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You are here: Home > 2021 > January > 01

Archives for 1 January 2021

🎵 🎉 HOLIDAY MUSIC MONTH: The Old Year Now Away is Fled

1 January 2021 by Bob O'Hara

For educational homeschool entertainment this New Year’s Day, why not invite your students to listen to the great countertenor Alfred Deller singing, in true Renaissance style, an ancient carol that dates back at least as far as the 1640s, set to what is probably the most famous of all folk-tunes, “Greensleeves”:

➢

We’re coming to the end of our Homeschool Holiday Music Month in the River Houses — it began on the first of December and will conclude this Tuesday on Twelfth Night. Throughout the month we’ve been sharing an assortment of seasonal favorites in a great variety of styles and genres — classical and modern, sacred and secular, serious and silly — along with a collection of easy educational notes to help you teach little musical lessons all along the way.

Alfred Deller (1912–1979) was a key figure in the twentieth-century revival of authentic early music performance. He sang naturally as a countertenor — the highest male vocal register, overlapping the female contralto and mezzo-soprano registers — and he recreated for new audiences the popular singing styles of the Shakespearean era.

Carol for New Year’s Day

The old year now away is fled,
The new year it is enterèd;
Then let us now our sins down tread,
And joyfully all appear.
Let’s merry be this day,
And let us now both sport and play,
Hang grief, cast care away,
God send you a happy new year!

The name day now of Christ we keep,
Who for our sins did often weep;
His hands and feet were wounded deep,
And his blessed side, with a spear.
His head they crowned with thorn,
And at him they did laugh and scorn,
Who for our good was born;
God send us a happy New Year!

And now with New-Year’s gifts each friend
Unto each other they do send;
God grant we may all our lives amend,
And that the truth may appear.
Now like the snake your skin cast off
Of evil thoughts and sin,
And so the year begin:
God send us a happy new year!

And here’s a little elementary musical lesson you can teach this week. Different people naturally have different vocal ranges, from high to low. Professional singers can extend those ranges through training, but it’s always the case that some people naturally sing at a higher pitch and some at a lower. The adult male vocal ranges, from highest to lowest, are commonly called countertenor (like Deller, above), tenor, baritone, and bass. The adult female ranges, from highest to lowest, are soprano, mezzo-soprano, and contralto. Although these terms are used most often in the context of classical music and opera, they can be applied to singers in popular music as well: country star Dolly Parton, for example, has a strong soprano voice, while the late Karen Carpenter was famous as a contralto. The male countertenor voice is one of the rarest, which is why Deller was so celebrated in his day.

The tune “Greensleeves” is one of the oldest and best-known English folk tunes, first attested in print in 1580. It’s so old and popular, in fact, that it was even mentioned by Shakespeare (in The Merry Wives of Windsor). A great variety of lyrics, both sacred and secular, have been written for it, and it’s been subject to a great many instrumental arrangements, both popular and classical. (“Greensleeves to a Ground” is a particularly popular Christmastime instrumental arrangement.)

What marvelous musical discoveries have you been making in your homeschool during this delightful Holiday Music Month? 🎄 🎵

❡ Musical memories: If you’d like to fill your homeschool with some beautiful background sounds during the holidays, why not tune in to the 24-hour Holiday Channel from WQXR, the famous classical music station in New York City. “Enjoy the sounds of orchestras, choirs, brass ensembles and more as we celebrate the sacred and secular sounds of the season.” I have it on as background music almost all day. Won’t you join me? 📻

❡ Lift every voice: This is one of our occasional posts on Homeschool Arts & Music. 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. 🗞

Filed Under: Holiday Music Month, Homeschool Arts & Music

🦅 FRIDAY BIRD FAMILIES: Shearwaters, Petrels, and Storm-Petrels

1 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 (riverhouses.org/books). It’s a great way to add a few minutes of informal science, geography, natural history, and imagination to your homeschool schedule throughout the year.

This week’s birds (two different families) are the Shearwaters and Petrels (pages 224–239), and the Storm-Petrels (pages 240–245).

[See attached blog post for images and video]

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:

“SHEARWATERS · PETRELS — Family Procellariidae. Pelagic seabirds, most species rarely seen from shore; bills have nostril tubes. Fly with rapid wingbeats, stiff-winged glides. Most species generally silent at sea. Species: 86 World, 32 N.A. [North America]“

“STORM-PETRELS — Family Hydrobatidae. These small seabirds hover close to the water, pattering or hopping across the waves to pluck up small fish and plankton. Some species follow ships. Identification is often difficult. Flight behavior helps to distinguish the various species, but can vary deceptively depending on weather, especially wind speed. Silent away from the nesting colonies. Species: 25 World, 15 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 Storm-Petrels, for example. How many species? (25 worldwide.) Are there any near us? (15 species in North America, and the individual maps will give us more detail — and they will show you that all the species in the group are oceanic, so if you are inland, none of them will actually be near you.) What are their distinctive features? (Small, oceanic, seem to hop along the surface of the water, and so on.) (And “pelagic” is certainly a wonderful word — be sure to send someone to your homeschool dictionary to look that one 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, for the Storm-Petrel family, why not investigate what may be one of the most abundant birds in the world: the Wilson’s Storm-Petrel (page 240).

[See attached blog post for images and video]

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 Wilson’s Storm-Petrel? (only 7¼ inches long with a 16-inch wingspan.) What is its scientific name? (Oceanites oceanicus.) 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.)

Unless you’ve spent time at sea you’ve probably never seen a storm-petrel, but some species in the group may nevertheless be among the most abundant birds in the world because they are found all across the world’s oceans. The Wilson’s Storm-Petrel is common off the Atlantic coast of North America in our northern hemisphere summer — that’s “winter” as far as the birds are concerned, because they breed in circumpolar Antarctic waters during the Antarctic summer (our winter). All the storm-petrels come to land only to breed, and they nest in large colonies on remote islands, scratching out small burrows in the sand or wriggling into crevices among the rocks.

[See attached blog post for images and video]

Wilson’s Storm-Petrels, and other similar species, have been familiar to sailors at sea from time immemorial, as they often follow along behind ships in large numbers. They are sometimes colloquially called “Mother Carey’s Chickens” — a name your students may encounter in literature, as in Herman Melville’s Moby-Dick:

Perth [the blacksmith], withdrawing his iron from the fire, began hammering it upon the anvil — the red mass sending off the sparks in thick hovering flights, some of which flew close to Ahab.

“Are these thy Mother Carey’s chickens, Perth? They are always flying in thy wake; birds of good omen, too, but not to all; — look here, they burn; but thou — thou liv’st among them without a scorch.”

You can do little ten-minute lessons of this kind with any of the species in your bird guide that catch your interest. Pick a species that is near you, or one that looks striking, or one that has a strange name, and explore. For example, in this week’s other family, the Shearwaters and Petrels, take a look at the Sooty Shearwater (page 234), another pelagic species that is common off both the Atlantic and Pacific coasts of North America. The shearwaters are larger seabirds (18 inches in the case of the Sooty Shearwater), and they glide on stiff wings much more often than the fluttering storm-petrels.

[See attached blog post for images and video]

In all these Friday Bird Families posts, our aim is not to present a specific set of facts to memorize. We hope instead to provide examples and starting points that you and your students can branch away from in many different directions. We also hope to show how you can help your students develop the kind of careful skills in reading, observation, and interpretation that they will need in all their future academic work.

What ornithological observations and naturalistical notes have you been making in your homeschool this 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 (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. 🌎

❡ 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. 🐦 🦉 🦆 🦃 🦅

Filed Under: Friday Bird Families, Homeschool Natural History

🗓 🎉 ❄️ HAPPY HOMESCHOOL JANUARY from the River Houses!

1 January 2021 by Bob O'Hara

Happy January and Happy New Year to all our readers and friends! Here are some things to look for in the homeschool month ahead. 🔍

Ancient Roman Janus coin, ca. 225–214 B.C. (Image: CNG Coins.)
January with 31 days is the middle month of Orion Term, our winter term in the River Houses. Orion Term runs from December through February. Visit our main River Houses calendar page (riverhouses.org/calendars) and print out some of our simple educational calendars and planners — they’ll help you create a light and easy structure for your homeschool year. 🗓

The month of January (Latin mensis Ianuarius), the “doorway month,” is named for Janus, the two-faced Roman god of doorways, passages, exits and entrances, endings and beginnings. Although January has long been taken as the beginning of the year, in the earliest history of the Roman calendar the months were counted beginning with March (the month of the spring equinox) rather than with January. You can learn more about different kinds of modern and historical calendars on pages 387–393 in your (brand new 2021!) River Houses almanac. 📚

January advice:

“He that will live another year
Must eate a hen in Januvere.
“

Our Sunday states-of-the-week for January will be Louisiana, Indiana, Mississippi, Illinois, and Alabama, and our countries will run from Guatemala to Kenya. Print your own River Houses States & Countries Calendar and tour the United States and the whole world with us from Delaware to Hawaii and Afghanistan to Zimbabwe. 🇺🇸 🌎

We’ll be visiting World Heritage Sites in Guinea, Honduras, Indonesia, and Israel this month — our River Houses World Heritage Calendar will point the way. 🗺

We’ll have homeschool poems this month from Philip Larkin (for new births), Gail Mazur (for homeschool dads), James Weldon Johnson (for Martin Luther King Day), and John Masefield (for the Challenger Seven). Print your own River Houses Poetry Calendar and join us as we visit with fifty of our favorite friends over the course of the year. ✒️

Our Friday Bird Families this month will include the Shearwaters, Petrels, and Storm-Petrels; the Storks, Frigatebirds, Boobies, Gannets, Cormorants, Darters, and Pelicans; the Herons, Bitterns, Ibises, and Spoonbills; the New World Vultures, Ospreys, Hawks, Kites, and Eagles; and the Owls. (So many wonderful names, yes?) Print your own copy of our River Houses Calendar of American Birds, get out your copy of our recommended homeschool bird guide (riverhouses.org/books), and follow the flyways with us. 🦅

Our monthly Great Star for January is Capella (alpha Aurigae), which we’ll be writing about next week. Print your own River Houses Star Calendar and join us as we visit twelve high lights of the northern hemisphere night sky and make them friends for life. 🌟

Our Dewey Decimal class for January is the Social 300s — follow along with us (on the first Tuesday of each month) and help your students learn the whole library over the course of the year! 📚

And watch for our monthly Wikimedia Commons Photo Challenge post, coming up in the next few days — it’s a great opportunity for all homeschool photographers. 📸

Also coming up this month:

⬩ 1 January (F): New Year’s Day 🎉
⬩ 5 January (Tu): Twelfth Night 🍐🌳
⬩ 18 January (M): Martin Luther King Jr. Day 🇺🇸
⬩ 27 January (W): Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s Birthday, 1756 🎼
⬩ 28 January (Th): Lunar Society Report 🌕

Finally, we’ll let Thomas Hood (1799–1845) toast us out of 2020 and into 2021:

And ye, who have met with Adversity’s blast,
 And been bow’d to the earth by its fury;
To whom the Twelve Months, that have recently passed,
 Were as harsh as a prejudiced jury —
Still, fill to the future! and join in our chime,
 The regrets of remembrance to cozen,
And having obtained a New Trial of Time,
 Shout in hopes of a kindlier dozen! — Hurrah!

What calendrical events will you be marking in your homeschool this January? 😊

❡ Thirty days hath September: This is one of our regular Homeschool Terms & Calendars posts (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. 🗞

Filed Under: Homeschool Terms & Calendars

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