• Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to content
  • Skip to primary sidebar

The River Houses

A National Network of Local Homeschool Societies

  • Subscribe!
  • Home
  • Topics โ–พ
    • Arts & Music
    • Astronomy
    • Books & Libraries
    • Collections & Collecting
    • Friday Bird Families
    • Great Stars
    • Holidays & Anniversaries
    • Language & Literature
    • Lunar Society Bulletins
    • Maps & Geography
    • Museums & Monuments
    • Natural History
    • Poems-of-the-Week
    • Quick Freshes
    • Research & News
    • States & Countries
    • Terms & Calendars
    • Weekly World Heritage
  • Homeschool Calendars
  • Six Books
  • TWOC โ–พ
    • The Lunar Society of the River Houses
  • About Us โ–พ
    • Our Mascots
  • Shop!
You are here: Home > 2022 > January > 11

Archives for 11 January 2022

๐Ÿ“š LIBRARY LESSONS: Projects for You from the Library of Congress

11 January 2022 by Bob O'Hara

If you’ve got an American history student in your homeschool, take a look at some of the new independent projects you can join through the Library of Congress.

Tuesday is our regular Books & Libraries Day in the River Houses when we recommend book-related and library-related resources you can browse, save, and share with your students. The wonderful “By the People” program at the Library of Congress invites members of the public (like you and your homeschool students) to help document and transcribe important items in the Library’s collections. (It’s one of our recommended Lunar Society programs for homeschoolers.) Aย new project to document the works of America’s premier landscape architect, Frederick Law Olmsted (1822โ€“1903), has just come online:

  • โžข By Design: Frederick Law Olmsted & Associates (loc.gov)

Olmsted is often called the father of landscape architecture in the United States, and he and his many associates designed some of the most famous parks and public grounds in the country, from Central Park in New York City to the campus of Stanford University in Californa.

The Library of Congress Manuscript Division is home to the personal papers of Frederick Law Olmsted (1822โ€“1903) and the records of the landscape architecture firm, Olmsted Associates. As a young man Olmsted trained in horticulture and civil engineering. He worked as an organic farmer, travel writer, investigative journalist, and editor. His travels took him across the Atlantic and to the American South and Texas, where he observed slavery in progress. On the eve of the Civil War, he designed Central Park in New York with Calvert Vaux and became the parkโ€™s superintendent, promoting the โ€œparks for the peopleโ€ concept. During wartime he organized sanitation and medical relief services for the Union cause, managed a gold mining estate in the Sierra foothills, and became involved in early ideas for the public conservation and recreational use of Yosemite.

He returned to the East Coast after warโ€™s end, and for the rest of his career pursued his calling as a landscape architect. Over many decades Olmsted and his various partners, including sons Frederick Law Olmsted, Jr., and John Charles Olmsted, planned an amazing array of greenspaces for public and private use, including city parks, grounds of government buildings, campuses, expositions, hospitals, hotels and resorts, cemeteries, highways and garden parkways, residential communities and private estates. They helped to pioneer the professions of urban planning and landscape architecture, and to shape state and national park systems. Along the way, the Olmsteds collaborated with architects, city planners, park commissioners, botanists, arborists, public officials, businesses, and private citizens. (loc.gov)

You and your students can sign up to help transcribe and document the Olmsted materials online and make them available to historians and the general public. If this particular project doesn’t happen to appeal to you, here are two other recently posted American history projects you can join:

  • โžข Clara Barton: “Angel of the Battlefield” (loc.gov)
  • โžข Theater for the People: Federal Theatre Project Playbills (loc.gov)

Projects like these offer homeschool students exceptional opportunities to develop independent study and research skills, and they are the opposite of busy-work: your students’ participation makes aย genuine contribution to the accessibility of these valuable historical resources. Why not pick out aย project for your homeschool and work on it into the new year.

What educational discoveries have you been making in your favorite library this Orion Term?ย ๐Ÿ˜Š

โกโ€…Dukedoms large enough: Have you found all the local libraries in your area? There may be more than you realize, and there’s no better homeschool field trip than a field trip to a new library! The WorldCat Library Finder will help you find all the library collections near youย โ€” public and private, large and smallย โ€” and the WorldCat catalog itself will help you locate the closest copy of almost any book in the world.ย ๐Ÿ›

โกโ€…Books in the running brooks: The sidebar on the River Houses website has links to several wonderful online library collections that we like to explore. Why not sit yourself down at a large screen for a while (rather than a phone) and give them a browse.ย ๐Ÿ”

โกโ€…When in doubt, go to the library: This is one of our regular Homeschool Books & Libraries posts. Add your name to our weekly mailing list and get great homeschool teaching ideas delivered right to your mailbox all through the year.ย ๐Ÿ“š

Filed Under: Homeschool Books & Libraries, Lunar Society Bulletins

Primary Sidebar

Subscribe to Our Newsletter!

Itโ€™s free! Your name and email address are never shared with any third parties.

CHECK YOUR INBOX (or spam folder) to confirm your subscription. Thank you! ๐Ÿ˜Š

Search the River Houses

Recent Posts

  • ๐ŸŒ ๐Ÿ‡น๐Ÿ‡ฏ WEEKLY WORLD HERITAGE: Tajik National Park in Tajikistan
  • ๐Ÿ—“ QUICK FRESHES for Homeschool Familiesย โ€“ Week of 26 June 2022
  • ๐ŸŒŽ ๐Ÿ‡บ๐Ÿ‡ธ SUNDAY STATES: Idaho, Switzerland, Tajikistan, and More
  • ๐Ÿ–‹ ๐Ÿš‚ WONDERFUL WORDS: โ€œIt was late Juneโ€
  • ๐Ÿฆ… FRIDAY BIRD FAMILIES: Wood-Warblers (II)
  • ๐Ÿ–‹ ๐ŸŒž WONDERFUL WORDS: Stevensonโ€™s โ€œSummer Sunโ€
  • ๐ŸŒ ๐Ÿ‡ฑ๐Ÿ‡ฐ WEEKLY WORLD HERITAGE: The Dambulla Temple in Sri Lanka
  • ๐Ÿ—“ โ›ฑ SUMMER IS HERE! (Astronomically Speaking)
  • ๐Ÿ”Ž HOMESCHOOL RESEARCH & NEWS โ€“ June 2022
  • ๐Ÿ—“ QUICK FRESHES for Homeschool Familiesย โ€“ Week of 19 June 2022
  • ๐ŸŒŽ ๐Ÿ‡บ๐Ÿ‡ธ SUNDAY STATES: Washington, Sri Lanka, Sweden, and More
  • ๐Ÿฆ… FRIDAY BIRD FAMILIES: Wood-Warblers (I)
  • ๐Ÿ–‹ ๐Ÿฐ HAPPY FATHER’S DAY WEEK from Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
  • ๐ŸŒ ๐Ÿ‡ฟ๐Ÿ‡ฆ WEEKLY WORLD HERITAGE: The Mapungubwe Sites in South Africa
  • ๐ŸŒ• RESEARCH PROJECTS for Homeschoolers โ€“ June 2022

Post Calendar

January 2022
S M T W T F S
« Dec   Feb »
 1
2345678
9101112131415
16171819202122
23242526272829
3031  

Post Categories

  • ๐ŸŽต Homeschool Arts & Music
  • ๐Ÿ”ญ Homeschool Astronomy
  • ๐Ÿ“š Homeschool Books & Libraries
  • ๐Ÿ’ฐ Homeschool Collections & Collecting
  • ๐Ÿ“… Homeschool Holidays & Anniversaries
  • ๐Ÿ“– Homeschool Language & Literature
  • ๐ŸŒ• Lunar Society Bulletins
  • ๐Ÿ—บ Homeschool Maps & Geography
  • ๐Ÿ› Homeschool Museums & Monuments
  • ๐Ÿž Homeschool Natural History
  • ๐Ÿ—“ Quick Freshes for Homeschool Families
  • ๐Ÿ”Ž Homeschool Research & News
  • ๐ŸŒŽ ๐Ÿ‡บ๐Ÿ‡ธ Homeschool States & Countries
  • ๐Ÿ—“ Homeschool Terms & Calendars

Astronomy

  • American Meteor Society
    • โ€“ Fireball Reporting System
  • Astronomy Picture of the Day
  • Evening Sky Maps
  • Homeschool Astronomy (Sky & Telescope)
  • Hubble Space Telescope
    • โ€“ย Learning Resources
  • NASA
    • โ€“ย Asteroid Watch
    • โ€“ Educator Resources
    • โ€“ Our Solar System
    • โ€“ Spot the Station
    • โ€“ Webb Space Telescope
  • The Planets Today
    • โ€“ย Light-Distance to the Planets
  • The Sky This Week (USNO)
  • Space Weather
  • Stellarium Night Sky Charts
  • Time and Date
    • โ€“ Eclipses
    • โ€“ Meteor Showers
    • โ€“ Moon Phases
    • โ€“ Seasons
  • Tonight’s Sky (hubblesite.com)
  • Virtual Planisphere

Books & Libraries

  • Baldwin Library of Children’s Literature
  • Biodiversity Heritage Library
  • Classic Children’s Books (read.gov)
  • Folger Shakespeare Library
    • โ€“ Educator Resources
    • โ€“ Shakespeare’s Plays Online
  • HathiTrust Digital Library
  • In Our Time (BBC Podcasts)
  • New York Public Library Digital Collections
  • Project Gutenberg
  • US Library of Congress
    • โ€“ Children’s Book Selections
    • โ€“ Educator Resources
    • โ€“ LC Blogs
    • โ€“ LC Digital Collections
    • โ€“ Minerva’s Kaleidoscope
  • US National Archives
    • โ€“ Educator Resources
    • โ€“ Founders Online
    • โ€“ Kโ€“5 Resources
    • โ€“ Teaching With Documents
  • Vatican Library Digital Collections
  • WorldCat Library Catalog
    • โ€“ WorldCat Library Finder
  • World Digital Library

Museums, Parks, & Monuments

  • Art Collections Online
  • British Museum Collections Online
  • Google Arts & Culture Collections
  • Smithsonian Institution
    • โ€“ Educator Resources
    • โ€“ Smithsonian Museums
    • โ€“ Smithsonian Open Access
  • Timeline of Art History
  • US National Park Service
    • โ€“ Educator Resources
    • โ€“ National Memorials
    • โ€“ National Monuments
    • โ€“ National Parks
    • โ€“ Wild & Scenic Rivers Program
  • US National Wildlife Refuges
  • US State Parks
  • Watercolour World

Natural History

  • All About Birds (Cornell University)
    • โ€“ Bird Identification Guide
    • โ€“ eBird Online
  • Biodiversity Heritage Library
  • BirdCast Daily Migration Maps
  • Time and Date
    • โ€“ Seasons
  • UC Museum of Paleontology
    • โ€“ Educator Resources
  • US Fish & Wildlife Service
    • โ€“ Education Programs
  • US Geological Survey
    • โ€“ Educator Resources
    • โ€“ Latest Earthquakes
  • US National Weather Service
    • โ€“ Educator Resources
    • โ€“ Nationwide Air Quality
    • โ€“ Nationwide River Conditions
    • โ€“ Wildfire and Smoke Map
  • Wild & Scenic Rivers Program

Maps & Geography

  • Antipodes Map
  • FlightAware (Planes in the Air)
  • Mapquest World Maps
  • MarineTraffic (Ships at Sea)
  • OpenStreetMap World Maps
  • Printable Blank Maps & Flags
  • Printable Outline Maps (d-maps.com)
  • River Runner
  • USGS Topographic Maps
  • World Factbook (cia.gov)
  • World Heritage Sites (UNESCO)
    • โ€“ Educator Resources
  • Zoom Earth

Civics & Social Science

  • 1776 Unites
  • Bill of Rights Institute
  • Constitution Center
  • C-Span Classroom
  • Foundation for Economic Education
  • Free Speech Curriculum from FIRE
  • History of the Western World (I)
    • โ€“ Western World (II)
  • iCivics.org
  • Learn Liberty
  • Mises Institute Economics
  • MyMoney.gov
    • โ€“ Educator Resources
  • Online Library of Liberty
  • US Founding Documents
  • US Government Portal
    • โ€“ The Congress
    • โ€“ The Supreme Court
    • โ€“ The White House
  • US Mint
    • โ€“ Coin Activities for Kids
    • โ€“ Educator Resources
  • US Postal Museum
    • โ€“ Explore the Collections
    • โ€“ Activities for Kids
    • โ€“ Stamps Teach (from APS)
  • Visual Capitalist

Post Archives

  • June 2022
  • May 2022
  • April 2022
  • March 2022
  • February 2022
  • January 2022
  • December 2021
  • November 2021
  • October 2021
  • September 2021
  • August 2021
  • July 2021
  • June 2021
  • May 2021
  • April 2021
  • March 2021
  • February 2021
  • January 2021
  • December 2020
  • November 2020
  • October 2020
  • September 2020
  • August 2020
  • July 2020
  • June 2020
  • May 2020
  • April 2020
  • March 2020
  • February 2020
  • January 2020
  • December 2019
  • November 2019
  • October 2019
  • September 2019
  • August 2019
  • July 2019
  • June 2019
  • May 2019
  • April 2019
  • March 2019
  • February 2019
  • January 2019
  • December 2018
  • November 2018
  • October 2018
  • September 2018
  • August 2018
  • July 2018
  • June 2018
  • May 2018
  • April 2018
  • March 2018
  • February 2018
  • January 2018
  • December 2017
  • November 2017
  • October 2017
  • September 2017
  • August 2017
  • April 2017
Sign up for our free newsletter and get great homeschool teaching ideas delivered right to your mailbox every week!

All original content ยฉ 2017โ€“2022 by The River Houses ยท The River Houses and the River Houses emblem are Reg. U.S. Pat. & Tm. Off.