![[The River Houses]](https://riverhouses.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/12/arms-icon-100x100.png "The River Houses"){kind=icon}
![[Gettysburg Stamp 1948]](https://riverhouses.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/11/gettysburg-stamp-1948-150x95.jpg)
“What place is this? Where are we now?” (Marking the anniversary of the Gettysburg Address, with help from Ken Burns and Carl Sandburg.)
🗓 Homeschool Holidays & History: Little Lessons for the Whole Year
Great homeschool teaching tips and wonderful little lessons on history, holidays, anniversaries, and notable events from the River Houses Homeschool Network. Use these regular posts to enrich your homeschool history curriculum all through the year. Print your own homeschool calendars and planners on our main River Houses calendar page, and subscribe to our free homeschool newsletter to get posts like these delivered right to your mailbox every week. 📫
📚 🇺🇸 HOMESCHOOL HISTORY: The Veterans History Project
You and your homeschool students can contribute to an important historical documentary project by interviewing American veterans in your family or community for the Library of Congress.
🖋 🕊 THE ELEVENTH DAY of the Eleventh Month: We Will Remember Them
![[For the Fallen]](https://riverhouses.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/binyon-stamp-150x150.jpg)
“They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old: / Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn. / At the going down of the sun and in the morning / We will remember them.” (Our commemorative homeschool poem-of-the-week, from Laurence Binyon, for Veterans Day and Armistice Day.)
⚗️ HOMESCHOOL SCIENCE & HISTORY: Happy Birthday to Marie Curie!
Happy birthday to the great Polish-French physicist, chemist, and two-time Nobel laureate Marie Skłodowska Curie, born on this day in 1867.
🖋 🇺🇸 WONDERFUL WORDS: America’s Choosing Day
“These stormy gusts and winds waft precious ships.” (Our electoral homeschool poem-of-the-week, from Walt Whitman, for the first Tuesday after the first Monday in November.)
🎃 🦇 👻 🏚 HAPPY HOMESCHOOL HALLOWEEN from Horace the Otter!
Horace the Otter, our River Houses mascot, hopes all his riverside neighbors and friends will have a Happy Halloween!
👻 HOMESCHOOL SPOOKYDAYS: Quoth the Raven, “Nevermore”
![[Edgar Allan Poe Stamp 2019]](https://riverhouses.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/10/poe-stamp-2009-95x150.jpg)
Light a candle, turn out the lights, and let Edgar Allan Poe entertain you and your homeschool students this Halloween.
👑 “FROM THIS DAY to the ending of the world”
“This day is call’d the feast of Crispian.” (Celebrate some Shakespearean history in your home academy on this St. Crispin’s Day.)
⚔️ “THIS STORY shall the good man teach his son“
“He that shall live this day and see old age, will yearly on the vigil feast his neighbours, and say ‘To-morrow is Saint Crispin’s.’” (A homeschool toast to offer from this day to the ending of the world.)
⚗️ HOMESCHOOL SCIENCE: Happy National Mole Day!
Homeschool science students from coast to coast will want to be sure to celebrate National Mole Day today (10/23) from 6:02 a.m. to 6:02 p.m. All hail the Count of Quaregna and Cerreto!
🇺🇸 🇫🇷 HOMESCHOOL HISTORY & GEOGRAPHY: Yorktown 1781
Invite your American history students to remember the end of the American Revolution with the British surrender at Yorktown, Virginia, on this day in 1781.
⛏ HOMESCHOOL BOOKS & NATURAL HISTORY: National Fossil Day!
For National Fossil Day, why not explore a big collection of rare and beautiful books on paleontology made available by the Smithsonian Institution and the Biodiversity Heritage Library.
🏹 🧵 HOMESCHOOL HISTORY: 1066 and All That
Today is the anniversary of the Battle of Hastings in 1066: the beginning of the Norman Conquest of England. Why not use this occasion to introduce your homeschool students to one of the most famous objects that has survived from the Middle Ages: the Bayeux Tapestry.
🌐 HOMESCHOOL GEOGRAPHY: The Prime Meridian
![[Prime Meridian Stamp 1984]](https://riverhouses.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/greenwich-prime-meridian-stamp-1984-110x150.jpg)
On this day in 1884, the north-south line running through the Royal Observatory at Greenwich, England, was established as our planet’s Prime Meridian: the line of 0º longitude. Can your homeschoolers locate it on a globe and explain its significance?
🎵 🍎 WONDERFUL WORDS (and Music!): My Orchard in Linden Lea
“I be free to go abroad / Or take again my homeward road / To where for me the apple tree / Do lean down low in Linden Lea.” (An extra pomological homeschool poem-of-the-week, from William Barnes and Ralph Vaughan Williams, for apple season and Vaughan Williams’ birthday.)
🚀 HOMESCHOOL SCIENCE: Remembering Space Pioneer Robert Goddard
Robert Hutchings Goddard, the inventor of the liquid-fueled rocket and the father of modern space flight, was born on this day in 1882 in Worcester, Massachusetts. Invite your young homeschool scientists to learn about him this week.
📚 HOMESCHOOL LIBRARY LESSONS: Discovering Dictionaries
![[Samuel Johnson Stamp 2009]](https://riverhouses.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/09/samuel-johnson-stamp-2009-150x145.jpg)
On your next library visit, show your homeschool students the many wonderful kinds of dictionaries that are available to them — a lot more than they may realize!
🇺🇸 📜 THE U.S. NATIONAL ARCHIVES and Constitution Day
![[U.S. National Archives]](https://riverhouses.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/national-archives-logo-150x135.png){kind=logo}
The National Archives in Washington has a wealth of free teaching materials available that are ideal for homeschoolers. Why not pay them a visit this week to celebrate the signing of the U.S. Constitution on 17 September 1787.
⚔️ HOMESCHOOL HISTORY: Marathon, 490 B.C.
![[Battle of Marathon]](https://riverhouses.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/09/battle-of-marathon-stamp-2010-150x107.jpg)
The Battle of Marathon, fought on the eastern coast of mainland Greece in 490 B.C., was one of the most consequential battles in the history of the Western world. It’s an event every homeschool student should know.
🇺🇸 HOMESCHOOL HISTORY: Remembering 9/11
On the anniversary of the September 11th terrorist attacks in 2001, why not invite your homeschool students to contemplate the Star-Spangled Banner, in Baltimore, New York, and London.
HOMESCHOOL HISTORY 🌋 The Last Days of Pompeii
The ancient Roman city of Pompeii, now one of the most famous archaeological sites in the world, was destroyed in an eruption of Mount Vesuvius on this day in the year 79.
🇺🇸 HAPPY BIRTHDAY to General Nathanael Greene, “The Fighting Quaker”
![[Washington-Greene Stamp 1936]](https://riverhouses.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/08/washington-greene-stamp-1936-150x97.jpg)
Offer a homeschool toast this week to “The Fighting Quaker,” General Nathanael Greene of Rhode Island, George Washington’s right-hand man and one of the great military strategists of the American Revolution. He was born on this day in 1742.
💰 HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO THE LINCOLN CENT, “Born” This Day in 1909
The familiar Lincoln penny — you may have one in your pocket right now — first went into circulation on this day in 1909. It was struck to commemorate the 100th anniversary of Abraham Lincoln’s birth.
🖋 🍻 WONDERFUL WORDS: To the Meteor Rolling Home
“Of thee we think, in a ring we link; / To the shearer of ocean’s fleece we drink, / And the Meteor rolling home.” (Our celebratory homeschool poem-of-the-week, from Herman Melville, for his birthday and for this month’s Perseid meteor shower.)
🖋 🔔 WONDERFUL WORDS: As Kingfishers Catch Fire
“Like each tucked string tells, each hung bell’s / Bow swung finds tongue to fling out broad its name.” (Our intricate homeschool poem-of-the-week, from Gerard Manley Hopkins, for his birthday and for the halcyon days of summer.)
🚀 🌕 HOMESCHOOL SCIENCE: Apollo 11 Moon Landing Resources
Share some great educational resources with your homeschool students this month for the July 20th anniversary of the Apollo 11 moon landing in 1969.
📖 🖋 THOREAU’S BIRTHDAY and Homeschool Journaling
“How vain it is to sit down to write when you have not stood up to live.” (Happy birthday to the great American writer Henry David Thoreau, born on this day in 1817. Check him out at your local library this week.)
