🗓 🎉 QUICK FRESHES for Homeschool Families – Week of 1 September 2024

(This is the first of our regular Quick Freshes posts for the 2024–2025 homeschool year. Print your own River Houses Calendar to follow along with us, and subscribe to our free weekly newsletter to get great homeschool teaching ideas delivered right to your mailbox all through the year.)

Quick Freshes is our regular Sunday almanac for the homeschool week ahead. Pick one or two (or more!) of the items below each week and use them to enrich your homeschooling schedule. Subscribe to our free homeschool newsletter to get posts like these delivered right to your mailbox once each week. Visit our River Houses calendar page to print your own homeschool calendars and planners for the entire year.

🗓 🦢 This is the first full week of CYGNUS TERM, our fall term in the River Houses. Cygnus Term runs from September through November.

🇺🇸 OUR STATE-OF-THE-WEEK is Delaware, and our COUNTRIES are Afghanistan 🇦🇫, Albania 🇦🇱, Algeria 🇩🇿, and Andorra 🇦🇩. (Our separate Sunday States & Countries lesson for the week, the first one of the brand new homeschool year, went up just a few minutes ago. Print your own River Houses States & Countries Calendar and follow along with us from Afghanistan to Zimbabwe.)

🌘 THE MOON at the beginning of this week is a waning crescent — a good time for stargazing! You can explore the solar system and the features of the moon in your backyard astronomy guide and your homeschool world atlas, and you can learn a host of stellar and lunar facts in the Astronomy section your current world almanac. Browse through our regular homeschool astronomy posts for even more.

🏡 🎉 The 2024–2025 River Houses Year Begins — Let the river run!

🗓 🦢 Cygnus Term 2024–2025 Begins

🗓 TODAY, Sunday (1 September 2024) — Today is the 245th day of 2024; there are 121 days remaining in this leap year. Learn more about different modern and historical calendars in the Science & Technology section of your recommended world almanac. 📚 A New River Houses Homeschool Year Begins! 🗓 Today is the first day of Cygnus Term, our fall term in the River Houses, named for the Great Swan of the Heavens. 🦢 And for this first week of September, this first week of Cygnus Term, and this first week of the 2024–2025 River Houses year, our homeschool poem-of-the-week is our traditional adaptation of the Roman poet Horace (65–8 B.C.): “A handsome house to lodge a friend, / A river at my garden’s end.” Print your own River Houses Poetry Calendar and follow along with us throughout the new (poetical!) 2024–2025 homeschool year. 🖋

Monday (2 September 2024) — Today is Labor Day, the U.S. federal holiday honoring the American labor movement, celebrated each year on the first Monday in September. 🛠 And on this day in 1752, nearly two centuries after the countries of Continental Europe, Great Britain and her American colonies adopted the Gregorian Calendar: Wednesday, September 2nd, 1752, was followed by Thursday, September 14th, 1752. Benjamin Franklin famously wrote about the switch in his almanac: “And what an indulgence is here, for those who love their pillow, to lie down in Peace on the second of this month and not perhaps awake till the morning of the fourteenth.” 🗓

Tuesday (3 September 2024) — The American Revolution came to a formal end on this day in 1783, more than eight years after it began, with the signing of the Treaty of Paris between Great Britain and the new United States of America. 🇺🇸 🕊 🇬🇧 And since this is the first Tuesday of the month, today we’ll invite you and your students to learn all about your local library by starting on our twelve-month homeschool tour of the Dewey Decimal system. 📚

Wednesday (4 September 2024) — On this day in the year 476, Emperor Romulus Augustulus was deposed by the provincial warlord Odoacer who declared himself King of Italy, bringing to an end the Western Roman Empire, which had lasted for nearly 500 years. 👑 Today is also the birthday of the great Austrian composer Anton Bruckner (1824–1896). 🎵 And our new Wednesday American Heritage tour for the new 2024–2025 homeschool year will begin today with a visit to First State National Historical Park in Delaware. 🇺🇸

Thursday (5 September 2024) — In response to the Intolerable Acts, the first Continental Congress assembled on this day in 1774 in Philadelphia. 🇺🇸 And on this day in 1836, Sam Houston was elected the first President of the Republic of Texas. 🗳️

Friday (6 September 2024) — On this day in 1522, the ship Victoria, the only survivor of the Magellan expedition, arrived back in Spain having completed history’s first circumnavigation of the world. The voyage took just over three years. For a great homeschool overview of the early European voyages of exploration, turn to page 224 in your River Houses history encyclopedia. 🌍 🌎 🌏 🌍 Today is also the birthday of English scientist John Dalton (1766–1844), one of the founders of modern chemistry. ⚗️ And our Friday Bird Families post this week, the first of the 2024–2025 homeschool year, will introduce you to your recommended bird guide. Print your own River Houses Calendar of American Birds and follow the flyways with us throughout the coming year. 🦅

Saturday (7 September 2024) — Today is the birthday of Queen Elizabeth I of England (1533–1603), who gave her name to the Elizabethan Era. For an illustrated homeschool review and timeline of this important historical period, turn to page 260 in your River Houses history encyclopedia. 👑 Today is also the birthday of the much-loved American painter Anna Mary Robertson Moses (1860–1961), better known as Grandma Moses. 🎨 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. 🔭

Sunday (8 September 2024) — Today is one of the most important anniversary dates in American — nay, in world cultural history: on this day in 1966, the first episode of Star Trek, “The Man Trap,” was broadcast on NBC television. 🚀 🖖 Our homeschool poem-of-the-week for the second week of September is Elizabeth Jennings’ “Song at the Beginning of Autumn,” for the start of Cygnus Term. Print your own River Houses Poetry Calendar and follow along with us throughout the 2024–2025 homeschool year. 🖋 And our Sunday States & Countries for next week will be Pennsylvania 🇺🇸, Angola 🇦🇴, Antigua & Barbuda 🇦🇬, Argentina 🇦🇷, and Armenia 🇦🇲.

🥂 🎉 THIS WEEK’S SPECIAL TOAST is our traditional offering for the beginning of every new River Houses year: “Let the river run!”

❡ Toasts can be a wonderful educational tradition for your homeschool lunch or dinner table. We offer one each week — 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? 🥂

🌍 🇦🇱 EVERYTHING FLOWS: Albania in central Europe is one of our countries-of-the-week, so our Weekly World River is the Drin River, the longest river in Albania. You can find its location in your recommended homeschool atlas, and you can read more about it in the Drin River entry in Wikipedia or perhaps on your next visit to your local library.

❡ 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 the World Exploration & Geography section of your world almanac, 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. A whole world of geographical learning awaits you. 🌎 🌍 🌏

What do you and your students have planned for this week, this coming month, this coming term, and this wonderful upcoming homeschool year? 😊

❡ 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. 📫

❡ Homeschool calendars: We have a whole collection of free, printable, educational homeschool calendars and planners available on our main River Houses calendar page. They will help you create a light and easy structure for your homeschool year. Give them a try today! 🗓

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❡ Join us! The aim of the River Houses project is to create a network of friendly local homeschool support groups — local chapters that we call “Houses.” Our first at-large chapter, Headwaters House, is now forming and is open to homeschoolers everywhere. Find out how to become one of our founding members on the Headwaters House membership page. 🏡