Archives for April 2021

It’s National Arbor Day! Why not plant a tree in honor of your homeschool this week.

Come along on our homeschool tour of North American bird families and pick up some great science and natural history teaching ideas along the way. This week: the Sylviid Warblers, Leaf Warblers, Grasshopper-Warblers, and Old World Flycatchers and Chats.

May is Bird Migration Month in the River Houses! This May, why not introduce your students to the wonderful BirdCast website. Keep track of what’s moving across the United States, and watch the radar echoes of migrating birds every night.

Our April 2021 full-moon report on the real scientific and scholarly projects around the world that you and your students can contribute to from the comfort of your little home academy.

Great homeschool teaching ideas and little lessons for the week ahead, including: Penny postage, tall buildings, student projects, communicative codes, illustrious illustrators, memorable molecules, Panamanian rivers, a toast to the world’s farmers, and more!

Take a homeschool tour of the U.S. states and the countries of the world with the River Houses. This week: Kansas, Pakistan, Palau, Panama, and Papua New Guinea.

Happy birthday to the Bard! Why not celebrate Shakespeare’s birthday by exploring some of the excellent free teaching materials available from the Folger Shakespeare Library in Washington, D.C.

Come along on our homeschool tour of North American bird families and pick up some great science and natural history teaching ideas along the way. This week: the tiny Gnatcatchers, Dippers, and Kinglets.

“And since to look at things in bloom / Fifty springs are little room, / About the woodlands I will go / To see the cherry hung with snow.” (Our homeschool poem-of-the-week, from Housman, for spring.)

Still cooped up and over stressed? Calm your homeschool down with the peaceful “Alleluia” of American composer Randall Thompson, born on this day in 1899.

Teach your homeschool students to recognize one of the most famous artistic symbols of the American Revolution this week: Daniel Chester French’s “Minute Man.”

Great homeschool teaching ideas and little lessons for the week ahead, including: Revolutionary beginnings, Shakespearean birthdays, springtime poems, famous physicists, Nigerian landscapes, American rivers, a toast to heroes, and more!

Take a homeschool tour of the U.S. states and the countries of the world with the River Houses. This week: Oregon, Nigeria, North Macedonia, Norway, and Oman.

“A shape in the moonlight, a bulk in the dark, / And beneath, from the pebbles, in passing, a spark / Struck out by a steed flying fearless and fleet: / That was all! And yet, through the gloom and the light, / The fate of a nation was riding that night.” (A bonus homeschool poem-of-the-week, from Longfellow, for the beginning of the American Revolution.)

Come along on our homeschool tour of North American bird families and pick up some great science and natural history teaching ideas along the way. This week: the small and friendly Nuthatches, Creepers, and Wrens.

“By the rude bridge that arched the flood, / Their flag to April’s breeze unfurled, / Here once the embattled farmers stood / And fired the shot heard round the world.” (Our homeschool poem-of-the-week, from Emerson, for the beginning of the American Revolution.)

We divide the homeschool year into four three-month terms, and the midpoint of each term (following old calendrical tradition) is called the cross-quarter day. Today, April 15th, is the cross-quarter day of Leo Term, our spring term in the River Houses. How are things going in your homeschool?

Great homeschool teaching ideas and little lessons for the week ahead, including: Orbital anniversaries, Jefferson memorials, wild weather, Dutch ditches, cartographic celebrations, African rivers, midnight rides, Revolutionary poems, a toast to truth and liberty, and more!

Take a homeschool tour of the U.S. states and the countries of the world with the River Houses. This week: Minnesota, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Nicaragua, and Niger.

Make the acquaintance of “the little king” Regulus in the constellation Leo the Lion this month, one of the brightest stars in the northern hemisphere sky, and make it your homeschool friend for life.

Come along on our homeschool tour of North American bird families and pick up some great science and natural history teaching ideas along the way. This week: the Chickadees, Titmice, and their allies.

“May memory restore again and again / The smallest color of the smallest day: / Time is the school in which we learn, / Time is the fire in which we burn.” (Our Heraclitean homeschool poem of the week, from Delmore Schwartz, for April days.)