You and your students can help astronomers study the shapes and orbits of real asteroids in space, right from the comfort of your little home academy. How cool is that?
Archives for June 2020
🗓 QUICK FRESHES for Homeschool Families – Week of 28 June 2020
Great homeschool teaching ideas and little lessons for the week ahead, including: Independence Day, dramatic declarations, presidential anniversaries, memorable meteors, mysterious markings, insular rivers, a toast to a famous goose, and more!
🌎 🇺🇸 SUNDAY STATES: Wyoming, Tanzania, Togo, and More
Take a homeschool tour of the U.S. states and the countries of the world with the River Houses. This week: Wyoming, Tanzania, Thailand, Timor-Leste, and Togo.
🔭 ☄️ CHARLES MESSIER and the Most Beautiful Objects in the Universe
Happy birthday to the French astronomer Charles Messier (1730–1817), who cataloged some of the most beautiful nebulae, star clusters, and galaxies in the universe — so he could ignore them.
🦅 FRIDAY BIRD FAMILIES: Wood-Warblers (II)
Join our year-long homeschool tour of North American bird families and teach some great science and natural history lessons along the way. This week: the tiny and colorful Wood-Warblers (Part II).
🌍 🇨🇭 WEEKLY WORLD HERITAGE: The Abbey of St. Gall in Switzerland
Pay a visit to a World Heritage Site from one of our countries-of-the-week and learn some great homeschool history and geography along the way. This week: the Abbey of St. Gall in Switzerland.
📜 🇺🇸 CELEBRATE THE FOURTH OF JULY at the National Archives (Online!)
If your usual homeschool Fourth of July celebrations will be a bit restricted this year, why not join the staff and friends of the U.S. National Archives in Washington for their first-ever online Independence Day celebration!
🖋 🏞 WONDERFUL WORDS: “The Swing” for Summer
“How do you like to go up in a swing, / Up in the air so blue?” (Our homeschool poem-of-the-week, from Robert Louis Stevenson, for summer.)
🗓 QUICK FRESHES for Homeschool Families – Week of 21 June 2020
Great homeschool teaching ideas and little lessons for the week ahead, including: Father’s Day, mathematical secrets, censorious critics, imaginative illustrators, poetical pioneers, Swiss rivers, a toast to principle, and more!
🌎 🇺🇸 SUNDAY STATES: Idaho, Switzerland, Tajikistan, and More
Take a homeschool tour of the U.S. states and the countries of the world with the River Houses. This week: Idaho, Switzerland, Syria, Taiwan, and Tajikistan.
🗓 ⛱ SUMMER IS HERE! (Astronomically Speaking)
Summer is here! (If you’re in the northern hemisphere, that is.) If you’re in the southern hemisphere, winter is here! Happy June 2020 solstice to homeschoolers everywhere!
🌅 WATCH THE SUMMER SOLSTICE AT STONEHENGE
Follow a live broadcast of the summer-solstice sunrise and sunset at Stonehenge, the ancient astronomical landmark in southern England.
🦅 FRIDAY BIRD FAMILIES: Wood-Warblers (I)
Join our year-long homeschool tour of North American bird families and teach some great science and natural history lessons along the way. This week: the tiny and colorful Wood-Warblers (Part I).
🌍 🇸🇩 WEEKLY WORLD HERITAGE: Sanganeb Marine National Park in Sudan
Pay a visit to a World Heritage Site from one of our countries-of-the-week and learn some great homeschool history and geography along the way. This week: Sanganeb Marine National Park and Dungonab Bay in Sudan.
🔎 HOMESCHOOL RESEARCH & NEWS – June 2020
A June 2020 roundup of some recent academic research and news about homeschooling worldwide, with links to sources. We have two papers this month, by Bowens (2020) and Buns & LaValle (2020), and also a panel discussion featuring Bartholet, Gaither, McCluskey, & McDonald (2020).
🖋 👨👧👧 HAPPY FATHER’S DAY WEEK from Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
“A whisper, and then a silence: / Yet I know by their merry eyes / They are plotting and planning together / To take me by surprise.” (Our homeschool poem-of-the-week, from Longfellow, for Father’s Day.)
🇺🇸 HAPPY FLAG DAY 2020!
Flag Day (June 14th every year) celebrates the date in 1777 when Congress established the Stars & Stripes as the national flag of the United States.
🗓 QUICK FRESHES for Homeschool Families – Week of 14 June 2020
Great homeschool teaching ideas and little lessons for the week ahead, including: vexillological anniversaries, paternal poems, ancient eclipses, great charters, summer solstices, Sri Lankan rivers, a toast to fathers, and more!
🌎 🇺🇸 SUNDAY STATES: Washington, Sri Lanka, Sweden, and More
Take a homeschool tour of the U.S. states and the countries of the world with the River Houses. This week: Washington, Sri Lanka, Sudan, Suriname, and Sweden.
🌟 STAR BRIGHT: Spica for June
Make the acquaintance of the young blue-white giant Spica in the constellation Virgo this month, one of the brightest stars in the northern hemisphere sky, and make it your homeschool friend for life.
🦅 FRIDAY BIRD FAMILIES: Finches, Longspurs, and Snow Buntings
Join our year-long homeschool tour of North American bird families and teach some great science and natural history lessons along the way. This week: the small and familiar Fringillid Finches, and the Longspurs and Snow Buntings.
💰 🇻🇮 AMERICA THE BEAUTIFUL: Salt River Bay in the Virgin Islands
Explore American history and geography in your homeschool with this ongoing series of quarters from the U.S. Mint. (With free lesson plans!) New this month: a quarter for the Salt River Bay National Historical Park and Ecological Preserve in the U.S. Virgin Islands.
🌍 🇿🇦 WEEKLY WORLD HERITAGE: The Fossil Hominid Sites of South Africa
Pay a visit to a World Heritage Site from one of our countries-of-the-week and learn some great homeschool history and geography along the way. This week: the Fossil Hominid Sites of South Africa.
📚 🎵 K–12 MUSIC EDUCATION: A Hundred Online Resources to Save!
A new guide to K–12 music education resources from the Library of Congress will point you to hundreds of educational treasures your can explore with your young music students.
🖋 🇺🇸 WONDERFUL WORDS (and Music!): “O! say can you see?”
“Now it catches the gleam of the morning’s first beam, / In full glory reflected now shines on the stream — / ‘Tis the star-spangled banner, O! long may it wave / O’er the land of the free, and the home of the brave.” (Our homeschool poem-of-the-week, from Francis Scott Key, for Flag Day.)
🗓 QUICK FRESHES for Homeschool Families – Week of 7 June 2020
Great homeschool teaching ideas and little lessons for the week ahead, including: Declaration committees, Irish poets, famous Francises, emperors and more emperors, ancient ancestors, South African rivers, a toast to Old Glory, and still more!
🌎 🇺🇸 SUNDAY STATES: Montana, Somalia, Spain, and More
Take a homeschool tour of the U.S. states and the countries of the world with the River Houses. This week: Montana, Somalia, South Africa, South Sudan, and Spain.
