(This is the first of our regular Quick Freshes posts for the 2023–2024 homeschool year. Print your own River Houses Calendar to follow along with us, and add your name to our weekly mailing list 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. 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.
🗓 🦢 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 gibbous and waning — a 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 341–356 in your current world almanac. Browse through our regular homeschool astronomy posts for even more.
🗓 TODAY, Sunday (3 September 2023) — Today is the 246th day of 2023; there are 119 days remaining in this common year. Learn more about different modern and historical calendars on pages 357–363 in your recommended world almanac. 📚 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. 🇺🇸🕊🇬🇧
Monday (4 September 2023) — Today is Labor Day, the U.S. federal holiday honoring the American labor movement, celebrated each year on the first Monday in September. 🛠 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). 🎵
Tuesday (5 September 2023) — 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. 🌵 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 tour of the Dewey Decimal system. 📚
Wednesday (6 September 2023) — 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 Wednesday World Heritage tour for the 2023–2024 homeschool year will begin this week with a visit to the Cultural Landscape and Archaeological Remains of the Bamiyan Valley in Afghanistan. Print your own River Houses World Heritage Calendar and follow along with us. 🇦🇫
Thursday (7 September 2023) — 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. 🎨
Friday (8 September 2023) — 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 Friday Bird Families post this week will introduce you to the familiar Ducks, Geese, and Swans (Part I). Print your own River Houses Calendar of American Birds and follow the flyways with us throughout the year. 🦆 And our homeschool poem-of-the-week for the second week of September is Elizabeth Jennings’ “Song at the Beginning of Autumn,” for the new homeschool year. Print your own River Houses Poetry Calendar and follow along with us! 🖋
Saturday (9 September 2023) — Today is the birthday of the great Russian novelist Leo Tolstoy (1828–1910). 📚 It’s also the birthday of the American businessman Harland David Sanders (1890–1980), better known as Colonel Sanders, the founder of the Kentucky Fried Chicken restaurant chain. 🍗 And since this is the second Saturday of the month, we’ll introduce you to one of the Great Stars of the northern hemisphere night sky. For this first month of the new homeschool year: Deneb, the brightest star in the constellation Cygnus the Swan. 🌟
Sunday (10 September 2023) — Today is the birthday of the great English composer Henry Purcell (1659–1695). 🎵 It’s also the birthday of the American physicist Arthur Compton (1892–1962), winner of the 1927 Nobel Prize for his studies of electromagnetism. ⚡ And our Sunday States & Countries for next week will be Pennsylvania 🇺🇸, Angola 🇦🇴, Antigua & Barbuda 🇦🇬, Argentina 🇦🇷, and Armenia 🇦🇲.
🥂 🏡 OUR TOAST THIS WEEK is our traditional offering for the first week of every River Houses year: “A little health, a little wealth, a little house and freedom.”
❡ 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!”). Many of our examples are adapted from two old collections: Marchant’s “Toasts and sentiments” (1888) and the anonymous Social and Convivial Toast-Master (1841). What will you toast in your homeschool this week? 🥂
🌏 🇦🇫 EVERYTHING FLOWS: Afghanistan in southwestern Asia is one of our countries-of-the-week, so our Weekly World River is Panjshir River, a tributary of the major Kabul River in northeastern Afghanistan. You can find its location in your recommended homeschool atlas, and you can read more about it in the Panjshir 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, or start with the river lists in your world almanac (pages 695–697), 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 have planned for this week, this month, this term, and this wonderful new 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 all help you create a light and easy structure for your homeschool year. Give them a try today! 🗓
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