Summer is here! If you’re in the northern hemisphere, that is. If you’re in the southern hemisphere, winter is here! Happy June solstice to homeschoolers everywhere!
🔭 Homeschool Astronomy: Celestial Lessons for the Whole Year
Then felt I like some watcher of the skies
When a new planet swims into his ken.
Little homeschool astronomy lessons and easy teaching tips on stars, planets, constellations, comets, meteors, galaxies, space exploration, and more, from the River Houses Homeschool Network. Use these posts to enrich your homeschool science teaching all through the year, and add your name to our free River Houses mailing list to get more little homeschool science lessons delivered right to your mailbox every week. 📫
❡ Star bright: This Homeschool Astronomy collection also includes our special series of monthly Great Star posts that introduce you and your students to twelve of the brightest stars of the northern hemisphere night sky. 🌟
![[Thomas Carlyle on the constellations]](https://riverhouses.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/carlyle-astronomy-1024x222.png)
🌅 HOMESCHOOL SEASONS: Watch the Summer Solstice at Stonehenge
Follow a live broadcast of the summer-solstice sunset and sunrise at Stonehenge, the ancient astronomical landmark in southern England.
🌟 STAR BRIGHT: Spica and Virgo for June
Make the acquaintance of the young blue-white giant Spica in the constellation Virgo the Virgin this month, one of the brightest stars in the northern hemisphere sky, and make it your homeschool friend for life.
📺 HISTORICAL DOCUMENTARIES for Your Homeschool Summer
Ten multi-part masterpieces of the documentarian’s art that you and your homeschool students can watch together and discuss over the summer. (Or at any other time of year!)
🔭 WATCHERS OF THE SKIES: Homeschool Astronomy for June
Our homeschool review of the educational wonders that you and your students can watch for in the northern hemisphere night sky during the month of June.
🗓 💪 HERCULES TERM and the River Houses Homeschool Year
We divide the homeschool year into four three-month terms in the River Houses. Today is the first day of Hercules Term, our summer term, named for the Great Hero of the Heavens. Hercules Term runs from June through August.
🖋 🌟 WONDERFUL WORDS: Hymn to the North Star
“A beauteous type of that unchanging good, / That bright eternal beacon, by whose ray / The voyager of time should shape his heedful way.” (An extra astronomical homeschool poem-of-the-week, from William Cullen Bryant, for Polaris, our Great Star for the month of May.)
🇬🇷 HOMESCHOOL HISTORY: The Antikythera Mechanism
Spend a few homeschool history minutes this week learning about one of the most amazing objects the ancient world ever produced: an astronomical computer called the Antikythera mechanism.
🚀 HOMESCHOOL ASTRONOMY: Skylab’s 50th Anniversary
Do you have a future astronaut in your homeschool? Then why not take a few minutes this week to learn about Skylab, America’s first space station, launched on this day in 1973.
🌟 STAR BRIGHT: Polaris and Ursa Minor for May
Make the acquaintance of the pole star Polaris in the bearish constellation Ursa Minor this month, one of the most important stars in the northern hemisphere sky, and make it your homeschool friend and sky-mark for life.
🔭 WATCHERS OF THE SKIES: Homeschool Astronomy for May
Our homeschool review of the educational wonders that you and your students can watch for in the northern hemisphere night sky during the month of May.
🌟 STAR BRIGHT: Regulus and Leo for April
Make the acquaintance of “the little king” Regulus in the constellation Leo the Lion this month, one of the brightest stars in the northern hemisphere sky, and make it your homeschool friend for life.
🖖 HOMESCHOOL HOLIDAYS: Happy First Contact Day!
“Sure on this shining night / I weep for wonder wand’ring far alone / Of shadows on the stars.” (On this day in the year 2063, in a remote area near Bozeman, Montana, a Vulcan survey ship will make first contact with the human race. Perhaps some of today’s homeschoolers will be there to see it.)
🔭 WATCHERS OF THE SKIES: Homeschool Astronomy for April
Our homeschool review of the educational wonders that you and your students can watch for in the northern hemisphere night sky during the month of April.
🗓 🌷 SPRING IS HERE! (Astronomically Speaking)
Spring is here! If you’re in the northern hemisphere, that is. If you’re in the southern hemisphere, fall is here! Happy March equinox to homeschoolers everywhere!
📡 JOIN A “CITIZEN SCIENCE” PROJECT for Einstein’s Birthday
You and your young science students can join the search for undiscovered pulsars in deep space, right from the comfort of your own homeschool living room. (Really!) How cool is that?
🌟 STAR BRIGHT: Sirius and Canis Major for March
Make the acquaintance of the brilliant nearby star Sirius this month — “the dog star” in the constellation Canis Major and the brightest star in the earth’s night sky — and make it your homeschool friend for life.
🖋 🔭 WONDERFUL WORDS: When I Heard the Learn’d Astronomer
“Till rising and gliding out I wander’d off by myself, / In the mystical moist night-air, and from time to time, / Look’d up in perfect silence at the stars.” (Our homeschool poem-of-the-week, from Walt Whitman, contrariwise, for John Herschel and Albert Einstein.)
🔭 WATCHERS OF THE SKIES: Homeschool Astronomy for March
Our homeschool review of the educational wonders that you and your students can watch for in the northern hemisphere night sky during the month of March.
🗓 🦁 LEO TERM and the River Houses Homeschool Year
We divide the homeschool year into four three-month terms in the River Houses. Today is the first day of Leo Term, our spring term, named for the Great Lion of the Heavens. Leo Term runs from March through May.
☀️ 🌍 HOMESCHOOL SCIENCE & HISTORY: Copernicus and His Revolutions
On Copernicus’ birthday, introduce your homeschool students to one of the most important books ever published: “On the Revolutions of the Celestial Spheres” (1543).
🔭 HOMESCHOOL SCIENCE & HISTORY: The Starry Messenger
Remembering one of the great minds of history, the Italian scientist Galileo Galilei (1564–1642), on the anniversary of his birth.
🌟 STAR BRIGHT: Betelgeuse and Orion for February
Make the acquaintance of the red giant Betelgeuse in the constellation Orion the Hunter this month — a strange, irregular, enormous variable star — and make it your homeschool friend for life.
🔭 WATCHERS OF THE SKIES: Homeschool Astronomy for February
Our homeschool review of the educational wonders that you and your students can watch for in the northern hemisphere night sky during the month of February.
🖋 🌊 HOMESCHOOL HISTORY & LITERATURE: Remembering Challenger
“I must go down to the seas again, to the lonely sea and the sky, / And all I ask is a tall ship and a star to steer her by.” (Our homeschool poem-of-the-week, from John Masefield, for the Challenger Seven of 1986.)
🌟 STAR BRIGHT: Capella and Auriga for January
Make the acquaintance of Capella in the constellation Auriga the Charioteer this month — a nearby four-star system and one of the brightest lights in the northern hemisphere night sky — and make it your homeschool friend for life.
🔭 WATCHERS OF THE SKIES: Homeschool Astronomy for January
Our homeschool review of the educational wonders that you and your students can watch for in the northern hemisphere night sky during the month of January.
