Archives for January 2021

🖋 🌹 WONDERFUL WORDS: Happy Birthday to Robbie Burns!

25 January 2021 by Bob O'Hara

Take a few homeschool minutes this week to remember (and listen to) Robert Burns, the national poet of Scotland, born on this day in 1759.

One of a series of 1996 British postage stamps commemorating Robert Burns on the bicentennial of his death.

The poetry of Robert Burns has been read and sung around the world for more than 200 years. Many of Burns’ poems are written in the Scots dialect of English, which is sometimes a bit difficult for beginners, but with a little practice and thought (and with occasional help from a good dictionary) their structure and imagery are easily understood. His famous poem of the departing lover who promises to return, “A Red, Red Rose,” is an excellent Burns introduction for any young poetry student. It can serve as a bonus poem-of-the-week for this last week of January.

A Red, Red Rose

O my Luve is like a red, red rose
That’s newly sprung in June;
O my Luve is like the melody
That’s sweetly played in tune.

So fair art thou, my bonnie lass,
So deep in luve am I;
And I will luve thee still, my dear,
Till all the seas gang dry.

Till all the seas gang dry, my dear,
And the rocks melt wi’ the sun;
I will love thee still, my dear,
While the sands of life shall run.

And fare thee weel, my only luve!
And fare thee weel awhile!
And I will come again, my dear,
Though it were ten thousand miles.

But “A Red, Red Rose” isn’t just a poem, it’s a song, and this fine version by the Scottish-Canadian singer John McDermott (b. 1955) may help your students understand and appreciate it more — I think it even works as a beautiful lullaby.

Happy birthday, Robbie — may your songs be remembered till all the seas gang dry!

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

❡ While the sands of life are run: Do your students recognize one of the most ancient, and yet still current, metaphors for the passage of time? ⏳

❡ Though it were ten thousand miles: 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. 😊

❡ Here, said the year: This post is an extra bonus homeschool poems-of-the-week. Add your name to our River Houses mailing list to get posts like these delivered right to your mailbox, and print your own River Houses Poetry Calendar to follow along with us as we visit fifty of our favorite friends over the course of the year. 📖

🗓 QUICK FRESHES for Homeschool Families – Week of 24 January 2021

24 January 2021 by Bob O'Hara

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 mailing list to get posts like these delivered right to your mailbox each week. Visit our River Houses calendar page to print your own homeschool calendars and planners for the entire year.

🇺🇸 OUR STATE-OF-THE-WEEK is Illinois, and our COUNTRIES are Ireland 🇮🇪, Israel 🇮🇱, Italy 🇮🇹, and Jamaica 🇯🇲. (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 371–386 in your almanac. Browse through our many astronomy posts for even more.

🗓 TODAY, Sunday (24 January 2021) — Today is the 24th day of 2021; there are 341 days remaining in this common year. Learn more about different kinds of modern and historical calendars on pages 387–393 in your River Houses almanac. 📚 On this day in 1848, James W. Marshall discovered gold at Sutter’s Mill, California, touching off the California Gold Rush. ⛏

Monday (25 January 2021) — Today is the birthday of the great Scottish poet Robert Burns (1759–1796), aye. 🌹

Tuesday (26 January 2021) — The world’s largest diamond, the Cullinan Diamond, was found on this day in 1905 in the Premier mine near Pretoria, South Africa. 💎 And on this day in 1915, Rocky Mountain National Park was established by an act of the U.S. Congress. 🏞

Wednesday (27 January 2021) — Today is the birthday of the great classical composer Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756–1791). 🎼 And our Wednesday tour of World Heritage Sites this week will take you to the Necropolis of Bet She’arim in Israel. 🇮🇱

Thursday (28 January 2021) — On this day in 1986, the Space Shuttle Challenger exploded just 73 seconds after launch, killing all seven members of the astronaut crew. 👨‍🚀👨‍🚀👨‍🚀👩‍🚀👩‍🚀👨‍🚀👨‍🚀 Today is also the birthday of the great choral composer John Taverner (1944–2013). 🎼 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. 🌕

Friday (29 January 2021) — Today is the birthday of Revolutionary war general Moses Cleaveland (1754–1806), the founder of Cleveland, Ohio. 🏙 It’s also the birthday of the great Russian writer Anton Chekhov (1860–1904). 🖋 Our Friday Bird Families post this week will introduce you to the Owls! Print your own River Houses Calendar of American Birds and follow the flyways with us throughout the year. 🦉

Saturday (30 January 2021) — Today is the birthday of U.S. president Franklin Roosevelt (1882–1945). 🇺🇸 It’s also the birthday of pioneering computer scientist Douglas Engelbart (1925–2013), inventor of the computer mouse and many other standard features of modern computers. 🖱

Sunday (31 January 2021) — Today is the birthday of the great Austrian pianist and composer Franz Schubert (1797–1828). 🎹 It’s also the birthday of baseball great Jackie Robinson (1919–1972), the first African-American to play in the Major Leagues. ⚾️ And on this day in 1930, Scotch Tape first went on the market. 📦

🥂 ⛏ OUR WEEKLY TOAST, in honor of the discovery of gold at Sutter’s Mill this week in 1848, is a traditional miners’ toast from Yorkshire: “May all your labours be in vein.”

❡ 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: The island-nation of Jamaica in the West Indies is one of our countries-of-the-week, so our Weekly World River is the Black River, one of the longest rivers in Jamaica. You can find its location in your recommended homeschool atlas, and you can read more about it in the Black 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 699–701), 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 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 and follow along with us. 🗓

🌎 🇺🇸 SUNDAY STATES: Illinois, Ireland, Jamaica, and More

24 January 2021 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 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 458), so this week’s state is:

🇺🇸
Illinois State Flag
ILLINOIS (the 21st state, 3 December 1818) — The Prairie State. Capital: Springfield. Illinois can be found on page 576 in your almanac and on plates 41 and 142 in your atlas. Name origin: “French for Illini or ‘land of Illini,’ Algonquin word meaning ‘men’ or ‘warriors’” (almanac page 459). State bird: Northern Cardinal (bird guide page 522). Website: illinois.gov.

❡ Little lessons: You can teach a hundred little lessons with our state-of-the-week, using your reference library 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:

🇮🇪 IRELAND in western Europe. Population: 5,176,569. Capital: Dublin. Government: Parliamentary republic. Website: www.gov.ie (in English and Irish).
🇮🇱 ISRAEL in the Middle East. Population: 8,675,475. Capital: Jerusalem. Government: Parliamentary democracy. Website: www.gov.il (in Hebrew, English, and several other languages).
🇮🇹 ITALY in southern Europe. Population: 62,402,659. Capital: Rome. Government: Parliamentary Republic. Website: www.governo.it (in Italian).
🇯🇲 JAMAICA in the West Indies. Population: 2,808,570. Capital: Kingston. Government: Parliamentary democracy under constitutional monarchy. Website: jis.gov.jm (in English).

These all appear in your current almanac, atlas, and history encyclopedia as well. The almanac, for example, has profiles of the nations of the world on pages 752–859; 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 Orion 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 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 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 to get more great homeschool teaching ideas delivered right to your mailbox every week. 🇺🇸 🌎

🖋 🚀 HOMESCHOOL HISTORY: Remembering Challenger

22 January 2021 by Bob O'Hara

On January 28th in 1986, the Space Shuttle Challenger exploded just 73 seconds after its launch from Cape Canaveral in Florida. All seven members of the crew were lost: Francis Scobee, Michael Smith, Ronald McNair, Ellison Onizuka, Judith Resnik, Gregory Jarvis, and Christa McAuliffe.

The Challenger disaster had a disproportionate effect on young people in the United States at the time because crew member Christa McAuliffe was the first “Teacher in Space,” scheduled to broadcast classroom lessons from earth orbit. Tens of thousands of school children across the country watched the launch on live TV and saw the explosion as it happened.

We mark the week of the Challenger anniversary each year with three texts — one poetical and two oratorical — that you might like to share with your students. The first is the famous poem “Sea-Fever” by the English poet John Masefield (1878–1967): it’s our homeschool poem-of-the-week for this last week of January.

Sea-Fever

I must go down to the seas again, to the lonely sea and the sky,
And all I ask is a tall ship and a star to steer her by,
And the wheel’s kick and the wind’s song and the white sail’s shaking,
And a grey mist on the sea’s face and a grey dawn breaking.

I must go down to the seas again, for the call of the running tide
Is a wild call and a clear call that may not be denied;
And all I ask is a windy day with the white clouds flying,
And the flung spray and the blown spume, and the sea-gulls crying.

I must go down to the seas again, to the vagrant gypsy life,
To the gull’s way and the whale’s way where the wind’s like a whetted knife;
And all I ask is a merry yarn from a laughing fellow-rover,
And quiet sleep and a sweet dream when the long trick’s over.

On the evening of the Challenger launch, President Ronald Reagan had been scheduled to deliver his annual State of the Union Address to Congress. He decided to postpone that event and instead spoke to the nation on television, addressing in particular the school children who had seen the disaster unfold earlier that day: “The future doesn’t belong to the faint-hearted: it belongs to the brave.” Classical homeschoolers may recognize Reagan’s Challenger Address, like Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address, as an example of epideictic oratory. It’s now widely regarded as one of the great speeches of the late twentieth century.

The final text, from the film Chariots of Fire, is the dinner speech given by the master of Caius College at Cambridge University to the college’s newly arrived students — young people not much older than your own students — just after the end of World War I in 1919. It begins as an epideictic address, and then finishes in a powerful hortatory manner.

I take the war list and I run down it. Name after name, which I cannot read, and which we who are older than you cannot hear, without emotion; names which will be only names to you, the new college, but which to us summon up face after face, full of honesty and goodness, zeal and vigor, and intellectual promise; the flower of a generation, the glory of England; and they died for England and all that England stands for.

And now by tragic necessity their dreams have become yours. Let me exhort you: examine yourselves. Let each of you discover where your true chance of greatness lies.

For their sakes, for the sake of your college and your country, seize this chance, rejoice in it, and let no power or persuasion deter you in your task.

Roger, go at throttle up.

The future doesn’t belong to the faint-hearted: it belongs to the brave.

❡ All I ask is a tall ship: 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. 😊

❡ The surly bonds of earth: Millions of Americans in 1986 would have immediately recognized the last lines of Reagan’s speech, even if they couldn’t name the source. The lines are from “High Flight,” a poem by World War II aviator John Gillespie Magee Jr. (1922–1941) that has long been a favorite of both pilots and astronauts. A two-minute film that featured the poem was broadcast for many years as the nightly sign-off transmission by television stations all across the country. “High Flight” was later inscribed on the memorial to the Challenger Seven in Arlington National Cemetery. ✈️

❡ 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 to get posts like these delivered right to your mailbox, and print your own River Houses Poetry Calendar to follow along with us as we visit fifty of our favorite friends over the course of the year. 📖

🦅 FRIDAY BIRD FAMILIES: New World Vultures, Ospreys, Hawks, Kites, and Eagles

22 January 2021 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. 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 (three different families) are the New World Vultures (pages 268–269), the Ospreys (pages 270–271), and the Hawks, Kites, and Eagles (pages 270–293).

If you’re teaching younger children, the way to use these posts is just to treat your bird guide as a picture book and spend a few minutes each week looking at all the interesting birds they may see one day. With that, your little lesson is done.

If you have older students, one of your objectives should be to help them become fluent with a technical reference book that’s packed with information, the kind of book they will encounter in many different fields of study. Here’s how your bird guide introduces this week’s birds:

NEW WORLD VULTURES — Family Cathartidae. Small, unfeathered head and hooked bill aid in consuming carrion. Generally silent away from nesting site. Latest research indicates that these species are more closely related to hawks than storks; placement here restores an earlier treatment. Species: 3 World, 3 N.A. [North America]

OSPREYS — Family Pandionidae. Large, eagle-like raptor with reversible outer toes. Feeds almost exclusively on fish, normally caught live and then transported head first and belly down. Species: 1 World, 1 N.A.

HAWKS · KITES · EAGLES — Family Accipitridae. Worldwide family of diurnal birds of prey, with hooked bills and strong talons. Species: 240 World, 27 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 Hawks, Kites, and Eagles, for example. How many species? (240 worldwide — a large group!) Are there any near us? (27 species in North America, and the individual maps will give us more detail.) What are their distinctive features? (Diurnal, predatory, hooked bills, talons, and so on.) (And both “diurnal” and “talon” are certainly wonderful words — be sure to send someone to your homeschool dictionary to look them up!) 🔎

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, from the Hawks, Kites, and Eagles, why not investigate our national bird: the Bald Eagle (page 274).

Everybody can recognize an adult Bald Eagle, but have your students ever seen one in the wild? (It’s a real bird, not just an emblem.) All sorts of biological information is packed into the brief Bald Eagle species description in your bird guide — can your students tease it out? How big is a Bald Eagle? (31–37 inches long with a wingspan up to 90 inches!) What is its scientific name? (Haliaeetus leucocephalus.) Will you be able to find this species where you live? (Probably, as they occur across most of North America, although they aren’t common everywhere.) 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? (Yes.) The adults and juveniles? (No!) 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.)

For the Osprey family, which contains only a single species, take a few minutes to look at (naturally enough) the Osprey (page 270), a fish-eating predator found on every continent except Antarctica.

And for the New World Vulture family, take a look at another widespread North American species that you can almost certainly find near you: the Turkey Vulture (page 268), named for its bare, red, turkey-like head.

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.

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 Orion 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. 🐦

❡ Enchiridion: The front matter in your bird guide (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 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 includes an excellent world atlas that will help your students appreciate many aspects of biogeography, the science of the geographical distribution of living things. 🌎

❡ Nature notes: This is one of our regular Friday Bird Families posts for homeschool naturalists. Print your own copy of our River Houses Calendar of American Birds and follow along with us! You can also add your name to our free weekly mailing list to get great homeschool teaching ideas delivered right to your mailbox all through the year. 🐦 🦉 🦆 🦃 🦅

🪙 ✈️ AMERICA THE BEAUTIFUL: Tuskegee Airmen National Historic Site Quarter

21 January 2021 by Bob O'Hara

Calling all homeschool historians, geographers, artists, and treasure hunters! Here’s something new to search for in your pockets this month: the Tuskegee Airmen National Historic Site “America the Beautiful” quarter, just out from the U.S. Mint.

Tuskegee Airmen National Historic Site “America the Beautiful” quarter, 2021. (Image: U.S. Mint.)

If you’re looking for a fun and easy way to include some interesting geographical and historical facts in your homeschool schedule (as well as a little motivational treasure hunting), you can’t do better than to keep an eye on the “America the Beautiful” quarters series. This commemorative series began in 2010 and each year five new designs are issued featuring national parks and other historic sites in the U.S. states and territories.

The latest quarter commemorates the Tuskegee Airmen National Historic Site in Alabama, and it has just gone into circulation:

The Tuskegee Airmen National Historic Site in Alabama commemorates the heroic actions and achievements of the famous Tuskegee Airmen. The term “Tuskegee Airmen” pertains to both men and women of diverse nationalities. They were composed of nearly 1,000 pilots and more than 15,000 support staff (including navigators, bombardiers, and mechanics). The site preserves five historic structures used during primary flight training in World War II. (U.S. Mint)

The Mint has a remarkably comprehensive set of free lesson plans available for the whole America the Beautiful series — you could make quite an American history course out of them. And the Mint also has a very nice simple album for this series — just the thing to get some educational treasure hunting under way. 🔍

What numismatical discoveries have you and your students been making in your homeschool this Orion Term? 😊

❡ Come, here’s the map: The America the Beautiful quarters are a great tool for teaching about geography. Locate each park and each historic site in your homeschool atlas, and spread out your whole collection on atlas plate 35, the map of the entire United States. 🗺

❡ Explore more: These quarters are great for teaching history, too. For an illustrated overview of the history of World War II, in which the Tuskegee Airmen fought, turn to pages 386–405 in your homeschool history encyclopedia. ⚔️

❡ Explore more: The Mint has a great introductory page on the history of United States circulating coinage that would be just the thing to use with your young homescholars. Why not study it with them, or ask them to read it and narrate the main points back to you to show what they’ve learned. 🪙

❡ Make it a tradition: Why not pick up a roll of circulated quarters at your local grocery store or bank each week and invite your students to go through it around the kitchen table. A whole world of historical and geographical discovery awaits them. 💰

❡ Cabinets of wonder: This is one of our occasional posts on the educational value of collections and collecting for homeschoolers. Add your name to our free weekly mailing list and get great homeschool teaching ideas delivered right to your mailbox all through the year. 🗞

🌏 🇮🇩 WEEKLY WORLD HERITAGE: The Sangiran Early Man Site in Indonesia

20 January 2021 by Bob O'Hara

Indonesia in southeastern Asia is one of our homeschool countries-of-the-week, so why not spend a few minutes today learning about one of Indonesia’s World Heritage Sites: the Sangiran Early Man Site.

The Sangiran archeological site on the Indonesian island of Java is one of the best-known localities where fossils of Homo erectus, an archaic predecessor of modern Homo sapiens, have been found:

Sangiran Early Man Site is situated about 15 kilometers in the north of Solo town in Central Java, Indonesia, covering an area of 5,600 hectares. It became famous after the discovery of Homo erectus remains and associated stone artifacts (well-known as the Sangiran flake industry) in the 1930s. There is a very significant geological sequence from the upper Pliocene until the end of Middle Pleistocene depicting the human, faunal, and cultural evolutions within the last 2.4 million years. The property also yields important archaeological occupation floors dating back to the Lower Pleistocene around 1.2 million years ago.

The macrofossils that appear abundantly from the layers provide a detailed and clear record of many faunal elements, while the property reveals more than 100 individuals of Homo erectus, dating back to at least 1.5 million years ago. These fossils show the human evolution process during the Pleistocene period, particularly from 1.5 to 0.4 million years ago. Inhabited for the past one and a half million years, Sangiran is one of the key sites for the understanding of human evolution. More discoveries of stone tools have been made since. These human, fauna, and stone tool materials were deposited within its unbroken stratigraphical layers. (UNESCO World Heritage Centre #593)

The Sangiran site was first examined by archaeologists as far back as the 1880s, and it has been an Indonesian protected cultural site since 1977.

You can find a gallery of additional photos of the Sangiran Early Man Site 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, available for the cost of shipping. Why not add them both to your own homeschool library. 🗺

What world treasures have you been exploring in your homeschool this Orion Term? 😊

❡ Books in the running brooks: You can always turn to your River Houses almanac, atlas, and history encyclopedia for more information about any of our countries-of-the-week. The almanac has profiles of all the nations of the world on pages 752–859; 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 and follow along with us as we tour the planet, and add your name to our weekly mailing list to get great homeschool teaching ideas delivered right to your mailbox all through the year. 🌏

🔎 HOMESCHOOL RESEARCH & NEWS – January 2021

19 January 2021 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. 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 or introductions below are quoted in full whenever possible, without editing.

We have four items this month; the fourth includes a critique of Elizabeth Bartholet’s call for a ban on homeschooling, which has been noted in these monthly reviews several times previously.

(1) ‘Homeschooling in Times of Corona’: Exploring Mexican and German Primary School Students’ and Parents’ Chances and Challenges During Homeschooling — M. Pozas, V. Letzel, & C. Schneider (2021)

Abstract: The Corona virus (COVID-19) crisis forced many countries to follow strict protocols ordering schools to close. With schools under lockdown, homeschooling has become the only form of schooling available. Reports have indicated that parents and students have struggled with the challenges of homeschooling. Against this background, this study explored primary school students and parents’ educational chances and challenges during homeschooling in two countries: Mexico and Germany. Comparing these two countries can shed light into potential differences of how inclusive approaches have been incorporated in homeschooling. Following a qualitative approach, thirteen semi-structured interviews were conducted with parents and school students. Results from a qualitative content analysis revealed that parents across both countries face challenges to organise homeschooling and motivate their children. However, they spent more time with their children. Primary school students in Germany and Mexico are challenged considerably by the loss of social contact.

(2) Homeschooling: An Alternative to New Normal Adaptation of Learning — E. Damayanti, E.M.P. Dewi, N.M. Jalal, M. Rasyid, & N. Haeba (2020)

Abstract: This research aims at finding out the public perception about the homeschooling which is chosen as an alternative in adaptation to the new normal learning. This research took forty-eight participants who are dominated by educators and magister or profession. Questionnaire as the instrument on this research was shared via Google form. The collected data were analyzed by using descriptive statistics. The findings show that the participants think about the theme “Homeschooling: An Alternative to New Normal Adaptation of Learning” in workshop activities suitable with the conditions of the covid-19 pandemic and fulfill the participants’ needs. The previous studies show that many things should be considered by looking at the advantages and risks of applying homeschooling, which means that other alternatives such as pleasant activities can be applied during the new normal.

(3) Homeschooling Mothers: Precarious by Choice? — K. Machovcová, A. Beláňová, Y. Kostelecká, & M. Mccabe (2020)

Abstract: This article presents the findings of a study on homeschooling in Czechia. It focuses on the gender aspects of this uncommon educational decision. Based on forty-three individual interviews with homeschooling parents, the article’s unifying thread is interest in understanding how mothers are involved in the decision to homeschool, and how the practice is embedded in gendered relationships within the society. We explore the results from two perspectives. First, we consider how the choice to homeschool lies simultaneously in embracing and opposing cultural imperatives of good mothering. Second, we explore the precarious status of homeschooling mothers in relation to economic independence. By shedding light on individual choice within social structures, we situate the practice of homeschooling within the gender inequalities of today’s society.

(4) Between Elitism and Populism: A Case for Pluralism in Schooling and Homeschooling — R. Maranto (2020)

Abstract: Inherently, populism questions elite values and expertise; thus, populists oppose and usually are opposed by elites. Here, I discuss how American Political Science treats elitism, pluralism, and populism, relying heavily on the U.S. Founders’ constitutional approaches limiting the power of factions to impose social and political uniformity. Second, I summarize how these models approach the provision of schooling, particularly school choice including homeschooling. In America, public education practice is dominated by elite bureaucratic experts supporting quasi-monopolistic factory models of schooling and unsupportive of the academic rigor some parents desire. Pluralist education as practiced in certain other nation states and historically may offer greater academic success and social peace through diversity, while enhancing achievement and equity. I use these discussions as foundations to critique Bartholet, who argues for severely restricting homeschooling to empower bureaucratic experts and disempower parents. I find it unlikely that such schemes can be implemented without animus against minority factions, and thus without degrading the social diversity inherent to pluralism.

What interesting homeschool news and research have you come across this Orion Term? 👩🏻‍🎓

❡ Explore more: If you’d like to investigate the current academic literature on homeschooling yourself, the best place to start is Google Scholar, 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. 🔎

❡ Explore more: For a comprehensive review of homeschooling research prior to 2020, see the paper by Kunzman and Gaither that is linked as the first item in our Research & News post for July 2020. 📖

❡ Stay in the loop: This is one of our regular Homeschool Research & News posts. Add your name to our weekly mailing list and get great homeschool teaching ideas delivered right to your mailbox all through the year. 🗞

🗓 QUICK FRESHES for Homeschool Families – Week of 17 January 2021

17 January 2021 by Bob O'Hara

🇺🇸 OUR STATE-OF-THE-WEEK is Mississippi, and our COUNTRIES are India 🇮🇳, Indonesia 🇮🇩, Iran 🇮🇷, and Iraq 🇮🇶. (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 371–386 in your almanac. Browse through our many astronomy posts for even more.

🗓 TODAY, Sunday (17 January 2021) — Today is the 17th day of 2021; there are 348 days remaining in this common year. Learn more about different kinds of modern and historical calendars on pages 387–393 in your River Houses almanac. 📚 Benjamin Franklin was born on this day in 1706 in Boston, Massachusetts. 📰 And one of the most important battles in the Southern Theater of the American Revolution, the Battle of Cowpens, took place on this day in 1781 near Cowpens, South Carolina. ⚔️

Monday (18 January 2021) — Today is Martin Luther King Jr. Day, a federal holiday in the United States. Lift every voice and sing! 🇺🇸 On this day in 1788, the first convict ships from Britain, now known as the First Fleet, arrived at Botany Bay, Australia. 🇦🇺 And today is the birthday of the Polish-British mathematician and historian of science Jacob Bronowski (1908–1974), creator of the pioneering documentary series “The Ascent of Man.” 📺

Tuesday (19 January 2021) — Today is the birthday of the polemical American lawyer and freedom-philosopher Lysander Spooner (1808–1887). ⚖️ It’s also the birthday of the spooky American poet and short-story writer Edgar Allan Poe (1809–1849). 👻

Wednesday (20 January 2021) — One of the first two men to walk on the moon, American astronaut Buzz Aldrin, was born on this day in 1930. 👨‍🚀 And our Wednesday tour of World Heritage Sites this week will take you to the Sangiran Early Man Site in Indonesia. 🇮🇩

Thursday (21 January 2021) — Today is St. Agnes Day, named for Agnes of Rome, a teenage Christian martyr of the fourth century and a favorite subject of artists and writers for hundreds of years. On this day, saith tradition, young girls will have their future husbands revealed to them in their dreams: “Agnes sweet, and Agnes fair, / Hither, hither, now repair; / Bonny Agnes, let me see / The lad who is to marry me.” 👰

Friday (22 January 2021) — Today is the birthday of two great English poets: John Donne (1573–1631) and George Gordon, Lord Byron (1788–1824). 🖋 And our homeschool poem-of-the-week for last week of January is John Masefield’s “Sea Fever,” in memory of the Space Shuttle Challenger and its crew, who died 28 January 1986. 🌊 Print your own River Houses Poetry Calendar (riverhouses.org/calendars) and follow along with us throughout the year. 🗓 Our Friday Bird Families post this week will introduce you to the New World Vultures, the Ospreys, and the Hawks, Kites, and Eagles. Print your own River Houses Calendar of American Birds and follow the flyways. 🦅

Saturday (23 January 2021) — On this day in 1849, the first woman to receive a medical degree in the United States, Elizabeth Blackwell (1821–1910), graduated from the Geneva Medical College in New York. 👩‍⚕️

Sunday (24 January 2021) — On this day in 1848, James W. Marshall discovered gold at Sutter’s Mill, California, touching off the California Gold Rush. ⛏

🥂 OUR WEEKLY TOAST: “May obstacles entice enterprise and ensure perseverance.”

🌍 🇮🇷 EVERYTHING FLOWS: Iran in western Asia is one of our countries-of-the-week, so our Weekly World River is the Haraz River, which flows across northern Iran and empties into the Caspian Sea. You can find its location in your recommended homeschool atlas, and you can read more about it in the Haraz River entry in Wikipedia or perhaps on your next visit to your local library.

The Haraz River in northern Iran. (Image: Wikimedia Commons.)

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

🌎 🇺🇸 SUNDAY STATES: Mississippi, India, Iraq, and More

17 January 2021 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.

🇺🇸
Mississippi State Flag
MISSISSIPPI (the 20th state, 10 December 1817) — The Magnolia State. Capital: Jackson. Mississippi can be found on page 583 in your almanac and on plates 42 and 142 in your atlas. Name origin: “Probably Chippewa mici zibi, meaning ‘great river’ or ‘gathering-in of all the waters.’ Also Algonquin word messipi ” (almanac page 459). State bird: Northern Mockingbird (bird guide page 416). Website: www.ms.gov.

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

🇮🇳 INDIA in southern Asia. Population: 1,326,093,247. Capital: New Delhi. Government: Federal parliamentary republic. Website: www.india.gov.in (in English and Hindi).
🇮🇩 INDONESIA in southeastern Asia. Population: 267,026,366. Capital: Jakarta. Government: Presidential republic. Website: indonesia.go.id (in Indonesian and English).
🇮🇷 IRAN in southwestern Asia. Population: 84,923,314. Capital: Tehran. Government: Theocratic republic. Website: www.president.ir (in Persian, English, and Arabic).
🇮🇶 IRAQ in the Middle East. Population: 38,872,655. Capital: Baghdad. Government: Federal parliamentary republic. Website: www.pmo.iq (in Arabic and English).

What grand global geographical excursions (real or virtual) have you been making in your homeschool this Orion Term? 😊

🔭 🌒 SATURDAY STARS: Telescope Tips from the U.S. Naval Observatory

16 January 2021 by Bob O'Hara

The moon this week is a beautiful waxing crescent, and that’s an ideal time to take a good long look at it through a small telescope.

The moon as seen through a 4-inch telescope on 2 March 2020 from Alexandria, Virginia. The largest dark area in the center is the Sea of Tranquility, where Apollo 11 landed in 1969. (Image: Geoff Chester via the U.S. Naval Observatory.)

If you’re one of the lucky home academies that received a telescope this holiday season (or if you already have one), why not spend some quality time with the moon this week. That’s the advice of the U.S. Naval Observatory in their current issue of “The Sky This Week“:

Luna is a great target for first-time telescope owners. I often say that the Moon is “looked over, then overlooked,” but spending time exploring her many varied surface features can be a wonderful retreat from the constant barrage of the 24-hour news cycle. As our closest neighbor in space even small instruments will show an abundance of detail, and it helps to have an atlas of the Moon handy for your exploration. There are many of these available online. The Moon’s larger features bear names that were for the most part assigned long ago by the first astronomers to gaze on her with crude telescopes. Her darker areas are known as “seas” (“maria” in Latin), “lakes” (“lacus”), “bays” (“sinus”), etc. and bear names like Mare Imbrium (Sea of Rains) and Sinus Iridum (Bay of Rainbows). These large-scale features are the remnants of collisions with large asteroids early in the history of the solar system’s formation. Individual smaller craters are named after famous people from classical astronomical literature as well as more modern contributors to lunar science. Each successive night reveals new features along the “terminator” which is the sunrise/sunset line that creeps slowly eastward from our point of view. The low Sun angle along the terminator throws features into stunning relief as ink-black shadows give way to dazzling sunlit terrain. A 3- or 4-inch aperture telescope will show many hundreds of features and terrain textures. Spend some time taking good long looks at our fair neighbor and you’ll want to return each month. (usno.navy.mil)

Our recommended backyard astronomy guide includes a good illustrated introduction to the moon (pages 67–79) that will help you give names to the major craters and seas, and understand the moon’s structure, history, and visible phases. And our recommended world atlas has a magnificent large map of the entire lunar surface, both near-side and far-side.

What celestial sights and astronomical apparitions have you been examining in your homeschool this Orion Term? 🔭

❡ All the star-sown sky: Teaching your students the major constellations and the names of the principal stars is one of the simplest and most enduring gifts you can give them. Our recommended backyard star guide and homeschool world atlas both contain charts of the constellations that will help you learn your way around the heavens. Find a dark-sky spot near you this month and spend some quality homeschool time with your students 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 and follow along with us month by month as we make twelve heavenly friends-for-life over the course of the year. 🌟

❡ The starry archipelagoes: The regular “Sky This Week” posts from the U.S. Naval Observatory, such as the one we quoted above, are published each Tuesday and usually focus on one or two special astronomical events or phenomena. If you have high school science students in your homeschool, why not have them read these well-written pages aloud to you each week, or ask them to study them and then narrate a summary back to you. 🌌

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

🖋 🎵 WONDERFUL WORDS (and Music!): Lift Every Voice and Sing

15 January 2021 by Bob O'Hara

The American minister and civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr. was born on this day in 1929, and in his honor our homeschool poem-of-the-week for the third week of January is “Lift Every Voice and Sing” by James Weldon Johnson (1871–1938). (The Martin Luther King federal holiday this year will be observed on Monday the 18th, the third Monday in January.)

“Lift Every Voice” was written for a Lincoln’s Birthday celebration in the year 1900 at the then-segregated Stanton School in Jacksonville, Florida, where James Weldon Johnson was a teacher. Johnson’s brother, the composer John Rosamond Johnson (1873–1954), set the words to music. “Lift Every Voice” became so popular that within a few years it came to be known as “the Negro National Hymn” — and now today, as a great patriotic song for all Americans:

Lift Every Voice and Sing

Lift every voice and sing
Till earth and heaven ring,
Ring with the harmonies of Liberty;
Let our rejoicing rise
High as the listening skies,
Let it resound loud as the rolling sea.
Sing a song full of the faith that the dark past has taught us,
Sing a song full of the hope that the present has brought us.
Facing the rising sun of our new day begun,
Let us march on till victory is won.

Stony the road we trod,
Bitter the chastening rod,
Felt in the days when hope unborn had died;
Yet with a steady beat,
Have not our weary feet
Come to the place for which our fathers sighed?
We have come over a way that with tears has been watered,
We have come, treading our path through the blood of the slaughtered,
Out from the gloomy past, till now we stand at last
Where the white gleam of our bright star is cast.

God of our weary years,
God of our silent tears,
Thou who hast brought us thus far on the way;
Thou who hast by Thy might
Led us into the light,
Keep us forever in Thy path, we pray.
Lest our feet stray from the places, our God, where we met Thee,
Lest, our hearts drunk with the wine of the world, we forget Thee;
Shadowed beneath Thy hand, may we forever stand,
True to our God, true to our native land.

Here’s a wonderful live performance of “Lift Every Voice,” arranged by musicologist Roland Carter and sung by the Winston Salem State University Choir in North Carolina, with Carter himself as conductor:

➢

I’d like to think Abraham Lincoln, James Weldon Johnson, and Martin Luther King Jr. would all agree with that well-earned round of applause.

What wonderful words and poetical productions have you been studying in your homeschool this Orion Term? 😊

❡ Making a new friend: When you introduce your students to a new poem, especially one in a traditional form, take your time, and be sure to show them the craftsmanship in the work. “Lift Every Voice” has three stanzas of ten lines each — that already looks quite carefully structured. What about the rhyme scheme? Look at how detailed, complex, and regular it is: I’d mark up the first stanza as AA BCCB DD EE. What about the second and third stanzas? Exactly the same — that’s quite a precise accomplishment. By investigating these details of structure your students will come to appreciate good poems as carefully crafted pieces of literary labor. 🖋

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

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

❡ Explore more: For a quick homeschool review of the life and work of Martin Luther King Jr., turn to page 432 in your River Houses history encyclopedia (riverhouses.org/books). 📚

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