Archives for September 2020

🗓 THIRTY DAYS Hath September . . .

30 September 2020 by Bob O'Hara

Click to: riverhouses.org/2020-months

. . . April, June, and November.

Today is the 30th of September, and the 30th of September is an ideal time to make sure your young scholars know the famous verse that helps us remember how many days there are in each month.

I learned this version:

Thirty days hath September,
April, June, and November;
All the rest have thirty-one,
(Except February which has twenty-eight.)

I was an imperfect student.

The complete text that I apparently never quite got down is very old, and if you teach it to your students this week you’ll be welcoming them into an ancient inheritance. Here’s a version that was copied down about the year 1555:

Thirty days hath September,
April, June, and November;
All the rest have thirty-one,
Excepting February alone,
And that has twenty-eight days clear
And twenty-nine in each leap year.

But even that isn’t the oldest English version. A manuscript dated to about the year 1425 contains this wording, which gives November rather than September pride of place in the first line:

Thirti dayes hath Novembir,
April, June, and Septembir;
Of xxviii is but oon,
And all the remenaunt xxx and i.

Or in modern orthography:

Thirty days hath November,
April, June, and September;
Of twenty-eight [there] is but one,
And all the rest, thirty and one.

Versions exist in many other languages as well. Wherever the ancient Roman calendar has gone, this ancient verse, in one form or another, has trailed along behind.

What calendrical traditions you be marking in your homeschool this Cygnus Term? 😊

❡ Here, said the year: This is one of our occasional posts about our Homeschool Terms & Calendars (riverhouses.org/topics/calendars). Print your own set of River Houses Calendars (riverhouses.org/calendars) to follow along with us, and add your name to our weekly mailing list (riverhouses.org/newsletter) to get more great homeschool teaching ideas delivered right to your mailbox all through the year. 🗞

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🌏 🇧🇩 WEEKLY WORLD HERITAGE: The Mosque City of Bagerhat in Bangladesh

30 September 2020 by Bob O'Hara

Click to: riverhouses.org/2020-bangladesh

Bangladesh in southern Asia is one of our homeschool countries-of-the-week, so why not spend a few minutes today learning about one of Bangladesh’s World Heritage Sites: the Historic Mosque City of Bagerhat.

The historic city of Bagerhat had been swallowed up in the jungles of southern Bangladesh until it was mapped and recovered in the early twentieth century:

“The Historic Mosque City of Bagerhat is an important medieval city in the south-west part of present Bagerhat district, which is located in the south-west part of Bangladesh at the meeting-point of the Ganges and Brahmaputra rivers. The ancient city, formerly known as Khalifatabad, sprawls over on the southern bank of the old river Bhairab and flourished in the 15th century BC.

“The magnificent city, which extended for 50 km², contains some of the most significant buildings of the initial period of the development of Muslim architecture of Bengal. They include 360 mosques, public buildings, mausoleums, bridges, roads, water tanks and other public buildings constructed from baked brick.

“This old city, created within a few years and covered up by the jungle after the death of its founder in 1459, is striking because of certain uncommon features. The density of Islamic religious monuments is explained by the piety of Khan Jahan, which is evidenced by the engraved inscription on his tomb. The lack of fortifications is attributable to the possibilities of retreat into the impenetrable mangrove swamps of the Sunderbans. The quality of the infrastructures — the supply and evacuation of water, the cisterns and reservoirs, the roads and bridges — all reveal a perfect mastery of the techniques of planning and a will towards spatial organization.“ (UNESCO World Heritage Centre #321)

You can find a gallery of additional photos of the Historic Mosque City of Bagerhat on the World Heritage Centre’s website.

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/2020-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 Cygnus 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. 🌏

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📚 LIBRARY LESSONS: Getting to Know the Library of Congress

29 September 2020 by Bob O'Hara

Click to: riverhouses.org/2020-library-of-congress

Tuesday is our usual Books & Libraries Day in the River Houses, and on the several Tuesdays of September — the first month of the new school year — we (re)introduce some of the general library resources that we recommend to all homeschoolers. This week, why not get reacquainted with the Library of Congress, the national library of the United States and a rich and valuable resource for every homeschool parent and homeschool student.

The Library of Congress was established in 1800, specifically to serve the legislative research needs of the U.S. government (as its name suggests). In one of the great tragedies of the early Republic, the Library was burned in 1814 (along with the Capitol, the White House, and the Treasury) during the British sack of Washington in the War of 1812. The story of its recovery is one every American student should know: Thomas Jefferson sold his personal library, then the largest private library in the new nation, to the federal government as a replacement. Here’s a great five-minute video that tells the story of the Library of Congress from its founding to the present day:

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The Library of Congress is located in Washington, D.C., right next to the U.S. Capitol, and once this year of pestilence has passed you can pay a homeschool visit to it yourself in person. (Sadly, most of the library’s on-site offices are currently closed to the public.) The main building is the Thomas Jefferson Building with its grand reading room. Across the street are the newer Adams and Madison Buildings.

The front page of the Library of Congress website will point you to a vast range of online resources, all of which can be put to use by homeschool teachers:

➢ The Library of Congress (loc.gov)

There is a specific section of the website for educators, with lesson plans, videos, primary source guides, and more, as well as a large selection of thematic blogs on the arts, music, literature, science, prints and photos, maps and geography, and many other subjects:

One recently launched blog, Minerva’s Kaleidoscope, is specifically designed for kids and families (and homeschool teachers):

➢ Minerva’s Kaleidoscope: Library of Congress Resources of Kids and Families

The Library is also now offering a range of crowd-sourced projects that members of the general public — like you and your students — can join and contribute to. We recommend them to homeschoolers as part of our own Lunar Society project in the River Houses:

➢ “By the People” Projects at the Library of Congress

So here’s a universal homeschool assignment you can implement on any day of the week and at any time of year when you don’t know what to do. Just say this: “Go to the Library of Congress website and tell me all about one of the items featured there today.” Get your students talking, and ask them questions, and a brand new little lesson will be underway.

What educational discoveries have you been making in your library this Cygnus Term? 😊

❡ Dukedoms large enough: Have you found all the local libraries in your area? There may be more than you realize, and there’s no better homeschool field trip than a field trip to a new library! The WorldCat Library Finder will help you find all the libraries near you — public and private, large and small — and the WorldCat catalog itself will help you locate the closest copy of almost any book in the world. 📖

❡ 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. 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. 📚

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🗓 QUICK FRESHES for Homeschool Families – Week of 27 September 2020

27 September 2020 by Bob O'Hara

Click to: riverhouses.org/2020-09-27

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. Add your name to our free weekly mailing list to get posts like these 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.

🇺🇸 OUR STATE-OF-THE-WEEK is Georgia, and our COUNTRIES are Bahrain 🇧🇭, Bangladesh 🇧🇩, Barbados 🇧🇧, and Belarus 🇧🇾. (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 gibbous and waxing — a good time for moon watching! 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 (27 September 2020) — Today is the 271st day of 2020; there are 95 days remaining in this leap year. Learn more about different kinds of calendars on pages 350–356 in your River Houses almanac (riverhouses.org/books). 📚 On this day in 1941, the S.S. Patrick Henry, the first of a fleet of nearly 3000 “Liberty Ships” that transported supplies and troops during World War II, was launched in Baltimore, Maryland. ⚓️

Monday (28 September 2020) — On this day in 1928, Scottish microbiologist Alexander Fleming noticed that mold growing on some of his laboratory samples was killing colonies of bacteria. The result of this chance observation was the discovery of the first antibiotic, penicillin. 🔬

Tuesday (29 September 2020) — Today is the birthday of the great Spanish writer Miguel de Cervantes (1547–1616). 🇪🇸 It’s also the birthday of the pioneering Austrian-American economic philosopher Ludwig von Mises (1881–1973). 💵 And not only that, it’s also the birthday of the great Italian-American physicist and Nobel laureate Enrico Fermi (1901–1954). ⚛️

Wednesday (30 September 2020) — Today is the birthday of William Wrigley Jr. (1861–1932), founder of the Wrigley chewing gum company. 🍬 The Hoover Dam on the Arizona–Nevada border was dedicated on this day in 1935. 🏗 And our Wednesday tour of World Heritage Sites this week will take you to Historic Mosque City of Bagerhat in Bangladesh. 🇧🇩

Thursday (1 October 2020) — The first Ford Model T automobile was put on sale on this day in 1908. The price was $825. 🚗 The George Washington Bridge linking New York and New Jersey across the Hudson River was opened on this day in 1931. 🌉 Our homeschool poem-of-the-week for the first week of October is “To Autumn” by John Keats, perhaps the most famous fall poem in the English language and a work every student of literature should know. 🍂 Print your own River Houses Poetry Calendar (riverhouses.org/calendars) and follow along with us throughout the year. 🖋 And, there’s a full moon tonight, so that means we’ll have a report on student research opportunities from the River Houses Lunar Society (riverhouses.org/lunar). 🌕

Friday (2 October 2020) — Today is the birthday of Indian lawyer, philosopher, and political leader Mohandas Gandhi (1869–1948). 🇮🇳 It’s also the birthday of American poet Wallace Stevens (1879–1955). 🖋 The comic strip Peanuts premiered on this day in 1950. 🥜 And our Friday Bird Families post this week will introduce you to the aquatic Grebes and the fabulous Flamingos. 🦩 Print your own River Houses Calendar of American Birds (riverhouses.org/calendars) and follow the flyways with us throughout the year. 🦅

Saturday (3 October 2020) — Today is the birthday of English veterinarian James Herriot (1916–1995), author of All Creatures Great and Small and other popular books about animals. 🐑 🐂 🐓 🐖 🐐 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 (4 October 2020) — On this day in 1582, the Gregorian calendar was adopted on the European continent by decree of Pope Gregory (of course) XIII. Today was the 4th of the month, and tomorrow was declared to be the 15th. (The English-speaking world didn’t make the change for almost two more centuries.) 🗓

🥂 OUR WEEKLY TOAST and our weekly poem for the beginning of October are one and the same: “To Autumn.”

❡ 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 unpredictability in toasting!”). What will you toast this week? 🥂

🌍 🇧🇾 EVERYTHING FLOWS: Belarus in eastern Europe is one of our countries-of-the-week, so our Weekly World River is the Drut River, an important tributary of the great Dnieper. You can find its location in your recommended homeschool atlas (riverhouses.org/books), and you can read more about it in the Drut River entry in Wikipedia or perhaps on your next visit to your local library.

❡ Daughters of Ocean: 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. 🗓

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🌎 🇺🇸 SUNDAY STATES: Georgia, Bahrain, Belarus, and More

27 September 2020 by Bob O'Hara

Click to: riverhouses.org/2020-georgia

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 own 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:

🇺🇸
Georgia State Flag
GEORGIA (the 4th state, 2 January 1788) — The Peach State. Capital: Atlanta. Georgia can be found on page 568 in your almanac and on plates 42 and 142 in your atlas. Name origin: “Named by colonial administrator James Oglethorp for King George II of England in 1732” (almanac page 422). State bird: Brown Thrasher (bird guide page 418). Website: georgia.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. 😊

❡ Maps to color: National Geographic has a large blank United States map and a blank world map, complete with flags, printable in sections and ready to receive the colored pencils of your students. Why not give them a try this week. 🖍

We go through the countries of the world in alphabetical order, so this week’s countries, with their official websites, are:

🇧🇭 BAHRAIN in the Middle East. Population: 1,494,016. Capital: Manama. Government: Constitutional monarchy. Website: www.bahrain.bh (in Arabic and English).
🇧🇩 BANGLADESH in southern Asia. Population: 161,062,905. Capital: Dhaka. Government: Parliamentary republic. Website: bangladesh.gov.bd (in Bengali and English).
🇧🇧 BARBADOS in the West Indies. Population: 293,874. Capital: Bridgetown. Government: Parliamentary democracy under constitutional monarchy. Website: www.gov.bb (in English).
🇧🇾 BELARUS in eastern Europe. Population: 9,503,591. Capital: Minsk. Government: Presidential republic in name. Website: www.president.gov.by (in Belarusian, Russian, and 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 (real or virtual) will you be making in your homeschool this Cygnus 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. 🇺🇸 🌎

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🦃 🐓 FRIDAY BIRD FAMILIES: “Gallinaceous” Birds

25 September 2020 by Horace the Otter 🦦

Click to: riverhouses.org/2020-quail

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 school-year’s tour began at the beginning of this month with an introduction to your bird guide.)

This week’s group of three families has a wonderful ten-dollar name: the “gallinaceous” birds, encompassing the New World Quail (bird guide pages 54–57); the Curassows and Guans (pages 58–59); and the Partridges, Grouse, Turkeys, and Old World Quail (pages 58–67). Gallus is the Latin word for chicken, so the gallinaceous birds are the chicken-like birds, with generally plump bodies, small heads, short beaks, and rounded wings.

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

If you’re teaching younger children, the way to use these weekly overviews is just to treat your bird guide as a picture book and spend a 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 are the bird guide’s introductions to this week’s groups, written in the customary telegraphic style:

“NEW WORLD QUAIL — Family Odontophoridae. New World Quail are their own family. All have chunky bodies and crests or head plumes. In N.A. [North America], most live in the West. Species: 33 World, 6 N.A.“

“CURASSOWS · GUANS — Family Cracidae. These tropical-forest arboreal birds have short, rounded wings and long tails. Generally secretive but highly vocal. One species of this family is found in the United States. Species: 54 World, 1 N.A.“

“PARTRIDGES · GROUSE · TURKEYS · OLD WORLD QUAIL — Family Phasianidae. Ground dwellers with feathered nostrils; short, strong bills; and short, rounded wings. Flight is brief but strong. Males perform elaborate courting displays. In some species, courting birds gather in communal grounds, known as leks. Species: 178 World, 18 N.A.“

When you’re training your young naturalists, teach them to ask and answer from their bird guide some of the first questions any naturalist would ask about a new group — about the Currasow family, for example. How many species? (54 worldwide.) Are there any near us? (Only 1 species in North America, and the species map will give us more detail.) What are their distinctive features? (Forest dwellers, secretive, arboreal, long tailed, and so on.) 🔎

Many of the gallinaceous birds have played important roles in human culture for thousands of years. The domestic chicken is descended from the Red Junglefowl (Gallus gallus), a member of the Phasianidae that is native to Asia. Different species of pheasants, quail, grouse, and partridges are raised or hunted for food and ornament all around the world.

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

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 state bird of Pennsylvania: the Ruffed Grouse (page 62).

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 Ruffed Grouse? (17 inches long.) What is its scientific name? (Bonasa umbellus.) 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 drumming courtship call of the male Ruffed Grouse is one of the characteristic sounds of northern North American forests.

[See attached blog post for images, audio, 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 lives near you, or that looks striking, or that has a strange name, and explore. If you live in Alaska why not pick out the Willow Ptarmigan (the state bird), or if you’re in California, the California Quail (the state bird there). The domestic turkeys we eat are all descendants of the Wild Turkey (Meleagris gallopavo) (page 60), the largest gallinaceous bird in North America, and the species that would have become the U.S. national bird had Ben Franklin had his way. 🦃

[See attached blog post for images, audio, 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 will you be making in your homeschool this Cygnus 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, it can be made solitary or social, 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. 🌎

❡ Rivers in the sky: How many birds are migrating this week? You can find out from the BirdCast website, also sponsored by Cornell University, which offers daily bird migration forecasts in the spring and fall for the entire United States. 🦅

❡ State birds: Six members of this week’s bird families are United States state birds: the Ruffed Grouse (PA), California Quail (CA), Willow Ptarmigan (AK), and Ring-necked Pheasant (SD), and the Rhode Island Red Hen (RI) and Delaware Blue Hen (DE). The last two you won’t find in your bird guide, however, as it includes only wild, not domestic, species; try the eBird entry for the Red Junglefowl of Asia to learn more about the wild ancestor of these domestic chicken varieties. 🇺🇸

❡ 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. 🐦 🦉 🦆 🦃 🦅

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🌍 🇦🇹 WEEKLY WORLD HERITAGE: The Historic City of Salzburg in Austria

23 September 2020 by Bob O'Hara

Click to: riverhouses.org/2020-austria

(A new homeschool year has begun and so has a new tour of World Heritage Sites around the globe! Print your own River Houses World Heritage Calendar (riverhouses.org/calendars) and follow along with us every Wednesday.)

The alpine nation of Austria is one of our homeschool countries-of-the-week, so why not spend a few minutes today learning about one of Austria’s World Heritage Sites: the Historic Center of the City of Salzburg.

The old city of Salzburg is one of the best preserved urban centers of Continental Europe:

“Salzburg is an outstanding example of an ecclesiastical city-state, peculiar to the Holy Roman Empire, from Prussia to Italy. Most disappeared as political and administrative units in the early 19th century and adopted alternative trajectories of development. No other example of this type of political organism has survived so completely, preserving its urban fabric and individual buildings to such a remarkable degree as Salzburg.

“Salzburg is the point where the Italian and German cultures met and it played a crucial role in the exchanges between these two cultures. The result is a Baroque town that has emerged intact from history, an exceptional material testimony of a particular culture and period. The centre of Salzburg owes much of its Baroque appearance to the Italian architects Vincenzo Scamozzi and Santino Solari.

“The Salzburg skyline, against a backdrop of mountains, is characterized by its profusion of spires and domes, dominated by the fortress of Hohensalzburg. It contains a number of buildings, both secular and ecclesiastical, of very high quality from periods ranging from the late Middle Ages to the 20th Century. There is a clear separation, visible on the ground and on the map, between the lands of the Prince-Archbishops and those of the burghers. The former are characterized by their monumental buildings — the Cathedral, the Residence, the Franciscan Abbey, the Abbey of St Peter — and their open spaces, the Domplatz in particular. The burghers’ houses, by contrast, are on small plots and front onto narrow streets, with the only open spaces provided by the three historic markets. Salzburg is rich in buildings from the Gothic period onwards, which combine to create a townscape and urban fabric of great individuality and beauty. Salzburg is also intimately associated with many important artists and musicians, preeminent among them Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart.“ (UNESCO World Heritage Centre #784)

You can find a gallery of additional photos of historic Salzburg on the World Heritage Centre’s website.

What world treasures will you be exploring in your homeschool this Cygnus Term? 😊

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🖋 🍃 WONDERFUL WORDS: “Our Summer made her light escape”

22 September 2020 by Bob O'Hara

Click to: riverhouses.org/2020-dickinson

The Chimney Swifts are gone. (That’s how it is in my neighborhood.) The Kingbirds too. Did you notice? In the spring when they arrive their sound strikes your ear like a fresh spark. But when they depart — have they departed? — they slip away silently in the night.

As we pass today’s equinox and enter into astronomical autumn, Emily Dickinson (1830–1886) provides us with our pensive homeschool poem-of-the-week for the last week of September:

As imperceptibly as Grief
The Summer lapsed away —
Too imperceptible at last
To seem like Perfidy —

A Quietness distilled
As Twilight long begun,
Or Nature spending with herself
Sequestered Afternoon —

The Dusk drew earlier in —
The Morning foreign shone —
A courteous, yet harrowing Grace,
As Guest, that would be gone —

And thus, without a Wing
Or service of a Keel
Our Summer made her light escape
Into the Beautiful.

If your students are learning how to read poetry — and poetry requires a special kind of reading, different from prose reading — tell them not to go too quickly or expect everything to be clear on the first pass through. Getting to know a poem is like getting to know a person: some things are apparent on the surface, but there are new things to discover over time with repeated engagement (and with expanded life experience). If you make the effort you’ll often discover that good poems, like good people, can become friends for life.

[Emily Dickinson Homestead] — The Emily Dickinson Homestead, Amherst, Massachusetts. (Image: Massachusetts Office of Travel and Tourism.)

For traditionally styled poems like this one, the first thing to do as you make the poem’s acquaintance is not to think about meaning or abstract symbolism; instead, just count syllables. As imperceptibly as Grief (eight). The Summer lapsed away (six). Too imperceptible at last (eight). To seem like Perfidy (six). 8-6-8-6. The other three stanzas are shortened versions of that pattern: 6-6-8-6.

“Eights-and-sixes” is one of the most common hymn meters in the Protestant tradition, and Emily Dickinson learned her very precise prosody from the church hymns she grew up with. Compare the rhythm of the first stanza above with this familiar verse:

Amazing grace! How sweet the sound
That saved a wretch like me!
I once was lost, but now am found;
Was blind, but now I see.

A perfect match (8-6-8-6). Whenever you encounter Emily Dickinson in your homeschool reading — and I hope that will be often — start by counting syllables and you’ll gain a new appreciation for the details of her craft.

What wonderful words and poetical productions will you be studying in your homeschool this Cygnus Term? 😊

❡ Our summer made her light escape: 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. 🍃

❡ Looking in the lexicon: There’s some wonderful vocabulary in this week’s poem to look up in your family dictionary (riverhouses.org/books): imperceptible, perfidy, distilled, sequestered, harrowing, keel, lapsed. Send your students to the dictionary also for any poetical terminology they encounter: stanza, couplet, quatrain, sonnet, pentameter, hexameter, iambic, dactylic, and more — wonderful words, every one! 🔎

❡ Literary lives: The website of the Poetry Foundation includes biographical notes and examples of the work of many important poets (including Emily Dickinson) 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 fifty of our favorite friends over the course of the year. 📖

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🗓 🍂 FALL IS HERE! (Astronomically Speaking)

22 September 2020 by Bob O'Hara

Click to: riverhouses.org/2020-09-equinox

Today is the September equinox — we call it the autumnal or fall equinox in the northern hemisphere, but in the southern hemisphere it’s the vernal or spring equinox. The autumnal equinox is (in astronomical terms) the first day of fall, just as the vernal equinox is (in astronomical terms) the first day of spring.

❡ Little lessons: “‘Vernal’ and ‘autumnal’ are beautiful words. Let’s look them up in our dictionary (riverhouses.org/books).”

Whenever you’re investigating things temporal or calendrical, timeanddate.com is always a good place to start:

➢ The September Equinox: Equal Day and Night, Nearly

The seasons occur because the earth’s axis of daily rotation is not quite perpendicular to the plane of the earth’s annual orbit around the sun (it’s tilted by about 23º). The two solstices occur at the points in the orbit when the axis of rotation is tilted most directly away from the sun (in December, on the first day of northern-hemisphere winter) and most directly toward the sun (in June, on the first day of northern-hemisphere summer). The two equinoxes, in March and September, occur when the earth’s axis of rotation is “sideways” to the sun (so to speak), making the intervals of daylight and darkness equal (or very nearly so).

The two equinoxes (March and September) and the two solstices (June and December) are defined with respect to the earth’s position in its annual orbit around the sun. (Image: timeanddate.com.)

NASA has a fun educational crossword puzzle for kids that’s filled with seasonal vocabulary — solstices, equinoxes, and more.

Solstices, equinoxes, orbits, and more! A seasonal crossword puzzle for kids. (Image: NASA.)

You can print out your own copy at NASA’s “For Educators” website.

What calendrical events and astronomical alignments will you be marking in your homeschool this Cygnus Term? 😊

❡ Watchers of the skies: Teaching your students about the seasons and the stars is one of the simplest and most enduring gifts you can give them. Your recommended River Houses astronomy guide (riverhouses.org/books) has descriptions and maps of all the constellations that point out the seasonal highlights, and the astronomical section of your recommended world atlas has beautiful large charts of both celestial spheres. Find a dark-sky spot near you this month and spend some quality homeschool time beneath the starry vault. 🌠 🔭 🌞

❡ Here, said the year: This is one of our regular posts on Homeschool Astronomy and on Homeschool Terms & Calendars. 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 homeschool year. 🍂 ⛄️ 🌷 ⛱

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🗓 QUICK FRESHES for Homeschool Families – Week of 20 September 2020

20 September 2020 by Bob O'Hara

Click to: riverhouses.org/2020-09-20

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. Add your name to our free weekly mailing list to get posts like these delivered right to your mailbox, and visit our calendar page (riverhouses.org/calendars) to print your own homeschool calendars and planners for the entire year.

🇺🇸 OUR STATE-OF-THE-WEEK is New Jersey, and our COUNTRIES are Australia 🇦🇺, Austria 🇦🇹, Azerbaijan 🇦🇿, and the Bahamas 🇧🇸. (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 (20 September 2020) — Today is the 264th day of 2020; there are 102 days remaining in this leap year. Learn more about different kinds of calendars on pages 350–356 in your River Houses almanac (riverhouses.org/books). 📚 “On the 20th of September 1839, an English officer, residing in the neighbourhood of Calcutta, saw a quantity of live fish descend in a smart shower of rain. They were about three inches in length, and all of one kind. Some, falling on hard ground, were killed; some, which fell on soft grass, continued in life.” 🐟🐟

Monday (21 September 2020) — Today is the birthday of the great English composer Gustav Holst (1874–1934). 🎵

Tuesday (22 September 2020) — Happy First Day of Fall! 🍂 Today is the September Equinox, known as the autumnal or fall equinox in the northern hemisphere and the vernal or spring equinox in the southern hemisphere (where today is the first day of spring). 🗓 On this day in 1776, American spy Nathan Hale, age 21, was executed by the British in New York City. His final words were said to be, “I only regret that I have but one life to lose for my country.” 🇺🇸 Today is also the birthday of the great experimental physicist Michael Faraday (1791–1867). ⚡️ And not only that, it’s Hobbit Day! 🌋 Our homeschool poem-of-the-week for the last week of September, as astronomical summer becomes fall, is a pensive equinoctial lyric by Emily Dickinson. 🍃 Print your own River Houses Poetry Calendar (riverhouses.org/calendars) and follow along with us throughout the 2020–2021 homeschool year. 🖋

Wednesday (23 September 2020) — Today is the birthday of Gaius Octavius Thurinus, better known as Augustus Caesar, the first emperor of the Roman Empire (63 B.C. – A.D. 14). 🏛 And our Wednesday tour of World Heritage Sites this week will take you to the Historic Center of the City of Salzburg in Austria. 🇦🇹 Print your own River Houses World Heritage Calendar (riverhouses.org/calendars) and follow along with us throughout the 2020–2021 homeschool year. 🌎

Thursday (24 September 2020) — On this day in 1789, the U.S. Congress, acting under the new Constitution, established the federal judiciary system and specified a structure for the Supreme Court (with six, not the current nine, justices). ⚖️ And … it’s Na·tion·al Punc·tu·a·tion Day!@*&(#)&*@!

Friday (25 September 2020) — Today is the birthday of the great American geneticist and Nobel Prize laureate Thomas Hunt Morgan (1866–1945), who established the role of chromosomes in the process of inheritance. 🔬 It’s also the birthday of American poet and children’s author Shel Silverstein (1930–1999). 📚 And the great Canadian classical pianist Glenn Gould was born on this day in 1932. 🎹 Our Friday Bird Families post this week will introduce you to the New World Quail, Curassows, Guans, Partridges, Grouse, Turkeys, and Old World Quail. 🦃 Print your own River Houses Calendar of American Birds (riverhouses.org/calendars) and follow the flyways with us throughout the year. 🦅

Saturday (26 September 2020) — On this day in 1687, during the Venetian siege of Athens, a bomb fell on the Parthenon, which was being used by the Ottoman Turks for munitions storage. The roof, parts of the frieze, and many of the columns, which had stood for more than two thousand years, were destroyed. 🏛 Today is the birthday of American nurseryman and folk hero John Chapman (1774–1845), better known as Johnny Appleseed. 🍎 It’s also the birthday of American poet and Nobel Prize laureate T.S. Eliot (1888–1965), author of (among other things) Old Possum’s Book of Practical Cats, a wonderful read-aloud book for children. 🐈

Sunday (27 September 2020) — On this day in 1941, the S.S. Patrick Henry, the first of a fleet of nearly 3000 “Liberty Ships” that transported supplies and troops during World War II, was launched in Baltimore, Maryland. ⚓️

🥂 OUR WEEKLY TOAST, for the disappearing daylight hours: “May the shadows of evening calm the excitement of the day.”

🌍 🇦🇿 EVERYTHING FLOWS: Azerbaijan in west-central Asia is one of our countries-of-the-week, so our Weekly World River is the Qanix River, also known as the Alazani River, which forms part of the border between Azerbaijan and Georgia. You can find its location in your recommended homeschool atlas (riverhouses.org/books), and you can read more about it in the Qanix River entry in Wikipedia or perhaps on your next visit to your local library.

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

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🌎 🇺🇸 SUNDAY STATES: New Jersey, Australia, the Bahamas, and More

20 September 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.

🇺🇸
New Jersey State Flag
NEW JERSEY (the 3rd state, 18 December 1787) — The Garden State. Capital: Trenton. New Jersey can be found on page 579 in your almanac and on plates 43 and 142 in your atlas. Name origin: “The Duke of York, in 1664, gave a patent to Lord John Berkeley and Sir George Carteret for Nova Caesaria, or New Jersey, after England’s Isle of Jersey” (almanac page 422). State bird: American Goldfinch (bird guide page 442). Website: nj.gov.

❡ Maps to color! National Geographic has a free large blank United States map and a blank world map, complete with flags, printable in sections and ready to receive the colored pencils of your students. Why not give them a try this week. 🖍

We go through the countries of the world in alphabetical order, so this week’s countries, with their official websites, are:

🇦🇺 AUSTRALIA between the southwestern Pacific and Indian Oceans. Population: 23,705,630. Capital: Canberra. Government: Parliamentary democracy under constitutional monarchy. Website: australia.gov.au (in English).
🇦🇹 AUSTRIA in south-central Europe. Population: 8,828,456. Capital: Vienna. Government: Federal parliamentary republic. Website: bundeskanzleramt.gv.at (in German and English).
🇦🇿 AZERBAIJAN in southwestern Asia. Population: 10,128,025. Capital: Baku. Government: Presidential republic. Website: president.az (in Azerbaijani, Russian, and English).
🇧🇸 THE BAHAMAS in the Atlantic Ocean off the coast of Florida. Population: 335,210. Capital: Nassau. Government: Parliamentary democracy under constitutional monarchy. Website: www.bahamas.gov.bs (in English).

What grand global geographical excursions (real or virtual) will you be making in your homeschool this Cygnus Term? 😊

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🔭 SATURDAY STARS: Star Names, and a Little Latin and Greek

19 September 2020 by Bob O'Hara

Click to: riverhouses.org/2020-star-names

Saturday is our usual day to post homeschool astronomy notes for the River Houses. On the first Saturday each month we take a glance at what will be happening in the skies in the weeks ahead, and on the second Saturday we post about one of the Great Stars of the northern hemisphere night sky — print your own copy of our monthly star calendar and follow along with us!

Teaching your homeschool students the names of the major constellations and the brightest stars is one of the most enduring gifts you can give them. Most of the brightest stars that are visible to the naked eye have both old vernacular names — Vega, Aldebaran, Sirius, Arcturus, and so on — as well as more formal scientific designations. Some of the vernacular names are derived from Latin or Greek, but many come from Arabic — astronomy is one of the few subjects where English has absorbed quite a few words from Arabic. (The other principal subject is the related field of mathematics.) You can recognize the Arabic origin of many star names by noting how many begin with “Al-”: Alpheratz, Algol, Aldebaran, and so on. “Al” is the definite article in Arabic, equivalent to “The” in English, so Al-pheratz, Al-gol, and Al-debaran are (with some semantic scrambling over time), The Navel, The Ghoul, and The Follower. A good dictionary will typically give you the derivations of the best-known star names (though perhaps not some of the lesser ones).

There are an awful lot of stars visible to the naked eye, however, and giving them all individual names is not practical. Astronomers needed to develop a clear system of star nomenclature that was simple and expandable, and that incorporated within the names themselves some basic information about each star — its brightness and general location, for example.

The German astronomer Johann Bayer (1572–1625) was the one who devised the formal system of star naming that is still in common use today — it’s a system all young homeschool astronomers should get to know, and it will give them a chance to learn a tiny bit of Latin and Greek along the way.

In Bayer’s system, the stars in each constellation, from brightest to dimmest, are assigned a lowercase letter of the Greek alphabet: α (alpha, brightest), β (beta, second brightest), γ (gamma, third brightest), δ (delta, fourth brightest), and so on. (You can find a table of alpha‑bets, including Greek, on page 51 of our recommended homeschool dictionary.) This Greek-letter designation is combined with the name of the constellation in its Latin possessive (genitive) form: Lyra becomes Lyrae (“of Lyra”), Canis Major becomes Canis Majoris (“of Canis Major”), and so on. The brightest star in the constellation Lyra (the star Vega) thus becomes α Lyrae (“alpha of Lyra”), the brightest star in Canis Major (the star Sirius) becomes α Canis Majoris (“alpha of Canis Major”), the brightest star in the constellation Cygnus (the star Deneb, which we wrote about last week) becomes α Cygni (“alpha of Cygnus”), and so on, through all 24 Greek letters and all 88 constellations.

The constellation Cygnus the Swan, flying down to the right with wings outstretched. The principal stars are marked with their Bayer designations: alpha (α) Cygni, also known as Deneb, in the upper left; beta (β) Cygni, also known as Albireo, another Arabic star name, in the lower right; gamma (γ) Cygni in the center; delta (δ) Cygni on one wing; and epsilon (ε) Cygni on the other wing.

Our recommended backyard astronomy guide includes simplified charts of all the constellations, good for beginners, and on these, as on any professional star chart, you’ll see the little Greek letters next to each star — that’s the legacy of good old Johann Bayer.

What celestial sights and astronomical apparitions will you be examining in your homeschool this Cygnus Term? 🔭

❡ 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. 🌌

❡ Star bright: If you’d like some light and easy homeschool astronomy lessons, download and print a copy of our annual River Houses Star Calendar (riverhouses.org/calendars) and follow along with us month by month as we make twelve heavenly friends-for-life over the course of the year. 🌟

❡ 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. 🗞

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