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🇬🇷 HOMESCHOOL HISTORY: The Antikythera Mechanism

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Click to: riverhouses.org/2020-antikythera

One of the most remarkable objects the ancient world ever produced, the Antikythera mechanism, was discovered on this day in 1902 by archaeologist Valerios Stais. Or it might be more accurate to say it was “recognized,” since it had been hauled up a year before by sponge divers exploring a first-century B.C. wreck off the coast of the Greek island of Antikythera.

The largest surviving fragment of the Antikythera mechanism. (Image: Wikimedia Commons.)

Suppose you were excavating a military encampment from the time of the American Civil War, and among the debris you found a laptop computer. That’s the type of comparison that’s often made for the Antikythera mechanism. A complex astronomical computer made of dozens of precisely engineered interlocking gears that could predict the movements of the sun, the moon, and the planets over centuries, the Antikythera mechanism is unlike any other known ancient object. Nothing of equivalent complexity would be produced again in Europe for more than a thousand years.

If you’re studying ancient history in your homeschool this month, here’s an excellent NOVA documentary on the Antikythera mechanism that’s well worth watching with your students:

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What historical discoveries have you made in your homeschool this Leo Term? 😊

❡ Explore more: For a quick homeschool review of science in the ancient Greek world, turn to page 104 in your River Houses history encyclopedia (riverhouses.org/books). 📚

❡ Come, here’s the map: If you turn to plate 72 in your recommended homeschool atlas (riverhouses.org/books) you’ll be able to locate the island of Antikythera and many of the other places mentioned in the documentary above. 🌍

❡ Stay in the loop: This is one of our regular Homeschool Historical Anniversaries posts. Add your name to our free weekly mailing list (riverhouses.org/newsletter) and get more great homeschool teaching ideas delivered right to your mailbox all through the year. 🗞

🗓 QUICK FRESHES for Homeschool Families – Week of 17 May 2020

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Click to: riverhouses.org/2020-05-17

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.

🐦 🦅 May is Bird Migration Month in the River Houses, and throughout the month we’re sharing an assortment of extra homeschool notes on one of the world’s most wonderful natural phenomena.

🇺🇸 OUR STATE-OF-THE-WEEK is Colorado, and our COUNTRIES are Samoa 🇼🇸, San Marino 🇸🇲, São Tomé and Príncipe 🇸🇹, and Saudi Arabia 🇸🇦. (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 (17 May 2020) — Today is the 138th day of 2020; there are 228 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). 📚 It’s the birthday of the English physician Edward Jenner (1749–1823), developer of the smallpox vaccine, one of the greatest discoveries in the history of medicine. 👨‍⚕️ The first Kentucky Derby was run on this day in 1875. (The winning horse was named Aristides.) 🏇 And on this day in 1902, Greek archaeologist Valerios Stais first recognized the significance of the object now called the Antikythera mechanism, one of the most remarkable artifacts the ancient world ever produced. 🏛 You can read more about science in the ancient Greek world on page 104 in River Houses history encyclopedia (riverhouses.org/books). 🔍

Monday (18 May 2020) — Today is the birthday of Mathew Brady (1822–1896), the famous photographer of the American Civil War. 📷 Today is also the birthday of Italian-American screenwriter and director Frank Capra (1897–1991), producer of such film classics as Mr. Smith Goes to Washington (1939) and It’s a Wonderful Life (1946). 🎥 And on this day in 1980, just 40 years ago, Mount St. Helens in Washington state exploded in one of the most destructive volcanic eruptions in U.S. history. 🌋

Tuesday (19 May 2020) — On this day in 1780, smoke from major forest fires in Canada drifted south across the northeastern United States, blotting out the sun and leading many to fear that the end of the world was at hand. Candles had to be lit at noon and frogs began croaking as if it were nightfall on New England’s famous “Dark Day.” 🕯 Arctic explorer Sir John Franklin set out from Greenhithe, England, on this day in 1845, hoping to discover and chart the Northwest Passage. Franklin and his ships were never heard from again. The Franklin expedition’s disappearance was one of the great nautical mysteries of the nineteenth century. ⚓️

Wednesday (20 May 2020) — Shakespeare’s sonnets were first published on this day in London in 1609, possibly without his permission. 🖋 And today is the birthday of the great philosopher of liberty John Stuart Mill (1806–1873). 📖 And not only that, it’s also World Metrology Day! 📏 Our Wednesday tour of World Heritage Sites this week will take you to Mount Titano in San Marino. 🇸🇲

Thursday (21 May 2020) — Today the birthday of the great German artist Albrecht Dürer (1471–1528). 🎨 And the American Red Cross was established in Washington on this day in 1881 by Clara Barton (1821–1912). 👩‍⚕️

Friday (22 May 2020) — Today is the birthday of the famous American impressionist painter Mary Cassatt (1844–1926). 👩‍🎨 It’s also the birthday of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (1859–1930), the inventor of the inimitable Sherlock Holmes. 🕵️ Our homeschool poem-of-the-week for the last week of May is Marta Keen’s “Homeward Bound,” an ideal homeschool graduation anthem. 🎓 Print your own River Houses Poetry Calendar (riverhouses.org/calendars) and follow along with us throughout the year. 🖋 And our Friday Bird Families post this week will introduce you to the Indigobirds and Whydahs, the Weavers, the Estrildid Finches, and the Old World Sparrows. Print your own River Houses Calendar of American Birds (riverhouses.org/calendars) and follow the flyways with us. 🦅

Saturday (23 May 2020) — Today is the birthday of the great Swedish naturalist Carl Linnaeus (1707–1778), who devised the system of species nomenclature that is still in use today in the biological sciences by all of us members of Homo sapiens. 🐟 🐢 🐳 🐒 🐝 🐪 🐞 🐌 🦋 🦉

Sunday (24 May 2020) — Today is the birthday of Queen Victoria of the United Kingdom (1819–1901), who gave her name to an entire historical era. You can read more about Victoria and the Victorians on page 348 in your homeschool history encyclopedia (riverhouses.org/books). 👑 And on this day in 1844, Samuel F.B. Morse sent the message “What hath God wrought!” from the U.S. Capitol building to his assistant in Baltimore, thirty-five miles away, instantly, thereby inaugurating the first commercial telegraph line between two U.S. cities. ⚡️

🥂 OUR WEEKLY TOAST: “Free commerce for a free people.”

❡ Toasts can be a fun educational tradition for your family table. We offer one each week — you can take it up, or make up one of your own (“To North American dinosaurs!”), or invite a different person to come up with one for each meal (“To variety in toasting!”). Our current set of toasts are mostly taken from an old anthology called The Perfect Gentleman; or, Etiquette and eloquence (New York, 1860). What will you toast this week? 🥂

🌍 🇸🇲 EVERYTHING FLOWS: The tiny nation of San Marino in Europe is one of our countries-of-the-week, so our Weekly World River is the little Ausa River, one of the few rivers that flows through San Marino (and also Italy). You can find its location in your recommended homeschool atlas (riverhouses.org/books), and you can read more about it in the Ausa River entry in Wikipedia or perhaps on your next visit to your local library.

The Ausa River (looking rather dry) near the border between Italy and San Marino. (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: Colorado, Samoa, Saudi Arabia, and More

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Click to: riverhouses.org/2020-colorado

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:

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    Colorado State Bird and Flower
    COLORADO (the 38th state, 1 August 1876) — The Centennial State. Capital: Denver. Colorado can be found on page 566 in your almanac and on plates 38 and 142 in your atlas. Name origin: “From Spanish for ‘red,’ first applied to Colorado River” (almanac page 422). State bird: Lark Bunting (bird guide page 498). Website: www.colorado.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:

  • 🇼🇸 SAMOA in the south Pacific Ocean. Population: 202,541. Capital: Apia. Government: Parliamentary republic. Website: www.samoagovt.ws (in English).
  • 🇸🇲 SAN MARINO in southern Europe, surrounded by Italy. Population: 34,010. Capital: San Marino. Government: Parliamentary republic. Website: www.sanmarino.sm (in Italian and English).
  • 🇸🇹 SÃO TOMÉ AND PRÍNCIPE off the west coast of Africa. Population: 207,822. Capital: São Tomé. Government: Semi-presidential republic. Website: www.presidencia.st (in Portuguese).
  • 🇸🇦 SAUDI ARABIA in the Middle East. Population: 33,631,439. Capital: Riyadh. Government: Absolute monarchy. Website: www.saudi.gov.sa (in English and Arabic).

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 (real or virtual) 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. 🇺🇸 🌎