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You are here: Home > 2020 > July

Archives for July 2020

πŸ¦… FRIDAY BIRD FAMILIES: Blackbirds, Meadowlarks, Orioles, and Allies

31 July 2020 by Horace the Otter 🦦

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 the Blackbirds (pages 530–545), a group that includes a great variety of species, including the Grackles, Meadowlarks, Cowbirds, Orioles, and more.

[See attached blog post for images and video]

If you’re teaching younger children, the way to use these weekly overviews is just to treat your bird guide as aΒ picture book and spend aΒ few minutes every Friday 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 information, the kind of book they will encounter in many different fields of study. Here is the bird guide’s introduction to this week’s group, written in the customary telegraphic style:

“BLACKBIRDS β€” Family Icteridae. Strong, direct flight and pointed bills mark this diverse group, which includes the meadowlarks, blackbirds, grackles, cowbirds, and orioles, among others. Species: 104Β World, 25Β 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 aΒ new group β€” about the Blackbird family, for example. How many species? (104 worldwide.) Are there any near us? (25 species in North America, and the individual maps will give us more detail.) What are their distinctive features? (Strong direct flight, conical bills, most species exhibit combinations of black, red, yellow, and orange, 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, why not investigate the Red-winged Blackbird (page 532), a common and familiar bird of marshes, ponds, lakes, and rivers all across North America.

[See attached blog post for images and video]

All sorts of biological information is packed into the brief species descriptions in your bird guide β€” can your students tease it out? How big is the Red-winged Blackbird? (8ΒΎ inches long.) What is its scientific name? (Agelaius phoeniceus.) 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.)

Red-winged Blackbirds can be found in most wetland habitats from the Atlantic to the Pacific. They are sexually dimorphic: the males are the ones that are black with red “shoulders” (technically, the secondary coverts), while the females are brown and striped, usually with just a hint of red. Red-wings are highly territorial in the breeding season and aggressively defend the patch of marsh that contains their nest, but in the non-breeding season they commonly travel in large flocks, often mixed together with other blackbird species.

For two more species in the Blackbird family this week, take a look at the Eastern Meadowlark and the Western Meadowlark (page 530), a pair of sibling species β€” species that are so similar we humans often have trouble telling them apart.

[See attached blog post for images and video]
[See attached blog post for images and video]

Meadowlarks, both Eastern and Western, are common birds of grasslands and farm fields. They like to perch on fence posts, tree stumps, and wires, and they sing a loud warbling whistle all through the day.

You can do little ten-minute lessons of this kind with any of the species in your bird guide that catch your interest. Pick one that is near you, or that looks striking, or that has a strange name, and explore. For example, why not take a look at the Baltimore Oriole (page 544), a bird so popular they named a baseball team after it!

[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 Hercules 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 littleΒ bit about basic bird biology and about some of the technical terminology used throughout the book β€” why not have your students study it asΒ a special project. Have them note particularly the diagrams showing the parts ofΒ a bird (pages 10–11) so they’ll be able to tell primaries from secondaries and flanks from lores. πŸ¦‰

❑ Words for birds: You may not think of your homeschool dictionary (riverhouses.org/books) asΒ a nature reference, but aΒ 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.Β πŸ“–

❑ 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: This week’s family includes some popular state birds: the Baltimore Oriole (Maryland) and the Western Meadowlark (Kansas, Montana, Nebraska, North Dakota, Oregon, and Wyoming). πŸ‡ΊπŸ‡Έ

❑ 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. 🐦 πŸ¦‰ πŸ¦† πŸ¦ƒ πŸ¦…

Filed Under: Friday Bird Families, Homeschool Natural History

🌏 πŸ‡»πŸ‡Ί WEEKLY WORLD HERITAGE: Chief Roi Mata’s Domain in Vanuatu

29 July 2020 by Bob O'Hara

Click to: riverhouses.org/2020-vanuatu

The island-nation of Vanuatu in the Pacific Ocean is one of our homeschool countries-of-the-week, so why not spend a few minutes today learning about one of Vanuatu’s World Heritage Sites: Chief Roi Mata’s Domain.

The Fele’s Cave site on Lelepa Island, Vanuatu, where tradition says Chief Roi Mata was poisoned by his brother in the 13th century. (Image:Β Wikimedia Commons.)

Chief Roi Mata’s Domain is a group of historic sites on different Vanuatu islands, all of which are connected with life of the 13th-century Melanesian leader Roi Mata (also spelled Roymata):

“Chief Roi Mata’s Domain is the first [World Heritage] site to be inscribed in Vanuatu. It consists of three early 17th century AD sites on the islands of Efate, Lelepa, and Artok associated with the life and death of the last paramount chief, or Roi Mata, of what is now Central Vanuatu. The property includes Roi Mata’s residence, the site of his death, and Roi Mata’s mass burial site. It is closely associated with the oral traditions surrounding the chief and the moral values he espoused. The site reflects the convergence between oral tradition and archaeology and bears witness to the persistence of Roi Mata’s social reforms and conflict resolution, still relevant to the people of the region.“ (UNESCO World Heritage Centre #1280)

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. πŸ—Ί

What world treasures are you exploring in your homeschool this Hercules 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.Β πŸ‡»πŸ‡Ί

❑ 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. 🌏

Filed Under: Homeschool States & Countries, Weekly World Heritage

🌝 KNOW YOUR MOONS! πŸŒ‘πŸŒ’πŸŒ“πŸŒ”πŸŒ•πŸŒ–πŸŒ—πŸŒ˜πŸŒ‘

27 July 2020 by Bob O'Hara

There will be a lovely first quarter moon in the sky this evening. Can your homeschool students recognize the phases of the moon? Why not teach them about the lunar cycle this month, the month each year when we remember the Apollo 11 moon landing.

Did you know there’s an emoji symbol for each phase of the moon? It’s true! Whenever we’re posting about the moon here at the River Houses we try to use the correct emoji, and you can do the same, illustrating the moon’s phases for your students, quizzing them with emojis, and inviting them to recite the northern-hemisphere formula, “fills in from the right, drains out to the left”:

πŸŒ‘ NEW
πŸŒ’ WAXING CRESCENT
πŸŒ“ FIRST QUARTER ← tonight (27 July 2020)
πŸŒ” WAXING GIBBOUS
πŸŒ• FULL (second quarter) ← 3 August 2020
πŸŒ– WANING GIBBOUS
πŸŒ— THIRD QUARTER ← 11 August 2020
🌘 WANING CRESCENT
πŸŒ‘ NEW (again) ← 18 August 2020

A complete cycle, from new to new, is one (lunar) month β€” 29 days β€” and the word month and moon are in fact cognate words, having the same historical origin. (Compare the expression, “many moons ago,” meaning, “many months ago.”)

The time from one quarter to the next β€” from new to first quarter, from first quarter to full (second quarter), from full to third quarter, and from third quarter to new again β€” is about seven days, and that’s the basis for the week, which is a quarter of a month: four quarters in one “moon,” four weeks in one month. (This also explains why lunar terminology can be confusing to beginners: the first and third “quarter” moons are half full, because “quarter” doesn’t refer to appearance but rather to a fourth part of the monthly lunar cycle.)

Commemorative 2019 stamp marking the 50th anniversary of the Apollo 11 moon landing. The landing site in the Sea of Tranquility, which you can locate on a clear night with binoculars, is indicated by a dot. The big rayed crater in the lower left is called Tycho; it’s about 50 miles across and is estimated to be about 100 million years old. (Image: U.S. Postal Service.)

Chapter 4 in our recommended Backyard Guide to the Night Sky is all about the moon, with notes on its geological (or more properly, its selenological) history, maps of the major craters and seas, explanations of its orbit and its phases, and much more. It’s just the thing for a homeschool read-aloud this week!

What celestial observations will you and your students be making in your homeschool this lunar month? 😊

❑ Crescent and gibbous and waxing and waning: The word crescent is common in English in many contexts, but the word gibbous β€” convex, bulging, humped, hunchbacked β€” is much less common and is rarely used today to describe anything other than the moon, which is a shame because it’s a wonderful word. Similarly, waxing (growing, increasing) and waning (shrinking, decreasing) are used most often now as paired terms in the context of the moon, but they do still survive in a few other contexts (to wax poetic; his interest waned). πŸŒ” 🌘

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

Filed Under: Homeschool Astronomy, Homeschool Terms & Calendars

πŸ—“ QUICK FRESHES for Homeschool Families – Week of 26 July 2020

26 July 2020 by Bob O'Hara

Click to: riverhouses.org/2020-07-26

Quick Freshes are our regular Sunday notes on the homeschool week ahead. Pick one or two of the items below each week and use them to enrich your homeschooling schedule! Add your name to our free weekly mailing list to get these posts delivered right to your mailbox, and visit our River Houses calendar page (riverhouses.org/calendars) to print your own homeschool calendars and planners for the entire year.

πŸ‡ΊπŸ‡Έ OUR STATE-OF-THE-WEEK is Arizona, and our COUNTRIES are Uzbekistan πŸ‡ΊπŸ‡Ώ, Vanuatu πŸ‡»πŸ‡Ί, Vatican City πŸ‡»πŸ‡¦, and Venezuela πŸ‡»πŸ‡ͺ. (Our separate Sunday States & Countries post for the week went up just a few minutes ago.)

πŸŒ’ THE MOON at the beginning of this week is a waxing crescent β€” 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!

πŸ—“ TODAY, Sunday (26 July 2020) β€” Today is the 208th day of 2020; there are 158 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).Β πŸ“š The great painter of the American West, George Catlin, was born on this day in 1796. 🎨 Today is also the birthday of the polemical Irish playwright and Nobel laureate George Bernard Shaw (1856–1950). 🎭

Monday (27 July 2020) β€” The inimitable Bugs Bunny made his screen debut on this day in 1940 in a short animated film called A Wild Hare. Elmer Fudd couldn’t catch him then, and hasn’t to this day. 🐰 And … the International Monarch Monitoring Blitz is underway this week! Count Monarch butterflies for fun and profit! (Well, maybe not profit. But for fun and science!) πŸ¦‹

Tuesday (28 July 2020) β€” Today is the birthday of the great English polymath Robert Hooke (1635–1703), one of the pioneers of microscopy and the first person to apply the world “cell” to the basic structural unit of living things. πŸ”¬ And one of the most innovative poets of the nineteenth century, Gerard Manley Hopkins, was born on this day in 1844. πŸ–‹

Wednesday (29 July 2020) β€” The seven-mile-long Cape Cod Canal first opened on this day in 1914, significantly reducing sailing time between Boston and New York (and markedly increasing safety). 🚒 And our Wednesday tour of World Heritage Sites this week will take you to Chief Roi Mata’s Domain in the Pacific Ocean nation of Vanuatu. πŸ‡»πŸ‡Ί

Thursday (30 July 2020) β€” Today is the birthday of the great (and largely homeschooled) English writer Emily Bronte (1818–1848), author of Wuthering Heights. πŸ–‹ It’s also the birthday of the American engineer and industrialist Henry Ford (1863–1947). πŸš—

Friday (31 July 2020) β€” On this day in 1964 the RangerΒ 7 probe transmitted the first close-up images of the moon taken by an American spacecraft, just minutes before it was intentionally crash-landed on the lunar surface. πŸš€ πŸŒ• Our Friday Bird Families post this week will introduce you to the familiar and widespread Blackbirds. Print your own River Houses Calendar of American Birds (riverhouses.org/calendars) and follow along with us throughout the year.Β πŸ¦…

Saturday (1 August 2020) β€” Today is the birthday of Maria Mitchell (1818–1889), the discoverer of “Miss Mitchell’s Comet” and the first American woman to work as a professional astronomer. β˜„οΈ Today is also the birthday of the great American writer Herman Melville (1819–1891), author of Bartleby the Scrivener, Moby-Dick, and many other works. 🐳 In Melville’s honor, our homeschool poem-of-the-week for this first week of August, and also our weekly toast, is the perfect little toast-poem “To the Master of the Meteor,” appearing below. 🍻 Print your own River Houses Poetry Calendar (riverhouses.org/calendars) and follow along with us throughout the year. πŸ–‹ 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.Β πŸ”­

Sunday (2 August 2020) β€” The first United States census, conducted under Article I, Section 2 of the Constitution, commenced on this day in 1790. The total count was 3,929,214. πŸ‡ΊπŸ‡Έ And the first Lincoln Cents were released into circulation on this day in 1909, the centennial year of Abraham Lincoln’s birth. πŸ’°

🍻 OUR TOAST THIS WEEK and our weekly poem are one and the same, for Herman Melville’s birthday: the ringing toast-poem β€œTo the Master of the Meteor.” The Meteor was a sailing ship, and the master (captain) of the Meteor was Herman’s brother Thomas Melville:

Lonesome on earth’s loneliest deep,
Sailor! who dost thy vigil keep β€”
Off the Cape of Storms dost musing sweep
Over monstrous waves that curl and comb;
Of thee we think when here from brink
We blow the mead in bubbling foam.
Of thee we think, in a ring we link;
To the shearer of ocean’s fleece we drink,
And the Meteor rolling home.

❑ Toasts can be a fun educational tradition for your family table. We offer one each week β€” 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? 🍻

🌏 πŸ‡»πŸ‡Ί EVERYTHING FLOWS: The tiny island nation of Vanuatu in the Pacific Ocean is one of our countries-of-the-week, but Vanuatu doesn’t have much in the way of large rivers. It does have some lovely waterfalls, however, such as the Lololima Falls, and they are our Weekly World River. You can find their location in your recommended homeschool atlas (riverhouses.org/books), and you can read (a little) more about these falls in the (unillustrated) Lololima “River” entry in Wikipedia or perhaps on your next visit to your local library.

“People enjoying themselves at the plunge pool at the bottom of the Lololima Waterfalls.” (Image:Β World-of-Waterfalls.com.)

❑ 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.Β πŸ—“

Filed Under: Quick Freshes

🌎 πŸ‡ΊπŸ‡Έ SUNDAY STATES: Arizona, Uzbekistan, Venezuela, and More

26 July 2020 by Bob O'Hara

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:

  • πŸ‡ΊπŸ‡Έ
    Arizona State Bird and Flower
    ARIZONA (the 48th state, 14 February 1912) β€” The Grand Canyon State. Capital: Phoenix. Arizona can be found on page 564 in your almanac and on plates 38 and 142 in your atlas. Name origin: “Spanish version of Pima Indian word for β€˜little spring place’ or Aztec arizuma, meaning β€˜silver-bearing’” (almanac page 422). State bird: Cactus Wren (bird guide page 390). Website: az.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:

  • πŸ‡ΊπŸ‡Ώβ€…UZBEKISTAN in central Asia. Population: 30,296,157. Capital: Tashkent. Government: Authoritarian presidential republic. Website: www.gov.uz (in Uzbek, English, and several other languages).
  • πŸ‡»πŸ‡Ίβ€…VANUATU in the southwestern Pacific Ocean. Population: 293,212. Capital: Port-Vila. Government: Parliamentary republic. Website: parliament.gov.vu (in English).
  • πŸ‡»πŸ‡¦β€…VATICAN CITY, an enclave within the city of Rome, Italy. Population: 1000. Website: www.vatican.va (in Italian, English, and several other languages).
  • πŸ‡»πŸ‡ͺβ€…VENEZUELA in northeastern South America. Population: 32,068,672. Capital: Caracas. Government: Federal presidential republic. Website: presidencia.gob.ve (in Spanish).

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 Hercules 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.Β πŸ”

❑ Come, here’s the map: Teaching your students to be fluent with high-quality maps β€” not just basically competent, but fluent β€” 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.Β πŸ—Ί

❑ 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.Β βœˆοΈΒ πŸšžΒ πŸš—Β πŸ›³Β πŸŽΒ πŸ˜Š

❑ 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.Β πŸ‡ΊπŸ‡ΈΒ πŸŒŽ

Filed Under: Homeschool States & Countries

πŸ¦… FRIDAY BIRD FAMILIES: Cardinals, Grosbeaks, and Allies

24 July 2020 by Horace the Otter 🦦

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 the brilliant Cardinals and their allies (pages 518–529), including the American Tanagers, Grosbeaks, and Buntings.

[See attached blog post for images and video]

If you’re teaching younger children, the way to use these weekly overviews is just to treat your bird guide as aΒ picture book and spend aΒ few minutes every Friday 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 information, the kind of book they will encounter in many different fields of study. Here is the bird guide’s introduction to this week’s group, written in the customary telegraphic style:

“CARDINALS AND ALLIES β€” Family Cardinalidae. In N.A. [North America], this diverse family now includes Piranga tanagers formerly with Thraupidae, the tanagers. Also included are various seedeaters including Northern Cardinal, certain grosbeaks, the Passerina and other buntings, and Dickcissel. Species: 48Β World, 18Β N.A.“ [This week’s description isn’t particularly descriptive; it’s primarily reporting on how this family has been reconfigured in recent years as a result of improved understanding of the evolutionary relationships of the birds involved.]

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 aΒ new group β€” about the Cardinals, for example. How many species? (48 worldwide.) Are there any near us? (18 in North America, and the individual maps will give us more detail.) What are their distinctive features? (A diverse group, mainly seedeaters, many are brightly colored, 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, why not investigate the Northern Cardinal (page 522), one of the best-loved birds in the United States.

[See attached blog post for images and video]

All sorts of biological information is packed into the brief species descriptions in your bird guide β€” can your students tease it out? How big is the Northern Cardinal? (8ΒΎ inches long.) What is its scientific name? (Cardinalis cardinalis.) 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.)

Northern Cardinals are among the most popular birds in the United States. They readily come to bird feeders in the winter and have a well-known fondness for sunflower seeds. Their loud, repetitive, whistling song brightens up both forest edges and suburban backyards across most of the eastern half of the country.

If you’re living in the West and miss out on having Cardinals in your neighborhood, don’t despair: the Cardinal family contains many spectacular species in your region as well. Take a look, for example, at the Western Tanager (page 520), a forest-dwelling member of the Piranga tanager group.

[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 one that is near you, or that looks striking, or that has a strange name, and explore. For a third species this week, why not take a look at the spectacular Painted Bunting (page 526), a southern species so brightly patterned that it almost looks artificial.

[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 Hercules 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 littleΒ bit about basic bird biology and about some of the technical terminology used throughout the book β€” why not have your students study it asΒ a special project. Have them note particularly the diagrams showing the parts ofΒ a bird (pages 10–11) so they’ll be able to tell primaries from secondaries and flanks from lores. πŸ¦‰

❑ Words for birds: You may not think of your homeschool dictionary (riverhouses.org/books) asΒ a nature reference, but aΒ 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.Β πŸ“–

❑ 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: This week’s family includes the most popular state bird in the United States, the Northern Cardinal (Indiana, Illinois, Kentucky, North Carolina, Ohio, Virginia, and West Virginia). πŸ‡ΊπŸ‡Έ

❑ 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. 🐦 πŸ¦‰ πŸ¦† πŸ¦ƒ πŸ¦…

Filed Under: Friday Bird Families, Homeschool Natural History

πŸ–‹ πŸ”” WONDERFUL WORDS: As Kingfishers Catch Fire

22 July 2020 by Bob O'Hara

Next Tuesday is the birthday of one of the most innovative poets of the nineteenth century, Gerard Manley Hopkins (1844–1899), a name every homeschool literature student should know. In Hopkins’ honor, our homeschool poem-of-the-week for this fourth week of July is one of his masterpieces: “As Kingfishers Catch Fire.”

Hopkins was a religious poet and he is famously difficult, but if you approach him with the right attitude β€” an almost scientific, puzzle-solving attitude β€” you’ll be richly rewarded. If your high-school homescholars can learn to decode Hopkins they’ll be more than ready for college-level work.

As Kingfishers Catch Fire

As kingfishers catch fire, dragonflies draw flame;
As tumbled over rim in roundy wells
Stones ring; like each tucked string tells, each hung bell’s
Bow swung finds tongue to fling out broad its name;
Each mortal thing does one thing and the same:
Deals out that being indoors each one dwells;
Selves β€” goes itself; myself it speaks and spells,
Crying What I do is me: for that I came.

I say more: the just man justices;
Keeps grace: that keeps all his goings graces;
Acts in God’s eye what in God’s eye he is β€”
Christ β€” for Christ plays in ten thousand places,
Lovely in limbs, and lovely in eyes not his
To the Father through the features of men’s faces.

Like Emily Dickinson in America, Gerard Manley Hopkins in Britain was seemingly born in the wrong century. The vast majority of his work, like Dickinson’s, was not published until some years after his death, and it was only after World War I that he came to be recognized as one of the great poets of the Victorian era.

Hopkins grew up in an exceptionally creative family, full of artists and illustrators and musicians and writers β€” a family that was also devoutly religious in the Anglican tradition. Gerard himself rejected his Anglican upbringing, eventually converting to Catholicism and becoming a Jesuit priest, which led to estrangement from his family.

Hopkins’ poetry is regarded as difficult because it bends English grammar and syntax almost to the breaking point. He likes to change nouns into verbs and he likes to coin new words to express abstract philosophical ideas.

Beginners sometimes think Hopkins’ writing sounds like a jumble, but in fact it’s just the opposite. In this week’s poem, before you try to work out the meaning, look first at the intricate structure. Far from being chaotic, “Kingfishers” is actually a perfectly regular sonnet, one of the most tightly fitted of all poetic forms. More specifically, it’s what’s called a Petrarchan sonnet, divided into an eight-line octave that sets up a topic, and then a six-line sestet that resolves or concludes the topic. Semicolons and colons carefully mark the elements Hopkins is describing and comparing, and the rhyme-scheme is regular and precise: ABBA ABBA CDCDCD.

But what’s it about? You almost have to translate Hopkins into ordinary English first, to get the basic meaning, and then return to the original to appreciate how the meaning plays out. This poem expresses an idea in Hopkins’ Catholic theology: that human beings are made in Christ’s image. The octave sets up the idea by describing the lesser mortal things of this world β€” animals and inanimate objects β€”Β and how they all give voice to some inner essence that is distinctive of themselves. Here’s my prose “translation”:

Just as kingfishers “catch fire” (flash orange);
Just as dragonflies “draw flame” (glint iridescence);
Just as stones ring when they tumble into deep wells;
Just as the string on an instrument, when plucked, speaks its distinct sound;
Just as a bell, when rung, rings out its special tone;
Just so, all mortal things in this world express their own inner selves:
They shout “this is what I am β€” to do this is why I am here.”

Now Hopkins makes the religious turn in the sestet: what about us? Do we also express our inner essence like all those lesser beings? We do. And what is that inner essence? For Hopkins the Catholic theologian, our inner essence is the image of Christ and his righteousness. Here’s a prose translation of the sestet:

But just men do even more than these lesser beings:
They enact justice in their lives (Hopkins makes the noun “justice” into a verb);
They enact Christ’s grace in their lives β€” that is how God sees them;
Christ’s image is reflected (“plays”) in all they do,
And what they do is beautiful to God,
Just as a child’s face is forever beautiful to its father.

Hopkins was a master of sound β€” his poems are meant not just to be read, but to be heard. Go back from my translation to the original text and listen to how he makes his words “speak” the things themselves in lines like “tumbled over rim in roundy wells / Stones ring” (you can almost hear the stone bouncing off the walls and echoing all the way down); or in “each hung bell’s / Bow swung finds tongue to fling out broad its name”Β β€” the line itself almost vibrates like a giant bell. (How many “-ng” sounds can you count?)

Hopkins was not only a religious poet, but he was also quite a nature poet in many ways. If “Kingfishers” captures your imagination, fly over to “The Windhover” next, another Hopkins masterpiece that has captivated many a student’s heart.

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

❑ As kingfishers catch fire: 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 β€” 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 Gerard Manley Hopkins) that are suitable for high school students and homeschool teachers. πŸ–‹

❑ 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. πŸ“–

Filed Under: Homeschool Language & Literature, Poems-of-the-Week

🌍 πŸ‡¦πŸ‡ͺ WEEKLY WORLD HERITAGE: Historic Sites of Al Ain in the United Arab Emirates

22 July 2020 by Bob O'Hara

Click to: riverhouses.org/2020-uae

The United Arab Emirates in the Middle East is one of our homeschool countries-of-the-week, so why not spend a few minutes today learning about one of the UAE’s World Heritage Sites: the Historic and Cultural Sites of Al Ain.

“The Beehive Tombs in the Jebel Hafeet district are evidence of human habitation in the area some 5000 years ago.” (Image: Wikimedia Commons.)

The landscapes surrounding the modern city of Al Ain are home to some of the most ancient archaeological sites in the Emirates region:

“The serial property of the Cultural Sites of Al Ain (Hafit, Hili, Bidaa Bint Saud, and Oases Areas), with its various component parts and the regional context in which it is situated, provides testimony to ancient sedentary human occupation in a desert region. Occupied continuously since the Neolithic, the region presents vestiges of numerous prehistoric cultures, notably from the Bronze Age and the Iron Age. Al Ain is situated at the crossroads of the ancient land routes between Oman, the Arabian Peninsula, the Persian Gulf and Mesopotamia. Very diverse in nature, the tangible elements of the property include remains of circular stone tombs and settlements from the Hafit and Hili periods, wells and partially underground aflaj irrigation systems, oases and mud brick constructions assigned to a wide range of defensive, domestic, and economic purposes. This expertise in construction and water management enabled the early development of agriculture for five millennia, up until the present day.“ (UNESCO World Heritage Centre #1343)

An archaeological museum has been established at Al Ain to preserve and study the many ancient artifacts that have been found in the region.

Iron Age pottery from the Bidaa Bint Saud site, Al Ain, United Arab Emirates. (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 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. πŸ—Ί

What world treasures are you exploring in your homeschool this Hercules 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.Β πŸ‡¦πŸ‡ͺ

❑ 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. 🌍

Filed Under: Homeschool States & Countries, Weekly World Heritage

πŸ”Ž HOMESCHOOL RESEARCH & NEWS – July 2020

21 July 2020 by Bob O'Hara

On the third Tuesday of each month we post a quick roundup of some recent academic publications and news about homeschooling, offered for your interest. These are typically university research papers, and they may have a positive, negative, or neutral outlook on home education β€” and if they don’t seem appealing, just scroll on by. The title links generally point to the full text of each publication, which is often a printable pdf file. In some cases, a paid subscription may be required to read the whole article. The article abstracts and introductions below are quoted in full whenever possible, without editing.

We have four items this month. The first is a very comprehensive review by Kunzman and Gaither of nearly all the academic homeschool literature published to date. If you’re interested in homeschool research, this is an important paper to bookmark and save for reference.


(1) Homeschooling: An Updated Comprehensive Survey of the Research β€” R.Β Kunzman & M.Β Gaither (2020)

Abstract: This article provides a comprehensive summary of the English-language research and scholarship on homeschooling, organized into the categories of demographics, motivation, curricula, academic achievement, socialization, health, law, relationships with public schools, and international homeschooling. The texts used in this review were culled from virtually the entire universe of English-language academic texts on the topic β€” more than 2,000 in total. Scholarship was evaluated using three primary criteria: quality of scholarship, significance or influence, and distinctiveness of insight. This review sought to answer the following questions: What primary topics or themes are addressed in the literature? How effective are the methodology and analysis performed? What does the research reveal about homeschooling, and what questions remain unanswered?


(2) Understanding the Initial Stories of Families Preferring Homeschooling: AΒ Narrative Study β€” B.Β Ahi & S.Β Sengil-Akar (2020)

Abstract: The purpose of this study is to understand the story underlying the preference of parents (mothers–fathers) for home school in Turkey and to determine the main points in this story. For this purpose, this study was conducted according to the narrative study model, one of the qualitative research designs. Within the context of this study, the opinions of mothers and fathers of three children receiving their education in the same home school during their preschool period were elicited. As a result of the analysis of the interviews conducted within the context of this study, three super themes and seven different codes gathered under these themes were obtained. As a conclusion, the reasons for the parents’ choice of home school instead of a formal education institution were found to be β€œInconsistency between the parents’ expectations and what is offered by the education system, negative effects of formal education on the child, family ideal, school experiences, educational philosophy and employment status, developmental reasons/concerns, negative social interaction at school, and their encounter with the proposal for home school.”


(3) Homeschool Literacy Choices: A Case Study of How Parents Teach Their Children With Unique Learning Needs β€” A.A. Ampuja (2020)

Abstract: This qualitative case study was designed to explore the instructional methods, materials, and decision-making processes used to teach literacy by homeschool parents of children with unique learning needs. Participants were selected through purposive sampling from among a group of homeschoolers in the Research Triangle area of North Carolina. Information was collected via semi-structured interviews, surveys, and literacy observations. The research questions were: What instructional methods and materials do homeschool parents of children with unique learning needs use to teach literacy? What sources of information do homeschool parents of students with unique learning needs use to select these methods and materials? In what ways do homeschool parents of students with unique learning needs exhibit confidence and competence? The findings revealed that participants emphasized the importance of: (a) using authentic text to teach literacy, (b) β€œfollowing the child” as a means of selecting appropriate methods and materials for literacy, (c) parents tapping into their own past experiences/education as well as the homeschool community, and (d) an inner knowing that was used to make decisions throughout the homeschool process. In addition, the homeschool parents in the present study were using a number of special education high-leverage practices (HLPs) and components of emergent curriculum to teach literacy to their children with unique learning needs. Practical applications and recommendations for future research were included.


(4) COVID-19 Pandemic in Nigeria and Attitudes towards Mathematics Homeschooling among Pre-Tertiary Students β€” A.O.A. Awofala et al. (2020)

Abstract: The emergence of COVID-19 in Wuhan, the Peoples Republic of China in December 2019 and it spread to Nigeria on February 27, 2020, has made the closure of educational institutions in the country a must and homeschooling inevitable. Aside from social distancing and putting on of the armour of basic health hygiene and using nose masks, COVID-19 pandemic has no curative vaccine to stop its further spread. This study investigated Nigerian pre-tertiary students’ attitudes towards mathematics homeschooling during the period of COVID-19 pandemic. Deploying instrumentation survey research design, three research questions were answered and the sample consisted of 342 pre-tertiary students in South-West, Nigeria. Data collected through an internet-based questionnaire created using Google forms and loaded on the WhatsApp social media for the dissemination to the target sample were analysed using frequency, mean, standard deviation, independent samples t-test, and exploratory factor analysis. Results showed that attitudes towards mathematics homeschooling scale was a multi-dimensional construct consisting of four interpretable factor structure of distraction and parent negative attitude, home enjoyment, school enjoyment, and competition and parent positive attitude. Gender was not a factor in the attitudes towards mathematics homeschooling. Besides, pre-tertiary students recorded a high level of attitudes towards mathematics homeschooling during the period of COVID-19 pandemic. In line with these results, it was recommended that researchers and mathematics educators could adopt this assessment tool in exploring the background predictors and educational imports of attitudes towards mathematics homeschooling in mathematics learning milieu during the period of any pandemic.


What interesting homeschool news and research have you come across this Hercules Term?Β πŸ‘©πŸ»β€πŸŽ“

❑ Explore more: If you’d like to investigate the academic literature on homeschooling, the best place to start is Google Scholar (scholar.google.com), the special academic search engine from Google. Just enter a search term or phrase of interest (“homeschool,” “unschooling,” “classical homeschooling,” “deschooling,” etc.), and Google Scholar will return a list of academic publications that mention your topic. πŸ”Ž

❑ Stay in the loop: This is one of our regular Homeschool Research & News 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. πŸ—ž

Filed Under: Homeschool Research & News

πŸš€ πŸŒ• MOON LANDING Resources for Your Homeschool

20 July 2020 by Bob O'Hara

Today is the 51st anniversary of the Apollo 11 moon landing. Here’s a roundup of some great Apollo resources you can use this week with your homeschool students.

If you watch just one thing as a family event, I highly recommend the 2019 documentary called simply “Apollo 11.” It’s a full-length film that was produced almost entirely from rarely-seen footage kept by the National Archives in Washington, and it’s available online from services like Amazon Prime:

➒

NASA of course has a wide selection of Apollo Program materials available that are suitable for homeschool use (even a printable crossword puzzle):

  • ➒ Apollo Program Resources (from NASA)

The website Space.com also has an excellent review of the whole series of Apollo missions with many video clips and links to additional information. It was prepared last year for Apollo 11’s fiftieth anniversary:

  • ➒ Apollo 11 at 50: A Complete Guide to the Historic Moon Landing (from Space.com)

For little kids, here’s a wonderful five-minute animated version of the whole Apollo 11 mission, also prepared for last year’s fiftieth anniversary and narrated by Apollo 11 astronaut Mike Collins himself:

➒

And here’s an excellent 28-minute official Apollo 11 documentary from 1969:

  • ➒ The Eagle Has Landed: The Flight of Apollo 11 (from the National Archives)

For some tangible fun, you might want to check with your local post office this week to see if they still have any of the Apollo 11 fiftieth anniversary stamps available (and if they don’t, you can order some online):

  • ➒ Apollo 11 First Moon Landing Stamps (from usps.com)

And I’d say your students should be able to recognize the source of the astronaut image on those stamps as part of their cultural, historical, and scientific education. It’s one of the most famous images in history: Neil Armstrong’s photograph of Buzz Aldrin standing on the lunar surface, taken on this day in 1969 with one of the 70Β mm Hasselblad cameras that were used on all the Apollo missions. (No digital photography back then, you know β€” the rolls of film had to come back to earth and get developed in a tank before anyone would know what the pictures looked like.)

Astronaut Buzz Aldrin on the lunar surface, 20 July 1969, with his crewmate Neil Armstrong and the lunar module reflected in his visor. (Image: National Archives.)

How will you be celebrating and studying this historic, scientific, and astronomic anniversary in your homeschool this week? 😊

❑ The Eagle has landed: If you turn to plate 123 in your recommended homeschool atlas (riverhouses.org/books) you’ll be able to locate the Sea of Tranquility where the Apollo 11 lander touched down for the first time. (Did you know your atlas has maps of the moon? It does!) πŸŒ•

❑ 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. πŸš€

Filed Under: Homeschool Astronomy, Homeschool Holidays & Anniversaries

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Maps & Geography

  • Antipodes Map
  • FlightAware (Planes in the Air)
  • Mapquest World Maps
  • MarineTraffic (Ships at Sea)
  • OpenStreetMap World Maps
  • Printable Blank Maps & Flags
  • Printable Outline Maps (d-maps.com)
  • River Runner
  • USGS Topographic Maps
  • World Factbook (cia.gov)
  • World Heritage Sites (UNESCO)
    • – Educator Resources
  • Zoom Earth

Civics & Social Science

  • 1776 Unites
  • Bill of Rights Institute
  • Constitution Center
  • C-Span Classroom
  • Foundation for Economic Education
  • Free Speech Curriculum from FIRE
  • History of the Western World (I)
    • – Western World (II)
  • iCivics.org
  • Learn Liberty
  • Mises Institute Economics
  • MyMoney.gov
    • – Educator Resources
  • Online Library of Liberty
  • US Founding Documents
  • US Government Portal
    • – The Congress
    • – The Supreme Court
    • – The White House
  • US Mint
    • – Coin Activities for Kids
    • – Educator Resources
  • US Postal Museum
    • – Explore the Collections
    • – Activities for Kids
    • – Stamps Teach (from APS)
  • Visual Capitalist

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