in 1812, the Gerrymander was born! 🗳 And on this day in 1830, The Book of Mormon was first published in Palmyra, New York. 📖 Three great writers were also born on this day: A.E. Housman (1859–1936), Robert Frost (1874–1963), and Tennessee Williams (1911–1983). 🖋

Friday (27 March 2020) — On this day in 1912, the Japanese government presented a gift of 3000 cherry trees to the United States to line the banks of the Potomac River and other sites in Washington, D.C., where they and their successors may still be seen today. 🌸 Our Friday Bird Families post this week will continue looking at the Crows and Jays. Print your own River Houses Calendar of American Birds (riverhouses.org/calendars) and follow along with us throughout the year. 🦅

Saturday (28 March 2020) — The great Italian Renaissance painter and architect Raphael was born on this day in 1483. 🎨

Sunday (29 March 2020) — Today is the birthday of two unrelated Waltons: the English composer William Walton (1902–1983), and the American businessman Sam Walton (1918–1992), the founder of Walmart. 🎼 🛒

🥂 OUR WEEKLY TOAST: “May we never wear the yoke of bondage, nor put it on the neck of posterity.”

🌍 🇲🇪 EVERYTHING FLOWS: Montenegro in southeastern Europe is one of our countries-of-the-week, so our Weekly World River is the Montenegro’s canyon-carving Morača River. You can find its location in your recommended homeschool atlas (riverhouses.org/books), and you can read more about it in the Morača River entry in Wikipedia or perhaps on your next visit to your local library.

The canyon of the Morača River in central Montenegro. (Image: Wikimedia Commons.)

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

🌎 🇺🇸 SUNDAY STATES: Wisconsin, Monaco, Morocco, and More

22 March 2020 by Bob O'Hara

Click to: riverhouses.org/2020-wisconsin

Tour the United States and travel the countries of the world each week with the River Houses. Our Sunday States & Countries posts will point the way.

🇺🇸
Wisconsin State Bird and Flower
WISCONSIN (the 30th state, 29 May 1848) — The Badger State. Capital: Madison. Wisconsin can be found on page 589 in your almanac and on plates 41 and 142 in your atlas. Name origin: “Indian name, spelled Ouisconsin or Mesconsing by early chroniclers, believed to mean ‘grassy place’ in Chippewa. Congress made it Wisconsin” (almanac page 422). State bird: American Robin (bird guide page 414). Website: wisconsin.gov.

❡ 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:

🇲🇨 MONACO on the Mediterranean coast of France. Population: 30,825. Capital: Monaco. Government: Constitutional monarchy. Website: www.gouv.mc (in French and English).
🇲🇳 MONGOLIA in central Asia. Population: 3,136,737. Capital: Ulaanbaatar. Government: Semi-presidential republic. Website: president.mn (in Mongolian and English).
🇲🇪 MONTENEGRO in southeastern Europe. Population: 612,107. Capital: Podgorica. Government: Parliamentary republic. Website: www.gov.me (in Bosnian, Serbian, and English).
🇲🇦 MOROCCO in northwestern Africa. Population: 34,637,293. Capital: Rabat. Government: Parliamentary constitutional monarchy. Website: www.maroc.ma (in Arabic, English, and several other languages).

What grand global geographical excursions have you been making in your homeschool this Leo Term? 😊

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