π Happy New Year to all our homeschool readers and friends!
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.
π΅ π π OUR HOLIDAY MUSIC MONTH is approaching its close. For the past four weeks we have been sharing an assortment of seasonal favoritesΒ β classical and modern, sacred and secular, serious and sillyΒ β along with a collection of easy educational notes to help you teach little musical lessons all along the way. Our grand finale will be on the Twelfth Day of Christmas (January 5th), and I bet you can guess what it will be. ππ³
πΊπΈ OUR STATE-OF-THE-WEEK is Louisiana, and our COUNTRIES are GuatemalaΒ π¬πΉ, GuineaΒ π¬π³, Guinea-BissauΒ π¬πΌ, and GuyanaΒ π¬πΎ. (Our separate Sunday States & Countries post for the week went up just a few minutes ago.)
π THE MOON at the beginning of this week is newΒ β that’s the best time of the month for dark-sky 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 331β346 in your almanac. Browse through our many astronomy posts for even more.
π TODAY, Sunday (2 January 2022) β Today is the 2nd day of 2022!; there are 363 days remaining in this common year. Learn more about different kinds of modern and historical calendars on pages 347β353 in your (brand new 2022!) River Houses almanac.Β π On this day in 1860, French mathematician and astronomer Urbain Le Verrier announced the discovery of Vulcan, a planet circling the sun inside the orbit of Mercury. No subsequent research has been able to confirm the existence of this planet.Β πΒ π Perhaps coincidentally, or perhaps not, today is also the birthday of the great science fiction writer Isaac Asimov (1920β1992).Β π€
Monday (3 January 2022) β Today is the birthday of the great Roman orator and statesman Marcus Tullius Cicero (106β43 B.C.).Β π It’s also the birthday of English writer J.R.R. Tolkien (1892β1973), author of The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings.Β π
Tuesday (4 January 2022) β Today is Perihelion 2022, the date on which the earth in its annual (slightly elliptical) orbit is closest to the sun.Β βοΈβπ Today is also the birthday of French educator Louis Braille (1809β1852), the inventor of the famous tactile writing system for the blind. β β It’s also the birthday of the original James Bond.Β π¦ And since this is the first Tuesday of the month, today we’ll invite you to browse a new Dewey Decimal class with your students on your next visit to your local library. This month: the Social 300s.Β π
Wednesday (5 January 2022) β Today is the Twelfth Day of Christmas and tonight is Twelfth Night, and that means it’s the end of our Holiday Music MonthΒ β and you know what song we’ll be going out with.Β ππ³Β π Our Wednesday tour of World Heritage Sites this week will take you to Tikal National Park in Guatemala.Β π¬πΉ
Thursday (6 January 2022) β Today is the birthday of the American poet Carl Sandburg (1878β1967).Β π
Friday (7 January 2022) β On this day in 1610, Galileo Galilei first reported that he had discovered several previously unknown moons orbiting the planet JupiterΒ β we now call them the Galilean moons: Ganymede, Callisto, Io, and Europa. You can see them from your backyard with almost any small telescope.Β π Today is also the birthday of the African-American writer and folklorist Zora Neale Hurston (1891β1960).Β π And our Friday Bird Families post this week will introduce you to aΒ host of large and mostly aquatic birds: the Storks, Frigatebirds, Boobies, Gannets, Cormorants, Darters, and Pelicans. Print your own River Houses Calendar of American Birds and follow the flyways with us throughout the year.Β π¦
Saturday (8 January 2022) β Today is the birthday of two great British scientists: the naturalist Alfred Russel Wallace (1823β1913), co-discoverer with Charles Darwin of the principle of natural selection, and the physicist and cosmologist Stephen Hawking (1942β2018).Β π¦Β π And in another sphere of human accomplishment, today is also the birthday of Elvis Presley (1935β1977)!Β πΈ Our homeschool poem-of-the-week for second week of January is Gail Mazur’s “Ice,” for homeschool dads and all wintertime learners. Print your own River Houses Poetry Calendar and follow along with us throughout the new year.Β βΈ And since this is the second Saturday of the month, we’ll introduce you to another one of the Great Stars of the northern hemisphere night sky. This month: Capella, the brightest star in the constellation Auriga the Charioteer.Β π
Sunday (9 January 2022) β On this day in 1923, Spanish engineer Juan de la Cierva made the first successful flight in an autogyro, the ancestor of the modern helicopter.Β π
π₯ π OUR WEEKLY TOAST is a New Year’s traditional: “May every new year bring us new joys.”
β‘β Toasts can be a fun educational tradition for your family table. We offer one each week β 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 in your homeschool this week?Β π₯
π π¬πΎ EVERYTHING FLOWS: Guyana in northern South America is one of our countries-of-the-week, so our Weekly World River is the Berbice River, one of Guyana’s largest rivers. You can find its location in your recommended homeschool atlas, and you can read more about it in the Berbice River entry in Wikipedia or perhaps on your next visit to your local library.

β‘β 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 693β695), 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. AΒ whole world of geographical learning awaits you.Β π
What do you have planned for your homeschool this week, this month, and this wonderful new year?Β π
β‘β 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.Β π