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You are here: Home > 2021 > September > 26

Archives for 26 September 2021

๐Ÿ—“ QUICK FRESHES for Homeschool Familiesย โ€“ Week of 26 September 2021

26 September 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.

๐Ÿ‡บ๐Ÿ‡ธ OUR STATE-OF-THE-WEEK is Georgia, and our COUNTRIES are Bahrainย ๐Ÿ‡ง๐Ÿ‡ญ, Bangladeshย ๐Ÿ‡ง๐Ÿ‡ฉ, Barbadosย ๐Ÿ‡ง๐Ÿ‡ง, and Belarusย ๐Ÿ‡ง๐Ÿ‡พ. (Our separate Sunday States & Countries post for the week went up just a few minutes ago.)

๐ŸŒ– THE MOON at the beginning of this week is gibbous and waningย โ€” aย 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 371โ€“386 in your almanac. Browse through our many astronomy posts for even more.

๐Ÿ—“ TODAY, Sunday (26 September 2021) โ€” Today is the 269th day of 2021; there are 96 days remaining in this common year. Learn more about different kinds of modern and historical calendars on pages 387โ€“393 in your River Houses almanac.ย ๐Ÿ“š 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.ย ๐Ÿ› Today is the birthday of American nurseryman and folk hero John Chapman (1774โ€“1845), better known as Johnny Appleseed.ย ๐ŸŽ It’s also the birthday of American poet and Nobel Prize laureate T.S. Eliot (1888โ€“1965), author of (among other things) Old Possum’s Book of Practical Cats, a wonderful read-aloud book for children.ย ๐Ÿˆ

Monday (27 September 2021) โ€” 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.ย โš“๏ธ

Tuesday (28 September 2021) โ€” Today is the birthday of the great philologist Sir William Jones (1746โ€“1794), who first recognized the extent of the vast Indo-European family of languages.ย ๐Ÿ—ฃ And 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.ย ๐Ÿ”ฌ

Wednesday (29 September 2021) โ€” Today is the first day of the week you’ve all been waiting for: Fat Bear Week at Katmai National Park! Vote for your favorite fat bear online!ย ๐Ÿป Today is also the birthday of the great Spanish writer Miguel de Cervantes (1547โ€“1616).ย ๐Ÿ‡ช๐Ÿ‡ธ And it’s also the birthday of the pioneering Austrian-American economic philosopher Ludwig von Mises (1881โ€“1973).ย ๐Ÿ’ต And not only that, it’s also the birthday of the great Italian-American physicist and Nobel laureate Enrico Fermi (1901โ€“1954).ย โš›๏ธ And our Wednesday tour of World Heritage Sites this week will take you to Historic Bridgetown in Barbados.ย ๐Ÿ‡ง๐Ÿ‡ง

Thursday (30 September 2021) โ€” Today is the birthday of William Wrigley Jr. (1861โ€“1932), founder of the Wrigley chewing gum company.ย ๐Ÿฌ And the Hoover Dam on the Arizonaโ€“Nevada border was dedicated on this day in 1935.ย ๐Ÿ—

Friday (1 October 2021) โ€” The first Ford Modelย T automobile was put on sale on this day in 1908. The price was $825.ย ๐Ÿš— The George Washington Bridge linking New York and New Jersey across the Hudson River was opened on this day in 1931.ย ๐ŸŒ‰ 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 aย work every student of literature should know.ย ๐Ÿ‚ Print your own River Houses Poetry Calendar and follow along with us throughout the year.ย ๐Ÿ–‹ Our Friday Bird Families post this week will introduce you to the the short-legged Grebes and the long-legged Flamingos. Print your own River Houses Calendar of American Birds and follow the flyways with us throughout the year.ย ๐Ÿฆฉ

Saturday (2 October 2021) โ€” Today is the birthday of Indian lawyer, philosopher, and political leader Mohandas Gandhi (1869โ€“1948).ย ๐Ÿ‡ฎ๐Ÿ‡ณ It’s also the birthday of American poet Wallace Stevens (1879โ€“1955).ย ๐Ÿ–‹ The comic strip Peanuts premiered on this day in 1950.ย ๐Ÿ“ฐ 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.ย ๐Ÿ”ญ

Sunday (3 October 2021) โ€” Today is the birthday of English veterinarian James Herriot (1916โ€“1995), author of All Creatures Great and Small and other popular books about animals.ย ๐Ÿ‘ย ๐Ÿ‚ย ๐Ÿ“ย ๐Ÿ–ย ๐Ÿ

๐Ÿฅ‚ ๐Ÿ OUR WEEKLY TOAST and our weekly poem for upcoming October are one and the same: “To Autumn.”

โกโ€…Toasts can be a fun educational tradition for your family table. We offer one each week โ€” 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?ย ๐Ÿฅ‚

๐ŸŒ ๐Ÿ‡ง๐Ÿ‡ฉ EVERYTHING FLOWS: The river-filled country of Bangladesh in southern Asia is one of our homeschool countries-of-the-week, and our Weekly World River is Bangladesh’s Dhaleshwari River. You can find its location in your recommended homeschool atlas, and you can read more about it in the Dhaleshwari River entry in Wikipedia or perhaps on your next visit to your local library.

The Dhaleshwari River in central Bangladesh (Image:ย Wikimediaย Commons.)

โกโ€…Children 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 699โ€“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. Aย whole world of geographical learning awaits you.ย ๐ŸŒ

What do you have planned for your homeschool this week?ย ๐Ÿ˜Š

โกโ€…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.ย ๐Ÿ—“

Filed Under: Quick Freshes

๐ŸŒŽ ๐Ÿ‡บ๐Ÿ‡ธ SUNDAY STATES: Georgia, Bahrain, Belarus, and More

26 September 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:

  • ๐Ÿ‡บ๐Ÿ‡ธ
    Georgia State Seal
    GEORGIA (the 4th state, 2 January 1788)ย โ€” The Peach State. Capital: Atlanta. Georgia can be found on page 575 in your almanac and on plates 42 and 142 in your atlas (10th and 11th eds.). Name origin: “Named by colonial administrator James Oglethorp for King George II of England in 1732” (almanac page 459). State bird: Brown Thrasher (bird guide page 418). Website: georgia.gov.

โกโ€…Little lessons: You can teach a hundred little lessons with our state-of-the-week posts, 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.ย ๐Ÿ”

โกโ€…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.ย ๐Ÿ–

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

  • ๐Ÿ‡ง๐Ÿ‡ญ BAHRAIN in the Middle East. Population: 1,505,003. Capital: Manama. Government: Constitutional monarchy. Website: www.bahrain.bh (in Arabic and English).
  • ๐Ÿ‡ง๐Ÿ‡ฉ BANGLADESH in southern Asia. Population: 162,650,853. Capital: Dhaka. Government: Parliamentary republic. Website: bangladesh.gov.bd (in Bengali and English).
  • ๐Ÿ‡ง๐Ÿ‡ง BARBADOS in the West Indies. Population: 294,560. Capital: Bridgetown. Government: Parliamentary democracy under constitutional monarchy. Website: www.gov.bb (in English).
  • ๐Ÿ‡ง๐Ÿ‡พ BELARUS in eastern Europe. Population: 9,477,918. 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. The almanac, for example, has profiles of the nations of the world on pages 752โ€“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 489โ€“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?ย ๐Ÿ˜Š

โกโ€…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.ย ๐Ÿ”

โกโ€…Come, here’s the map: Teaching your students to be fluent with high-quality maps โ€” not just basically competent, but fluent โ€” 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 (10th and 11th eds.) will guide you in your voyages of discovery.ย ๐Ÿ—บ

โกโ€…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.ย โœˆ๏ธย ๐Ÿšžย ๐Ÿš—ย ๐Ÿ›ณย ๐ŸŽย ๐Ÿ˜Š

โกโ€…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.ย ๐Ÿ‡บ๐Ÿ‡ธย ๐ŸŒŽ

Filed Under: Homeschool States & Countries

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