🗓 🎆 🇺🇸 HAPPY HOMESCHOOL JULY from the River Houses!

Happy July 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. 🔍

July with 31 days is the middle month of Hercules Term, our summer term in the River Houses. Hercules Term runs from June through August. 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. 🗓

The month of July was originally called Quintilis (“Fifth”) back when the ancient Roman calendar considered the spring equinox in March to be the beginning of the year. (That’s why we still have September, “Seventh,” followed by October, “Eighth,” and so on.) The fifth month was renamed July in honor of Julius Caesar in the year 44 B.C. You can learn more about different kinds of modern and historical calendars in the Science & Technology section of your River Houses almanac. 📚

A prognostication:

If the first of July be rainy weather
’Twill rain more or less for four weeks together.

Our Sunday states-of-the-week for July will be Utah, Oklahoma, New Mexico, and Arizona, and our countries will run from Tonga to Venezuela. 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 Utah, Oklahoma, New Mexico, and Arizona — 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 William Ralph Emerson (for Independence Day), Phillis Wheatley (for the newly independent republic), Emily Dickinson (for July), and Gerard Manley Hopkins (for his birthday). 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 lessons this month will feature the tropical Tanagers; the Emberizid Sparrows (twice over); and the Cardinals and their allies. 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 July is Arcturus (alpha Boötis), 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 July is the Historical and Geographical 900s — 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:

 ⬩ 3 July (Th): Aphelion 2025 ☀️ 🌎
 ⬩ 4 July (F): Independence Day 🇺🇸
 ⬩ 10 July (Th): Lunar Society Report 🌕
 ⬩ 20 July (Su): Gregor Mendel’s birthday, 1822 · First Moon Landing, 1969 👨‍🚀

And, sadly, don’t forget:

Do what we can, summer will have its flies.

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

❡ 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. 🏡