🗓 😎 ☀️ HAPPY HOMESCHOOL AUGUST from the River Houses!

Happy August to all our homeschool readers and friends! Here are some wonderful educational opportunities and teaching traditions that you and your students can watch for in the homeschool month ahead. 🔍

August with 31 days is the last month of Hercules Term, our summer term in the River Houses, and it’s the last month of the River Houses year. Visit our homeschool calendar page and print out some of our simple calendars and planners for the new homeschool year ahead — they’ll help you create a light and easy structure for your little home academy. 🗓

The month of August was originally called Sextilis (“Sixth”) back when the ancient Roman calendar considered the spring equinox in March to be the beginning of the year. (That’s why next month is September, “Seventh,” followed by October, “Eighth,” and so on.) The sixth month was renamed August in honor of the emperor Caesar Augustus in the year 8 B.C. You can learn more about different kinds of modern and historical calendars in the Calendar section of your River Houses almanac. 📚

Fear not, farmers:

Dry August and warme,
Doth harvest no harme.

Our Sunday states-of-the-week for August — we’ve reached the end! — will be Alaska and Hawaii, and the U.S. Territories and Possessions, and our countries will run from Vietnam to Zimbabwe and beyond. Print your own River Houses States & Countries Calendar and tour the United States and the whole world with us from Delaware to Hawaii and Afghanistan to Zimbabwe. 🇺🇸 🌎

We’ll be visiting World Heritage Sites in Yemen and we’ll also look at some newly inscribed sites this month — our River Houses World Heritage Calendar will point the way. 🗺

We’ll have homeschool poems this month from Herman Melville (for his birthday), Robert Frost (for the Perseid meteor shower), Helen Hunt Jackson (for late summer), and Robert Louis Stevenson (for living rivers by the door, to bring our River Houses year to a close). Print your own River Houses Poetry Calendar and join us as we visit with fifty of our favorite friends over the course of the year. ✒️

Our Friday Bird Families this month will include an assortment of accidental and extinct species to finish up the year. Print your own copy of our River Houses Calendar of American Birds, get out your copy of our recommended homeschool bird guide, and follow the flyways with us. 🦅

Our monthly Great Star for August is Vega (alpha Lyrae), which we’ll be writing about next week. Print your own River Houses Star Calendar and join us as we visit twelve high lights of the northern hemisphere night sky and make them friends for life. 🌟

Our monthly Learning the Library post for August will conclude our annual tour of the Dewey Decimal system and will take you On Beyond Dewey — follow along with us (on the first Tuesday of each month) and invite your students to explore the whole universe of knowledge (really!) over the course of the homeschool year. 📚

And watch for our monthly Wikimedia Commons Photo Challenge post, coming up in the next few days — it’s a great opportunity for homeschool photographers. 📸

Also coming up this month:

 ⬩ 1 August (Th): Herman Melville’s Birthday 🐳
 ⬩ 11–13 August (Su–Tu): Perseid Meteor Shower 🌠
 ⬩ 19 August (M): Lunar Society Report 🌕
 ⬩ 31 August (Sa): 2023–2024 River Houses Homeschool Year Ends 🏡

In summary:

It is now August, and the Sunne is somewhat towards his declination, yet such is his heat as hardeneth the soft clay, dries vp the standing ponds, wythereth the sappy leaues and scorcheth the skin of the naked: now beginne the Gleaners to follow the Corne Cart, and a little bread to a great deale of drinke makes the Trauailers dinner: the Melowne and the Cucumber is now in request: and Oyle and vineger giue attendance on the Sallet hearbes: the Alehouse is more frequented then the Tauerne, and a fresh Riuer is more comfortable than a firey Furnace. (Nicholas Breton, 1626)

What calendrical events and annual apparitions will you and your students be marking in your homeschool this August? 😊

❡ Thirty days hath September: This is one of our regular posts about the seasons, months, and terms that make up the River Houses Homeschool Year. Add your name to our free mailing list to get more great homeschool teaching ideas delivered right to your mailbox every week. 📫

❡ 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! 🗓

❡ Support our work: If you enjoy our educational materials, please support us by starting your regular Amazon shopping from our very own homeschool teaching supplies page. When you click through from our page, any purchase you make earns us a small commission at no extra cost to you. Thank you for helping us to keep going and growing! 🛒

❡ 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. 🏡