🗓 🎄 🎅 HAPPY HOMESCHOOL DECEMBER from the River Houses!

Happy December 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. 🔍

December with 31 days is the first month of Orion Term, our winter term in the River Houses. Orion Term runs from December through February. Visit our homeschool calendar page and print out some of our simple educational calendars and planners — they’ll help you create a light and easy structure for your homeschool year. 🗓

December is Holiday Music Month in the River Houses! Watch for a rich assortment of seasonal sounds (and little educational lessons) to delight both young and old all through the month. 🎵

The month of December is so named because it was the tenth month (Latin decem, “ten”) of the ancient Roman calendar, which considered the spring equinox in March to be the beginning of the year. (That’s why the previous months were September, “Seventh,” October, “Eighth,” and November, “Ninth.”) You can learn more about different kinds of modern and historical calendars in the Science & Technology section of your River Houses almanac. 📚

December predictions (from 1661):

Strange stuffs will be well sold,
Strange tales well told,
Strange sights much sought,
Strange things much bought.

December is the month of the winter solstice in the northern hemisphere — the astronomical beginning of winter — which falls this year on Saturday the 21st. (In the southern hemisphere the 21st will be the summer solstice — the astronomical beginning of summer.) The winter solstice is the “shortest day” of the year: the day with the shortest period of daylight and the longest period of darkness. ⛄️

Our Sunday states-of-the-week for December will be Vermont, Kentucky, Tennessee, Ohio, and Louisiana, and our countries will run from El Salvador to Guyana. 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. 🇺🇸 🌎

And our weekly tour of American Heritage Sites this month will also visit the states of Vermont, Kentucky, Tennessee, Ohio, and Louisiana — follow along with us as we tour the country in preparation for the 250th anniversary of American Independence! 🇺🇸

We’ll have homeschool poems this month from A.E. Housman (for Orion Term), Emily Dickinson (for her birthday), Robert Frost (for the end of fall), Clement Clarke Moore (for Saint Nick), and Robert Burns (for auld lang syne). 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 posts this month will feature the Skuas, Jaegers, Auks, Murres, and Puffins; the Gulls, Terns, and Skimmers (twice over); and the Tropicbirds, Loons, and Albatrosses. (So many wonderful names, yes?) 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 December is Aldebaran (alpha Tauri), which we’ll be writing about next week. Print your own River Houses Stars & Constellations Calendar and join us as we visit twelve high lights of the northern hemisphere night sky and make them friends for life. 🌟

Our Dewey Decimal class for December is the Religious 200s — follow along with us (on the first Tuesday of each month) and help your students learn the whole library over the course of the 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:

 ⬩ 10 December (Tu): Emily Dickinson’s Birthday, 1830 🖋
 ⬩ 13–15 December (F–Su): Geminid meteor shower 🌠
 ⬩ 15 December (Su): Lunar Society Report 🌕
 ⬩ 21 December (Sa): December (Winter) Solstice ⛄️
 ⬩ 24 December (Tu): Festival of Carols at King’s College, Cambridge 🎵
 ⬩ 25 December (W): Christmas Day 🎄 · Isaac Newton’s Birthday, 1642 🍎
 ⬩ 31 December (Tu): New Year’s Eve 🔔

And finally, health tips for December, courtesy of Richard Saunders’ Apollo Anglicanus almanac (1665):

In December Melancholy and Phlegm much increase, which are heavy, dull, and cold, and therefore it behoves all that will consider their healths to keep their heads and bodies very well from cold, and to eat such things as be of a hot quality…. Drink often Wine this month; and Honey, Cinnamon, Mace, Nutmegs, Ginger, Grains, Cloves, Galingale or such, often drunk or eaten this month, do cherish the blood, the heart, and all the body. 🍷

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

❡ 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. 🏡