🌞 🌏 🌕 TOTAL LUNAR ECLIPSE: 13–14 March 2025 (Thursday–Friday)

Just a reminder that there will be a total lunar eclipse coming up on Thursday–Friday night, 13–14 March 2025. It will be visible across all of North and South America, weather permitting, so be sure to take your homeschool scientists outside for a look!

For the exact timing of the eclipse in your area, visit the timeanddate.com eclipse page and enter your city or zipcode:

• ➢ Total Lunar Eclipse, 13–14 March 2025 (timeanddate.com)

This is a total eclipse: the earth’s deep shadow (the umbra) will completely cover the moon, turning it a deep orange-red — very dramatic! The duration of the eclipse, from beginning to end, will be about six hours. (Lunar eclipses are slow.) In the eastern United States, for example, the partial eclipse phase will begin about 11:57 p.m. Thursday night, with totality arriving at 2:26 a.m. Friday morning. In the western United States the partial phase will begin about 8:57 p.m. Thursday night, with totality arriving at 11:26 p.m. Thursday and continuing into Friday morning.

If you can’t make it outside or if the weather is poor in your area, timeanddate.com will also be livestreaming this eclipse, so if it’s too cloudy or too rainy or too cold or too hot, you and your homescholars can spend a successful eclipse-viewing night indoors in cozy comfort.

Timeanddate.com also has a handy little primer on how lunar eclipses occur (and solar eclipses too), so you’ll be ready to teach a great little lesson. 🌞 🌏 🌕

What other celestial sights and astronomical alignments will you and your students be investigating in your homeschool this Leo Term? 🔭

❡ Remembrance of eclipses past: We have watched quite a few eclipses together in the River Houses, both solar and lunar. You can review (and rewatch!) many of them on the timeanddate.com website: 17–18 September 2024 (partial lunar); 14 October 2023 (annular solar); 7–8 November 2022 (total lunar); 15–16 May 2022 (total lunar); 18–19 November 2021 (partial lunar); 2 July 2019 (total solar); and 20–21 January 2019 (total lunar). 🌞 🌕

❡ All the star-sown sky: Teaching your students the major constellations and the names of the principal stars is one of the simplest and most enduring gifts you can give them. Our recommended backyard star guide and homeschool world atlas both contain charts of the constellations that will help you learn your way around the heavens. Find a dark-sky spot near you this month and spend some quality homeschool time with your students beneath the starry vault. ✨

❡ Star bright: If you’d like some light and easy homeschool astronomy lessons, download and print a copy of our annual River Houses Star Calendar and follow along with us month by month as we make twelve heavenly friends-for-life over the course of the year. 🌟

❡ Watchers of the skies: This is one of our regular Homeschool Astronomy posts. Subscribe to our free River Houses newsletter 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. 🏡