Tour the United States and travel the countries of the world each week with the River Houses. Our Sunday States & Countries posts will point the way.
Many homeschoolers like to review the U.S. states and the nations of the world each year, and your recommended River Houses reference library (riverhouses.org/books) includes a current world almanac, a world atlas, and a history encyclopedia that make these reviews fun and easy. We go through the states in the traditional order of admission to the Union (almanac page 422), so this week’s state is:
🇺🇸 Seal of KansasKANSAS (the 34th state, 29 January 1861) — The Sunflower State. Capital: Topeka. Kansas can be found on page 572 in your almanac and on plates 39 and 142 in your atlas. Name origin: “Sioux word for ‘south wind people’” (almanac page 423). State bird: Western Meadowlark. Website:www.kansas.gov.
❡ Little lessons: You can teach a hundred little lessons with the state-of-the-week, using your reference library (riverhouses.org/books) as a starting point. Find the location of the state capital in your atlas. Look up the state bird in your bird guide. Read the almanac’s one-paragraph history aloud each week. Using each state’s official website (above), find and copy the preamble to that state’s constitution into a commonplace book over the course of the year. Practice math skills by graphing each state’s population and area. Look up the famous state residents listed in your almanac either online or at your local library. The possibilities are endless and they can be easily adapted to each student’s age and interests. Pick a simple pattern to follow for a few minutes each week, and by the end of the year, without even realizing it, your students will have absorbed a world of new geographical and historical information.
❡ Explore more: If you’re planning a comprehensive unit study of one or more of the U.S. states, be sure to investigate the collection of primary source materials for teachers available from the Library of Congress. And the helpful State Symbols USA site (statesymbolsusa.org) has everything you and your students will want to know about flags, seals, mottos, state birds, and much more.
This week’s countries, with their official websites, are:
🇵🇼 PALAU, in the western Pacific Ocean. Population: 21,431. Capital: Ngerulmud. Website (in English):palaugov.pw.
🇵🇦 PANAMA, in Central America. Population: 3,753,142. Capital: Panama City. Website (in Spanish and English):presidencia.gob.pa.
🇵🇬 PAPUA NEW GUINEA, on the island of New Guinea, north of Australia. Population: 6,909,701. Capital: Port Moresby. Website (in English):pm.gov.pg.
🇵🇾 PARAGUAY, in central South America. Population: 6,943,739. Capital: Asunción. Website (in Spanish):presidencia.gov.py.
These all appear in your current almanac, atlas, and history encyclopedia as well. For example, you’ll find the main entries for the island nation of Palau on almanac page 822, atlas plates 109, 110, and 137, and history encyclopedia page 598, with illustrations, flags, and other mentions available through the indexes in each volume.
❡ Read and think critically: The country links above go to official websites, which are not always in English and which may well be propagandistic in one form or another, thus offering older students a good opportunity to practice their critical reading and thinking skills.
What geographical discoveries have you made in your homeschool lately? 😊
Quick Freshes are our regular Sunday notes on the homeschool week ahead. Pick one or two (or more) of the items below each week and use them to enrich your homeschooling schedule!
🇺🇸 OUR STATE-OF-THE-WEEK is Kansas, and our COUNTRIES are Palau, Panama, Papua New Guinea, and Paraguay. (Our separate Sunday States & Countries post will be up shortly.)
❡ Little lessons: “Did you know that the tiny Pacific Ocean nation of Palau has a population of only 21,000 people?” You can find a facts-and-figures outline of Palau on page 822 in your River Houses almanac and on plate 137 in your atlas, with maps of the country on atlas plates 109 and 110 (riverhouses.org/books).
🌓 THE MOON at the beginning of this week is a waxing crescent — a relatively good time for stargazing. Track the moon’s phases each month at timeanddate.com/moon/phases, and dial up this week’s constellations with your River Houses star atlas (riverhouses.org/books).
🗓 TODAY (Sunday, 22 April) — Today is the 112th day of 2018; there are 253 days remaining in the year. Learn more about different kinds of modern and historical calendars on pages 351–357 in your River Houses almanac (riverhouses.org/books). ⬩ Today is also Earth Day!
Monday (23 April) — Monday is Museums & Monuments Day at the River Houses, and since today is the birthday of William Shakespeare (forsooth!), we’ll be visiting some suitably Shakespearean monuments. ⬩ The Boston Latin School, the first public school in America, was founded on this day in 1635 (and it’s still going strong). ⬩ Today is also the birthday of the great German physicist and Nobel laureate Max Planck (1858–1947), the originator of quantum theory.
Tuesday (24 April) — Join us for Tuesday Tea at the Library and some notes on books, libraries, and history. Appropriately enough, the United States Library of Congress was established on this date in 1800 with an appropriation of $5000 to purchase “such books as may be necessary for the use of Congress.” ⬩ The Hubble Space Telescope was released from the Space Shuttle Discovery on this day in 1990. ⬩ Today is also the traditional date given for the fall of Troy in 1184 B.C.
Wednesday (25 April) — Wednesday is Wonderful Words Day at the River Houses. This Wednesday, spend a few homeschool minutes reading a lovely poem by English poet Walter de la Mare, born on this day in 1873, and listening to a beautiful musical setting of the poem by Gerald Finzi (1901–1956). ⬩ On this day in 1953, Francis Crick and James Watson published the first description of the structure of deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA), the molecule that carries the information of heredity.
Thursday (26 April) — On this day in 1803, large numbers of meteor fragments fell near L’Aigle, France, clearly establishing that the meteors seen as streaks of light in the night sky are indeed objects falling from space. ⬩ Today is also the birthday of the great French-American artist and naturalist John James Audubon (1785–1851).
Friday (27 April) — Today is Arbor Day! First celebrated in 1872 when an estimated one million trees were planted in Nebraska, Arbor Day is now recognized each year in the United States on the last Friday in April. Similar tree-planting holidays are held in many other countries around the world.
Saturday (28 April) — Saturday is Arts Day at the River Houses, and in memory of the fall of Troy we’ll look at some famous artistic depictions of the Trojan horse, a cultural image that all good homeschoolers should be able to recognize. ⬩ Today is also the birthday of American novelist Harper Lee (1926–2016), author of To Kill a Mockingbird (1960), which has been a standard component of high school literature courses for many years.
🥂 YOUR WEEKLY TOAST: “May God speed the plow, and reward the men who drive it.”
❡ Toasts are a fun tradition for your family table. We offer one each week — you can take it up, or make up one of your own (“To North American dinosaurs!”), or invite a different person to come up with one for each meal (“To variety in toasting!”). Our current examples are adapted from two old collections: Marchant’s “Toasts and sentiments” (1888) and the anonymous Social and Convivial Toast-Master (1841). What will you toast this week?
🌎 EVERYTHING FLOWS: Paraguay is one of our countries-of-the-week, so our Weekly World River is the the Paraguay River, a major river of south-central South America, flowing through Paraguay, Argentina, Bolivia, and Brazil. You can chart its course in your recommended River Houses atlas (riverhouses.org/books), and you can read much more about it in the Paraguay River entry in Wikipedia or on your next visit to your local library.
The Paraguay River near Paraguay’s capital city of Asunción. (Image: Wikimedia Commons.)
❡ Let the river run: Why not do a homeschool study of world rivers over the course of the year? Take the one we select each week (above), or start with the river lists in your almanac (pages 691–692), and make it a project to look them all up in your atlas, or in a handy encyclopedia either online or on a weekly visit to your local library. A whole world of geographical learning awaits you.
What do you have planned for the homeschool week ahead? 😊
You’ve had a busy homeschooling week. Why not wind everyone down for the evening with the beautifully peaceful “Alleluia” of American composer Randall Thompson, born on this day (21 April) in 1899:
Thompson also wrote choral settings of a number of Robert Frost’s poems (Frostiana), and they would make for fine homeschool listening as well.
What artistic and musical discoveries have you made in your homeschool lately? 😊
The American Revolution began on this day, the 19th of April, in 1775, when local militiamen in the towns of Lexington and Concord, Massachusetts, offered forcible resistance to a British attempt to seize colonial stores of arms and ammunition. By the end of the day, 49 Americans and 73 British soldiers had been killed.
Why not memorize today, with your homeschool students, the famous opening stanza of Ralph Waldo Emerson’s “Concord Hymn.” It was written for and first read (sung, actually) at the town of Concord’s bicentennial celebration in 1836 when the first battle monument was dedicated at Concord’s North Bridge:
By the rude bridge that arched the flood,
Their flag to April’s breeze unfurled,
Here once the embattled farmers stood
And fired the shot heard round the world.
The foe long since in silence slept;
Alike the conqueror silent sleeps;
And Time the ruined bridge has swept
Down the dark stream which seaward creeps.
On this green bank, by this soft stream,
We set today a votive stone;
That memory may their deed redeem,
When, like our sires, our sons are gone.
Spirit, that made those heroes dare
To die, or leave their children free,
Bid Time and Nature gently spare
The shaft we raise to them and thee.
The North Bridge and the Concord River in 2017. (Photo by RJO.)
Wednesday is Language & Literature Day in the River Houses, and since it’s also the eighteenth of April, there is no better day to read or listen to Henry Wadsworth Longfellow’s famous American poem “Paul Revere’s Ride.”
Here’s one of several fine dramatic readings that are available online:
And here’s the text, addressed directly to your students! 😊
Listen, my children, and you shall hear
Of the midnight ride of Paul Revere,
On the eighteenth of April, in Seventy-five;
Hardly a man is now alive
Who remembers that famous day and year.
He said to his friend, “If the British march
By land or sea from the town to-night,
Hang a lantern aloft in the belfry arch
Of the North Church tower as a signal light,—
One, if by land, and two, if by sea;
And I on the opposite shore will be,
Ready to ride and spread the alarm
Through every Middlesex village and farm,
For the country folk to be up and to arm.”
Then he said, “Good night!” and with muffled oar
Silently rowed to the Charlestown shore,
Just as the moon rose over the bay,
Where swinging wide at her moorings lay
The Somerset, British man-of-war;
A phantom ship, with each mast and spar
Across the moon like a prison bar,
And a huge black hulk, that was magnified
By its own reflection in the tide.
Meanwhile, his friend, through alley and street,
Wanders and watches with eager ears,
Till in the silence around him he hears
The muster of men at the barrack door,
The sound of arms, and the tramp of feet,
And the measured tread of the grenadiers,
Marching down to their boats on the shore.
Then he climbed the tower of the Old North Church,
By the wooden stairs, with stealthy tread,
To the belfry-chamber overhead,
And startled the pigeons from their perch
On the sombre rafters, that round him made
Masses and moving shapes of shade,—
By the trembling ladder, steep and tall,
To the highest window in the wall,
Where he paused to listen and look down
A moment on the roofs of the town,
And the moonlight flowing over all.
Beneath, in the churchyard, lay the dead,
In their night-encampment on the hill,
Wrapped in silence so deep and still
That he could hear, like a sentinel’s tread,
The watchful night-wind, as it went
Creeping along from tent to tent,
And seeming to whisper, “All is well!”
A moment only he feels the spell
Of the place and the hour, and the secret dread
Of the lonely belfry and the dead;
For suddenly all his thoughts are bent
On a shadowy something far away,
Where the river widens to meet the bay,—
A line of black that bends and floats
On the rising tide, like a bridge of boats.
Meanwhile, impatient to mount and ride,
Booted and spurred, with a heavy stride
On the opposite shore walked Paul Revere.
Now he patted his horse’s side,
Now gazed at the landscape far and near,
Then, impetuous, stamped the earth,
And turned and tightened his saddle girth;
But mostly he watched with eager search
The belfry-tower of the Old North Church,
As it rose above the graves on the hill,
Lonely and spectral and sombre and still.
And lo! as he looks, on the belfry’s height
A glimmer, and then a gleam of light!
He springs to the saddle, the bridle he turns,
But lingers and gazes, till full on his sight
A second lamp in the belfry burns!
A hurry of hoofs in a village street,
A shape in the moonlight, a bulk in the dark,
And beneath, from the pebbles, in passing, a spark
Struck out by a steed flying fearless and fleet:
That was all! And yet, through the gloom and the light,
The fate of a nation was riding that night;
And the spark struck out by that steed, in his flight,
Kindled the land into flame with its heat.
He has left the village and mounted the steep,
And beneath him, tranquil and broad and deep,
Is the Mystic, meeting the ocean tides;
And under the alders, that skirt its edge,
Now soft on the sand, now loud on the ledge,
Is heard the tramp of his steed as he rides.
It was twelve by the village clock,
When he crossed the bridge into Medford town.
He heard the crowing of the cock,
And the barking of the farmer’s dog,
And felt the damp of the river fog,
That rises after the sun goes down.
It was one by the village clock,
When he galloped into Lexington.
He saw the gilded weathercock
Swim in the moonlight as he passed,
And the meeting-house windows, blank and bare,
Gaze at him with a spectral glare,
As if they already stood aghast
At the bloody work they would look upon.
It was two by the village clock,
When he came to the bridge in Concord town.
He heard the bleating of the flock,
And the twitter of birds among the trees,
And felt the breath of the morning breeze
Blowing over the meadows brown.
And one was safe and asleep in his bed
Who at the bridge would be first to fall,
Who that day would be lying dead,
Pierced by a British musket-ball.
You know the rest. In the books you have read,
How the British Regulars fired and fled, —
How the farmers gave them ball for ball,
From behind each fence and farm-yard wall,
Chasing the red-coats down the lane,
Then crossing the fields to emerge again
Under the trees at the turn of the road,
And only pausing to fire and load.
So through the night rode Paul Revere;
And so through the night went his cry of alarm
To every Middlesex village and farm,—
A cry of defiance and not of fear,
A voice in the darkness, a knock at the door,
And a word that shall echo forevermore!
For, borne on the night-wind of the Past,
Through all our history, to the last,
In the hour of darkness and peril and need,
The people will waken and listen to hear
The hurrying hoof-beats of that steed,
And the midnight message of Paul Revere.
Paul Revere (on horseback, naturally) in the North End of Boston near the Old North Church. (Image: Wikimedia Commons.)
Today is the birthday of the great American writer Thornton Wilder, whose prize-winning plays Our Town (1938) and The Skin of Our Teeth (1942) have been staples of high school literature courses and local theater companies for decades. On your next visit to the library, why not track down some of Wilder’s works and see if they would be a good fit for your homeschool.
There is a Thornton Wilder Society that provides helpful teaching materials you can explore:
And in honor of Wilder’s birthday, the Library of Congress provides a summary of his life and work:
Thornton Niven Wilder was born April 17, 1897, in Madison, Wisconsin. Arguably one of the greatest playwrights of the twentieth century, Wilder is the only writer to win Pulitzer Prizes for both literature and drama.
Son of a U.S. diplomat, Wilder spent part of his childhood in China. After serving in the Coast Guard during World War I, he earned his B.A. at Yale University in 1920. Six years later, his first novel, The Cabala, was published. In 1927, The Bridge of San Luis Rey brought commercial success and his first Pulitzer Prize. From 1930 to 1937 he taught at the University of Chicago.
Wilder’s dramatic works include the Pulitzer Prize winning plays Our Town and The Skin of Our Teeth. Set in fictional Grover’s Corners, New Hampshire, Our Town (1938) employs a choric narrator called the “Stage Manager,” and a minimalist set to underscore the universality of human experience. The Skin of Our Teeth debuted in 1942 with Fredric March and Tallulah Bankhead in the lead roles. The themes are familiar — war, pestilence, economic depression, and fire. Ignoring the limits of time and space, just four main characters and three acts are used to review the history of mankind. (loc.gov)
Wilder’s Our Town continues to be one of the most widely performed plays in America.
Aaron Copland’s music for the 1940 film version of Our Town (which differs from the stage version in important respects) is some of the most beautiful film music ever composed:
So take a few minutes on your next homeschool library visit to look up some of Wilder’s works and introduce your students to one of America’s most important twentieth-century authors.
What educational discoveries have you made at your library lately? 😊
❡ Explore more: Have you found all the local libraries in your area? The WorldCat Library Finder (worldcat.org/libraries) will help you find all the libraries in your local area — there may be more than you realize — and the WorldCat catalog itself (worldcat.org) will help you locate the nearest copy of almost any book in the world. 😊
Every Monday we pay a homeschool visit a notable museum or historical monument, and since this week is the week the American Revolution began in 1775, we’re going to visit a monument every American student should know: the Concord Minuteman.
The Minuteman monument stands today at the North Bridge in Concord, Massachusetts, and it represents the thousands of men, most of them farmers, who left their homes and fields on the morning of 19 April 1775 to engage a regiment of British troops sent to confiscate colonial stores of arms and ammunition in the towns of Lexington and Concord, just a few miles west of Boston. (The elite companies of local militia were trained to respond “at a minute’s warning” and so were called Minutemen.) Many of the battle sites of that day are now included within the Minute Man National Historical Park, which should be on your list of places to visit someday in your homeschool travels:
The Concord Minuteman was sculpted the great American artist (and Concord native) Daniel Chester French, who later designed the statue of Abraham Lincoln in the Lincoln memorial. It was dedicated in 1875 on the 100th anniversary of the Lexington and Concord battles, and it carries on its base the first stanza of Ralph Waldo Emerson’s famous “Concord Hymn”:
By the rude bridge that arched the flood,
Their flag to April’s breeze unfurled,
Here once the embattled farmers stood
And fired the shot heard round the world.
In one hand, the Minuteman holds his musket, and in the other, the handle of his plow. Here’s a gallery of images to share with your students this week — and be sure check your pocket for a Massachusetts quarter so you can give a little hands-on history lesson, too.
Daniel Chester French’s Minuteman as he stands today at the North Bridge in Concord, Massachusetts. (Image: Wikimedia Commons.)Massachusetts state quarter (2000) featuring the Minuteman monument. (Image: Wikimedia Commons.)Lexington–Concord postage stamp (1925), marking the 150th anniversary of the beginning of the American Revolution. (Image: Wikimedia Commons.)Lexington–Concord commemorative half dollar (1925), featuring the Concord Minuteman. (Image: Wikimedia Commons.)
Tour the United States and travel the countries of the world each week with the River Houses. Our Sunday States & Countries posts will point the way.
Many homeschoolers like to review the U.S. states and the nations of the world each year, and your recommended River Houses reference library (riverhouses.org/books) includes a current world almanac, a world atlas, and a history encyclopedia that make these reviews fun and easy. We go through the states in the traditional order of admission to the Union (almanac page 422), so this week’s state is:
🇺🇸 Seal of OregonOREGON (the 33rd state, 14 February 1859) — The Beaver State. Capital: Salem. Oregon can be found on page 584 in your almanac and on plates 36 and 142 in your atlas. Name origin: “Origin unknown. One theory is that the name derives from wauregan, meaning ‘beautiful,’ term used by Indians in New England” (almanac page 423). State bird: Western Meadowlark. Website:www.oregon.gov.
❡ Little lessons: You can teach a hundred little lessons with the state-of-the-week, using your reference library (riverhouses.org/books) as a starting point. Find the location of the state capital in your atlas. Look up the state bird in your bird guide. Read the almanac’s one-paragraph history aloud each week. Using each state’s official website (above), find and copy the preamble to that state’s constitution into a commonplace book over the course of the year. Practice math skills by graphing each state’s population and area. Look up the famous state residents listed in your almanac either online or at your local library. The possibilities are endless and they can be easily adapted to each student’s age and interests. Pick a simple pattern to follow for a few minutes each week, and by the end of the year, without even realizing it, your students will have absorbed a world of new geographical and historical information.
❡ Explore more: If you’re planning a comprehensive unit study of one or more of the U.S. states, be sure to investigate the collection of primary source materials for teachers available from the Library of Congress. And the helpful State Symbols USA site (statesymbolsusa.org) has everything you and your students will want to know about flags, seals, mottos, state birds, and much more.
This week’s countries, with their official websites, are:
🇳🇬 NIGERIA, in West Africa. Population: 190,632,261. Capital: Abuja. Website (in English):statehouse.gov.ng.
🇳🇴 NORWAY, in northern Europe. Population: 5,320,045. Capital: Oslo. Website (in Norwegian, Sami, and English):www.regjeringen.no.
🇴🇲 OMAN, in the Middle East. Population: 3,424,386. Capital: Muscat. Website (in Arabic and English):www.oman.om.
🇵🇰 PAKISTAN, in South Asia. Population: 204,924,861. Capital: Islamabad. Website (in English):www.pakistan.gov.pk.
These all appear in your current almanac, atlas, and history encyclopedia as well. For example, you’ll find the main entries for the Middle Eastern country of Oman on almanac page 820, atlas plates 82 and 137, and history encyclopedia page 574, with illustrations, flags, and other mentions available through the indexes in each volume.
❡ Read and think critically: The country links above go to official websites, which are not always in English and which may well be propagandistic in one form or another, thus offering older students a good opportunity to practice their critical reading and thinking skills.
What geographical discoveries have you made in your homeschool lately? 😊
Quick Freshes are our regular Sunday notes on the homeschool week ahead. Pick one or two (or more) of the items below each week and use them to enrich your homeschooling schedule!
This is a special week that we will mark each year in the River Houses: the week of the Nineteenth of April, the day the American Revolution began in 1775.
🇺🇸 OUR STATE-OF-THE-WEEK is Oregon, and our COUNTRIES are Nigeria, Norway, Oman, and Pakistan. (Our separate Sunday States & Countries post will be up shortly.)
❡ Little lessons: “Did you know that the Middle Eastern nation of Oman consists of two separate pieces: the main part of the country at the eastern end of the Arabian peninsula, and a separate enclave at the entrance to the Persian Gulf, with territory of the United Arab Emirates in between?” You can find a facts-and-figures outline of Oman on page 820 in your River Houses almanac and on plate 137 in your atlas, with a map of the country on atlas plate 82 (riverhouses.org/books).
🗓 TODAY (Sunday, 15 April) — Today is the 105th day of 2018; there are 260 days remaining in the year. Learn more about different kinds of modern and historical calendars on pages 351–357 in your River Houses almanac (riverhouses.org/books). ⬩ On this day in 1912, the passenger liner R.M.S. Titanic sank in the North Atlantic, two hours after striking an iceberg. More than 1500 passengers and crew died in the accident. ⬩ Today is also the birthday of the Renaissance painter and polymath Leonardo da Vinci (1452–1519).
Monday (16 April) — Monday is Museums & Monuments Day at the River Houses. For this American Revolution Week, we’re going to look at the famous Minuteman statue in Concord. ⬩ On this day in 1963, Martin Luther King wrote his famous “Letter from Birmingham Jail” after being arrested for protesting segregation in Alabama. ⬩ The 122nd Boston Marathon will take place today.
Tuesday (17 April) — Join us for Tuesday Tea at the Library and some notes on books, libraries, and history. ⬩ On this day in 1524, Italian explorer Giovanni da Verrazzano (1485–1528) became the first European to enter New York Harbor. ⬩ Today is also the birthday of American playwright and novelist Thornton Wilder (1897–1975).
Wednesday (18 April) — Wednesday is Wonderful Words Day at the River Houses. On the evening of this day in 1775, Paul Revere and a network of alarm riders fanned out from Boston to warn the surrounding countryside that British troops were marching to seize the colonists’ stores of arms and ammunition at Concord. Join us today for a reading of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow’s famous American poem “Paul Revere’s Ride.”
Thursday (19 April) — The American Revolution began on this day in 1775 when British troops fired on the local militia on Lexington Green and then advanced to Concord where they met with growing resistance and were driven back to Boston. By the end of the day, 49 Americans and 73 British soldiers had been killed.
Friday (20 April) — Over the course of this day in 1775, 15,000 men from towns across Massachusetts and adjacent parts of New Hampshire and Rhode Island surrounded Boston and bottled-up the city’s British garrison, beginning an eleven-month siege that ended when British troops evacuated the city on 17 March 1776. ⬩ Today is also the birthday, coincidentally, of American sculptor Daniel Chester French (1850–1931), whose first important commission was the Minuteman statue that stands today at Concord’s North Bridge.
Saturday (21 April) — Saturday is Arts & Music Day at the River Houses. After a week of war commemorations, spend a few peaceful homeschool minutes with the great “Alleluia” of American composer Randall Thompson, born on this day in 1899. ⬩ Tradition says that on this day in 753 B.C., the legendary king Romulus founded the city of Rome. ⬩ On this day in 1836, Texas forces under Sam Houston defeated the Mexican army commanded by General Antonio López de Santa Anna in the Battle of San Jacinto.
🥂 YOUR WEEKLY TOAST, from George Washington, honoring the soldiers of the American Revolution: “To the memory of those heroes who have fallen for our freedom.”
❡ Toasts are a fun tradition for your family table. We offer one each week — you can take it up, or make up one of your own (“To North American dinosaurs!”), or invite a different person to come up with one for each meal (“To variety in toasting!”). Most of our current examples are adapted from two old collections: Marchant’s “Toasts and sentiments” (1888) and the anonymous Social and Convivial Toast-Master (1841). What will you toast this week?
🌎 EVERYTHING FLOWS: Ordinarily we post a Weekly World River here from one of our countries-of-the-week, but in honor of the Nineteenth of April, this week’s river is the quiet Concord River, just west of Boston, which has figured prominently in the American literary imagination for more than 200 years. You can read more about it in the comprehensive Concord River entry in Wikipedia or on your next visit to your local library.
The Concord River at the North Bridge, just west of Boston, Massachusetts. (Image: Wikimedia Commons.)
❡ Let the river run: Why not do a homeschool study of world rivers over the course of the year? Take the one we select each week (above), or start with the river lists in your almanac (pages 691–692), and make it a project to look them all up in your atlas, or in a handy encyclopedia either online or on a weekly visit to your local library. A whole world of geographical learning awaits you.
What do you have planned for the homeschool week ahead? 😊
Art and science sometimes combine, and nowhere do they combine more beautifully than in the field of map-making. Spend a few homeschool minutes this week learning about the early Flemish cartographer Abraham Ortelius, born on this day (14 April) in 1527.
Saturday is Arts Day in the River Houses, so why not take a homeschool tour of a beautiful online exhibit of Abraham Ortelius’ maps, available from the Google Arts & Culture website:
Ortelius is often considered the creator of the first atlas — a bound book of maps — and also the first person to “discover” continental drift. That last point is perhaps a slight exaggeration in modern terms, but he did note that the outlines of South America and Africa fit together and that it almost appeared as though they had been “torn apart” — an observation that would have been impossible to make in earlier ages before the outlines of the major landmasses became known.
An Ortelius map of northeastern North America (1570). (Image: Wikimedia Commons.)
What artistic discoveries (or artistic-scientific discoveries) have you made in your homeschool lately? 😊
❡ Explore more: For a brief overview of European voyages of discovery that made Ortelius’ map-making possible, turn to pages 224–225 in your recommended River Houses history encyclopedia (riverhouses.org/books).
Wednesday is Language & Literature Day in the River Houses. Why not take a homeschool minute this week to recite this little April stanza from Robert Frost’s poem “Two Tramps in Mud Time”:
The sun was warm but the wind was chill.
You know how it is with an April day
When the sun is out and the wind is still,
You’re one month on in the middle of May.
But if you so much as dare to speak,
A cloud comes over the sunlit arch,
A wind comes off a frozen peak,
And you’re two months back in the middle of March.
Anyone who has lived in the North Temperate Zone will recognize the variable spring weather that Frost describes. You can make “You know how it is with an April day” into a regular household phrase this month whenever someone comments on the weather.
Can your students map the rhyme scheme? It goes chill–day–still–May and then speak–arch–peak–March. We’d call that ABAB CDCD. And while the number of syllables varies a bit from line to line, to my ear there are four strong beats in every line, making this an example of tetrameter. (“That’s an interesting word. Let’s look it up in our dictionary.”)
What wonderful words have you found and what literary discoveries have you made in your homeschool lately? 😊
Do you have a homeschool student in love with secret codes and ciphers? Then explore these excellent cryptological teaching materials from the Library of Congress.
Tuesday is Books & Libraries Day at the River Houses, and we always like to share the educational materials that are posted on the wonderful Teaching with the Library of Congress blog (blogs.loc.gov/teachers). If you have a future cryptographer in your homeschool (or maybe a future spy!), spend some time this week exploring their two recent posts that offer resources for teaching about codebreaking:
Maybe your students would like to try George Washington’s code, or Thomas Jefferson’s — or perhaps invent one their own (probably to keep secrets from you). The posts above suggest lessons and exercises you can do in your own homeschool cryptography lab — give them a try!
Thomas Jefferson’s cipher system, in a letter to Meriwether Lewis, 20 April 1803. (Image: Library of Congress.)
What educational discoveries have you made at your library lately? 😊
❡ Explore more: Have you found all the local libraries in your area? The WorldCat Library Finder (worldcat.org/libraries) will help you find all the libraries in your local area — there may be more than you realize — and the WorldCat catalog itself (worldcat.org) will help you locate the nearest copy of almost any book in the world. 😊
Monday is Museums & Monuments Day at the River Houses: spend a few homeschool minutes exploring a notable cultural or historical site, learn a new name or a new date, find a new location on a map, and your little lesson is done.
On this day in 1820, a Greek farmer scavenging in the ruins of the ancient city of Milos, on the tiny Aegean island of the same name, came across a fine marble statue, broken in half and missing its arms, but otherwise in excellent condition. That statue is today one of the world’s most famous works of art, the Venus de Milo (Venus of Milos). It is now housed in the Louvre Museum in Paris, where you and your homeschool students can pay it a visit and read about it online:
The Louvre Museum (www.louvre.fr/en) is the world’s largest art museum, and it’s a name your students should know. It’s so old and famous that the building it occupies, the Louvre Palace, is even mentioned in Shakespeare.
There is an excellent 3-D image of the Venus de Milo available online (made from a plaster cast, not the original) that can be turned and viewed from all sides, giving a complete picture of what the statue looks like:
The Venus de Milo (or the Aphrodite of Milos, to use the Greek rather than Roman name of the goddess) is now usually dated to about 100 B.C. and is attributed to a sculptor named Alexandros of Antioch. In its day, like most ancient sculptures, it would have probably been painted in life-like colors or polychromed, not left as white marble.
The Venus de Milo (Aphrodite of Milos), on display in the Louvre Museum, Paris. (Image: Wikimedia Commons.)
What museum or historical monument have you visited with your homeschool students lately? 😊
❡ Explore more:Your River Houses history encyclopedia (riverhouses.org/books) has a beautifully illustrated introduction to Classical (Greek and Roman) art on pages 116–117 that will give you just the background you need for a wonderful homeschool history lesson. And you can find the little island of Milos on plate 72 in your atlas.
❡ Make it a tradition: Why not make a weekly visit to a museum or historical monument a regular homeschool tradition in your family. You can visit the one we select each week (above), or make a selection of your own, perhaps from your almanac (riverhouses.org/books) or from the riverhouses.org sidebar — art museums one year, science museums the next, historical monuments the next again. Don’t worry about making a comprehensive study: just look up its location your atlas, learn the name of a new artist or scientist or historical period or event, and your little lesson is done. Over the course of a year, without even realizing it, your students will absorb a wealth of new cultural, historical, and geographical information — and so will you!
Tour the United States and travel the countries of the world each week with the River Houses. Our Sunday States & Countries posts will point the way.
Many homeschoolers like to review the U.S. states and the nations of the world each year, and your River Houses reference library (riverhouses.org/books) includes a current world almanac, a world atlas, and a history encyclopedia that make these reviews fun and easy. We go through the states in the traditional order of admission to the Union (almanac page 422), so this week’s state is:
🇺🇸 Seal of MinnesotaMINNESOTA (the 32nd state, 11 May 1858) — The North Star State, the Gopher State. Capital: St. Paul. Minnesota can be found on page 576 in your almanac and on plates 39 and 142 in your atlas. Name origin: “From Dakota Sioux word meaning ‘cloudy water’ or ‘sky-tinted water’ of the Minnesota River” (almanac page 423). State bird: Common Loon. Website:mn.gov.
❡ Little lessons: You can teach a hundred little lessons with the state-of-the-week, using your reference library (riverhouses.org/books) as a starting point. Find the location of the state capital in your atlas. Look up the state bird in your bird guide. Read the almanac’s one-paragraph history aloud each week. Using each state’s official website (above), find and copy the preamble to that state’s constitution into a commonplace book over the course of the year. Practice math skills by graphing each state’s population and area. Look up the famous state residents listed in your almanac either online or at your local library. The possibilities are endless and they can be easily adapted to each student’s age and interests. Pick a simple pattern to follow for a few minutes each week, and by the end of the year, without even realizing it, your students will have absorbed a world of new geographical and historical information.
❡ Explore more: If you’re planning a comprehensive unit study of one or more of the U.S. states, be sure to investigate the collection of primary source materials for teachers available from the Library of Congress. And the helpful State Symbols USA site (statesymbolsusa.org) has everything you and your students will want to know about flags, seals, mottos, state birds, and much more.
This week’s countries, with their official websites, are:
🇳🇱 THE NETHERLANDS, in western Europe. Population: 17,084,719. Capital: Amsterdam. Website (in English and Dutch):www.government.nl.
🇳🇿 NEW ZEALAND, in the southwest Pacific Ocean. Population: 4,510,347. Capital: Wellington. Website (in English):www.govt.nz.
🇳🇮 NICARAGUA, in Central America. Population: 6,025,951. Capital: Managua. Website (in Spanish):www.asamblea.gob.ni.
🇳🇪 NIGER, in north-central Africa. Population: 19,245,344. Capital: Niamey. Website (in French):www.gouv.ne.
These all appear in your current almanac, atlas, and history encyclopedia as well. For example, you’ll find the main entries for the Netherlands on almanac page 817, atlas plates 63 and 137, and history encyclopedia page 536, with illustrations, flags, and other mentions available through the indexes in each volume.
❡ Read and think critically: The country links above go to official websites, which are not always in English and which may well be propagandistic in one form or another, thus offering older students a good opportunity to practice their critical reading and thinking skills.
What geographical discoveries have you made in your homeschool lately? 😊
Quick Freshes are our regular Sunday notes on the homeschool week ahead. Pick one or two (or more) of the items below each week and use them to enrich your homeschooling schedule!
🇺🇸 OUR STATE-OF-THE-WEEK is Minnesota, and our COUNTRIES are the Netherlands, New Zealand, Nicaragua, and Niger. (Our separate Sunday States & Countries post will be up shortly.)
❡ Little lessons: “Did you know that apart from Antarctica, New Zealand was the last major landmass to be occupied by humans? The original Maori settlers did not arrive until about the year 1300.” You can find a facts-and-figures outline of New Zealand on page 818 in your River Houses almanac and on plate 137 in your atlas, with a map of the country on atlas plate 108 (riverhouses.org/books).
🌗 THE MOON at the beginning of this week is right at its third quarter, so this week will be an increasingly good time for stargazing! Track the moon’s phases each month at timeanddate.com/moon/phases, and dial up this week’s constellations with your River Houses star atlas (riverhouses.org/books).
🗓 TODAY (Sunday, 8 April) — Today is the 98th day of 2018; there are 267 days remaining in the year. Learn more about different kinds of modern and historical calendars on pages 351–357 in your River Houses almanac (riverhouses.org/books). ⬩ On this day in 1820, the famous ancient statue now known as the Venus de Milo was discovered on the Greek island of Milos in the southern Aegean Sea.
Monday (9 April) — Monday is Museums & Monuments Day at the River Houses — a perfect day for a homeschool lesson about the Venus de Milo and ancient sculpture. ⬩ On this day in 1865, Confederate general Robert E. Lee formally surrendered to Union general Ulysses S. Grant at the Appomattox Courthouse in Virginia, effectively ending the American Civil War.
Tuesday (10 April) — Join us for Tuesday Tea at the Library and some notes on books, libraries, and history. ⬩ Today is the birthday of Cosimo di Giovanni de Medici (1389–1464), patriarch of the Medici family who became the rulers of Florence, Italy, and who greatly influenced the development of Europe throughout the Renaissance.
Wednesday (11 April) — Wednesday is Wonderful Words Day at the River Houses. This Wednesday, spend a few homeschool minutes with us reading about Christopher Smart’s cat Jeoffry.
Thursday (12 April) — On this day in 1861, Confederate forces bombarded Union-held Fort Sumter in Charleston, South Carolina, in the first open hostilities of the American Civil War. ⬩ On this day in 1961, Soviet cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin became the first human being ever to orbit the earth.
Friday (13 April) — Our regular Friday Field & Nature Notes will take a look at the ongoing spring bird migration. ⬩ Today is also the birthday of Thomas Jefferson (1743–1826), principal author of the Declaration of Independence and the third President of the United States.
Saturday (14 April) — Saturday is Arts & Music Day at the River Houses. Spend a few homeschool minutes with us this week looking at the beautiful maps of the famous Flemish cartographer Abraham Ortelius, born on this day in 1598. ⬩ On this day in 1865, Abraham Lincoln was shot by John Wilkes Booth in Ford’s Theater in Washington, D.C. He died the next day, 15 April 1865.
🥂 YOUR WEEKLY TOAST: “May our friendships never be purchasable with gold.”
❡ Toasts are a fun tradition for your family table. We offer one each week — you can take it up, or make up one of your own (“To North American dinosaurs!”), or invite a different person to come up with one for each meal (“To variety in toasting!”). Our current examples are adapted from two old collections: Marchant’s “Toasts and sentiments” (1888) and the anonymous Social and Convivial Toast-Master (1841). What will you toast this week?
🌎 EVERYTHING FLOWS: New Zealand is one of our countries-of-the-week, so our Weekly World River is the Waikato River, New Zealand’s longest river. You can chart its course in your River Houses atlas (riverhouses.org/books), and you can read much more about it in the comprehensive Waikato River entry in Wikipedia or on your next visit to your local library.
The Waikato River as it passes through Hamilton, New Zealand. (Image: Wikimedia Commons.)
❡ Let the river run: Why not do a homeschool study of world rivers over the course of the year? Take the one we select each week (above), or start with the river lists in your almanac (pages 691–692), and make it a project to look them all up in your atlas, or in a handy encyclopedia either online or on a weekly visit to your local library. A whole world of geographical learning awaits you.
What do you have planned for the homeschool week ahead? 😊
![[Seal of Kansas]](https://riverhouses.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/Seal_of_Kansas-150x150.png)
![[Paraguay River]](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/a/a2/Rio_Paraguay.jpg/1024px-Rio_Paraguay.jpg)
![[North Bridge, Concord]](https://riverhouses.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/rjohara-2017-09-04-052.jpg)
![[Paul Revere statue]](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/f/f4/Paul_Revere_Statue_by_Cyrus_E._Dallin%2C_North_End%2C_Boston%2C_MA.JPG/576px-Paul_Revere_Statue_by_Cyrus_E._Dallin%2C_North_End%2C_Boston%2C_MA.JPG)
![[Concord Minuteman]](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/b/bb/Minuteman_statue_1_-_Old_North_Bridge.jpg/477px-Minuteman_statue_1_-_Old_North_Bridge.jpg)
![[Massachusetts Quarter]](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/8/8d/Massachusetts_quarter%2C_reverse_side%2C_2000.jpg/480px-Massachusetts_quarter%2C_reverse_side%2C_2000.jpg)
![[Minuteman stamp]](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/d/d8/Lexington_Concord-5c.jpg/640px-Lexington_Concord-5c.jpg)
![[Minuteman half dollar]](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/3f/Lexington-concord_sesquicentennial_half_dollar_commemorative_obverse.jpg)
![[Seal of Oregon]](https://riverhouses.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/Seal_of_Oregon-150x150.jpg)
![[Concord River in Massachusetts]](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/e/e9/Old_North_Bridge%2C_Concord%2C_Massachusetts%2C_July_2005.JPG/1024px-Old_North_Bridge%2C_Concord%2C_Massachusetts%2C_July_2005.JPG)
![[Ortelius map]](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/9f/NorthEastAmericaOrtelius1570.jpg)
![[Thomas Jefferson's cipher]](https://blogs.loc.gov/teachers/files/2018/03/JeffersonCipher_antipodes-680x1024.jpg)
![[Venus de Milo]](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/c/c2/Front_views_of_the_Venus_de_Milo.jpg/408px-Front_views_of_the_Venus_de_Milo.jpg)
![[Seal of Minnesota]](https://riverhouses.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/Seal_of_Minnesota-150x150.jpg)
![[Waikato River]](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/c0/Waikato_river_750px.jpg)
