The River Houses Homeschool Network

🌍 🇸🇮 WEEKLY WORLD HERITAGE: The Mercury Mines of Slovenia

9 June 2021 by Bob O'Hara

Slovenia in central Europe is one of our homeschool countries-of-the-week, so why not spend a few minutes today learning about one of Slovenia’s World Heritage Sites: the Mercury Mines of Idrija.

This World Heritage Site includes two related properties, at Idrija in Slovenia, and also at Almadén in Spain:

Mercury is a relatively rare metal, whose use has long been irreplaceable in a variety of technical, chemical and industrial processes. It has only been produced in substantial quantities and over a long period by a small number of mines worldwide, of which the two largest, until recent times, were at Almadén in Spain and Idrija in Slovenia. These two mining towns, whose origins date from ancient or Medieval times, demonstrate the lengthy period over which a socio-technical system of extraction specific to this metal was in operation, and the process of evolution it underwent. Controlling mercury extraction enabled control of the market, which very quickly became intercontinental in scope because of its decisive role in the extraction of silver from deposits in the New World. A heavy metal, which is liquid at room temperature and has very specific chemical and physical properties, mercury is also a pollutant which is dangerous for human health. The two sites contain technical remains of large numbers of mine shafts, and their galleries and surface facilities, with artefacts which are specific to the extraction of mercury-bearing ores; they also include significant urban, monumental and infrastructure elements and material and symbolic materials associated with the life styles and social organisation of mercury extraction. (UNESCO World Heritage Centre #1313)

You can find a gallery of additional photos of the Mercury Mines of Slovenia on the World Heritage Centre’s website.

World Heritage Sites are cultural or natural landmarks of international significance, selected for recognition by the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization. More than 1000 such sites have been recognized in over 160 countries, and we feature one every Wednesday, drawn from one of our homeschool countries-of-the-week. You can find a complete list of World Heritage Sites online at the World Heritage Centre and in Wikipedia.

The World Heritage Centre also has a free and comprehensive World Heritage education kit for teachers, as well as a wonderful full-color wall map of World Heritage Sites, available for the cost of shipping. Why not add them both to your own homeschool library. 🗺

What world treasures will you be exploring in your homeschool this Hercules Term? 😊

❡ Books in the running brooks: You can always turn to your River Houses almanac, atlas, and history encyclopedia for more information about any of our countries-of-the-week. The almanac has profiles of all the nations of the world on pages 752–859; the endpapers of the atlas are indexes that will show you where all of the individual national and regional maps may be found; the history encyclopedia includes national histories on pages 489–599; and you can find additional illustrations, flags, and other mentions through the indexes in each of these volumes. For an ideal little lesson, just write the name of the Weekly World Heritage Site on your homeschool bulletin board, find its location in your atlas, read the WHC’s brief description aloud, look at a picture or two, and you’re done. Over the course of the year, without even realizing it, your students will absorb a wealth of new historical, geographical, and cultural information. 🇸🇮

❡ The great globe itself: This is one of our regular Homeschool States & Countries posts featuring historical and natural sites of international importance. Download a copy of our River Houses World Heritage Calendar and follow along with us as we tour the planet, and add your name to our weekly mailing list to get great homeschool teaching ideas delivered right to your mailbox all through the year. 🌍

🖋 🇺🇸 WONDERFUL WORDS (and Music!): “O! say can you see?”

8 June 2021 by Bob O'Hara

Next Monday (June 14th) is Flag Day, the anniversary of the date in 1777 when Congress adopted the Stars & Stripes as the national flag of the United States. That means our homeschool poem-of-the-week for this second week of June is “Defence of Fort M’Henry,” much better known as “The Star-Spangled Banner,” by Francis Scott Key (1779–1843):

Defence of Fort M’Henry

O! say can you see, by the dawn’s early light,
  What so proudly we hail’d at the twilight’s last gleaming,
Whose broad stripes and bright stars through the perilous fight,
  O’er the ramparts we watch’d, were so gallantly streaming?
    And the rockets’ red glare, the bombs bursting in air,
    Gave proof through the night that our flag was still there —
      O! say, does that star-spangled banner yet wave
      O’er the land of the free, and the home of the brave?

On the shore, dimly seen through the mists of the deep,
  Where the foe’s haughty host in dread silence reposes,
What is that which the breeze o’er the towering steep,
  As it fitfully blows, half conceals, half discloses?
    Now it catches the gleam of the morning’s first beam,
    In full glory reflected now shines on the stream —
      ‘Tis the star-spangled banner, O! long may it wave
      O’er the land of the free, and the home of the brave.

And where is that band who so vauntingly swore
  That the havock of war and the battle’s confusion
A home and a country should leave us no more?
  Their blood has wash’d out their foul foot-steps’ pollution,
    No refuge could save the hireling and slave,
    From the terror of flight or the gloom of the grave;
      And the star-spangled banner in triumph doth wave
      O’er the land of the free, and the home of the brave.

O! thus be it ever when freemen shall stand
  Between their lov’d home, and the war’s desolation,
Blest with vict’ry and peace, may the heav’n-rescued land
  Praise the power that hath made and preserv’d us a nation!
    Then conquer we must, when our cause it is just,
    And this be our motto — “In God is our trust!”
      And the star-spangled banner in triumph shall wave
      O’er the land of the free, and the home of the brave.

Key was a prominent Maryland lawyer who was involved in prisoner-exchange negotiations with the British during the too-little-remembered War of 1812 (1812–1815), sometimes called the Second War for American Independence. In September of 1814, Key was meeting with British naval officers on board a ship in Chesapeake Bay when the British began an artillery assault on Fort McHenry, the principal American defensive point at the entrance to Baltimore harbor.

Key was detained by the British for the duration of the attack so he wouldn’t be able to reveal any intelligence he had acquired about their plans, and he was thus left powerless with nothing to do but watch as his country’s fort was bombarded all through September 13th and overnight into the 14th. But as the sun rose on the 14th, by the dawn’s early light, he saw through a spyglass that the fort’s American defenders had survived the artillery bombardment with their flag still flying.

Key’s published poem commemorating the event, initially titled “Defence of Fort M’Henry,” was paired with a popular British club song of the day, “To Anacreon in Heaven,” and together they became known as “The Star-Spangled Banner” — and the rest is musical history.

You can see the real Star-Spangled Banner — the actual flag that flew that morning over Fort McHenry — at the Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of American History. That’s a field trip you should certainly try to take at some point during your homeschooling years.

The original Star-Spangled Banner on exhibit at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History in Washington, D.C. (Image: Smithsonian Institution.)

What wonderful words will you find and what musico-literary discoveries will you be making in your homeschool this Hercules Term? 😊

❡ Gallantly streaming: If a special line or turn of phrase happens to strike you in one of our weekly poems, just copy it onto your homeschool bulletin board for a few days and invite your students to speak it aloud — that’s all it takes to begin a new poetical friendship and learn a few lovely words that will stay with you for life. 🇺🇸

❡ Explore more: You can find a quick history of the national anthem (and all four of its verses) on page 521 in your River Houses almanac. 📚

❡ Come, here’s the map: Baltimore, Maryland, appears on plate 43 in your recommended family atlas. The map will give you a real sense of how far up into the Chesapeake Bay the British navy had penetrated during the War of 1812. 🗺

❡ Here, said the year: This post is one of our regular homeschool poems-of-the-week. Add your name to our River Houses mailing list to get posts like these delivered right to your mailbox, and print your own River Houses Poetry Calendar to follow along with us as we visit fifty of our favorite friends over the course of the year. 📖

🇫🇷 HOMESCHOOL HISTORY: Learning About D-Day 1944

6 June 2021 by Bob O'Hara

Today is the 77th anniversary of D-Day, one of the most momentous days in modern history. On this day in 1944, the armed forces of Britain, the United States, Canada, and their allies, landed on the beaches of Normandy in France and began the long struggle to retake the continent of Europe from the occupying armies of Nazi Germany.

If you have older homeschool students who are learning about World War II, one of the best approaches you can take to an event like D-Day is to listen with them to some of the live news reports that were broadcast that day as the situation was unfolding.

Here are the very first tentative reports from CBS radio in New York, beginning just after midnight on 6 June 1944, made available by the Internet Archive. They are quite gripping, and you and your students can listen to them just as the American public would have listened to them in the early hours of D-Day morning. Note that the first reports were coming from German sources, and the announcers were cautioning people that they might be disinformation:

You can listen to the whole day’s broadcasts — a true one-of-a-kind history lesson — on the Internet Archive’s D-Day index page here:

➢ Live D-Day News Broadcasts from the Internet Archive

Historical anniversary days like this are also days for geography. Every homeschool should have a good atlas or collection of maps — we recommend the National Geographic atlas, but there are many other excellent ones also available. In the National Geographic atlas, plates 61 and 63 will show you the English Channel and the location of the invasion beaches. Keep those maps in view as you listen to the news broadcasts above and you will be able to locate the places being mentioned by the reporters in real time.

The English Channel between Britain and France. The Normandy invasion on 6 June 1944 took place along the coastline between Cherbourg on the west and Le Havre on the east.

Help your students understand how news would have traveled in 1944 as well. There was no Internet, of course, and no cell phones. Television was very limited. News reports came in (as you can hear in the broadcast) over teletype machines, and announcers would read and comment on the teletype reports. It was wartime, so there was censorship and disinformation all around. Today we can read simplified historical summaries of major events like D-Day, but as they were happening those events were often unclear and their outcomes uncertain.

What other historical anniversaries will you be remembering in your homeschool this Hercules Term?

❡ Explore more: For a quick homeschool review of the D-Day invasion and its place in the history of World War II, turn to page 399 (and the surrounding pages) in your River Houses history encyclopedia. 📚

❡ Stay up to date//Let the river run: This is one of our occasional Homeschool Holidays & Anniversaries posts. Add your name to our weekly mailing list and get great homeschool teaching ideas delivered right to your mailbox all through the year. 🗞

🗓 QUICK FRESHES for Homeschool Families – Week of 6 June 2021

6 June 2021 by Bob O'Hara

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. Add your name to our free mailing list to get posts like these delivered right to your mailbox each week. Visit our River Houses calendar page to print your own homeschool calendars and planners for the entire year.

🌏 🌑 🌞 ON THURSDAY the 10th there will be a partial solar eclipse! Alas, it will only be visible in the western hemisphere in the northeastern United States and Canada, but thanks to the wonders of the web, you and your students can watch it live from the cozy confines of your home academy. Tune in to the timeanddate.com eclipse page for all the details.

🗓 💪 This is the first full week of HERCULES TERM, our summer term in the River Houses. Hercules Term runs from June through August.

🇺🇸 OUR STATE-OF-THE-WEEK is South Dakota, and our COUNTRIES are Singapore 🇸🇬, Slovakia 🇸🇰, Slovenia 🇸🇮, and the Solomon Islands 🇸🇧. (Our separate Sunday States & Countries post for the week went up just a few minutes ago.)

🌘 THE MOON at the beginning of this week is a waning crescent — a good time for stargazing! You can explore the night sky and the features of the moon in your recommended backyard astronomy guide and your homeschool world atlas, and you can learn a host of stellar and lunar facts on pages 371–386 in your almanac. Browse through our many astronomy posts for even more.

🗓 TODAY, Sunday (6 June 2021) — Today is the 157th day of 2021; there are 208 days remaining in this common year. Learn more about different kinds of modern and historical calendars on pages 387–393 in your River Houses almanac. 📚 The invasion of Normandy on the coast of France, code-named Operation Overlord, began on this day, D-Day, in 1944. It was the largest amphibious military operation in history and it began the liberation of western Europe from Nazi occupation. For a brief review, see page 398 in your homeschool history encyclopedia. 🇫🇷

Monday (7 June 2021) — On this day in 1776, Richard Henry Lee of Virginia presented a resolution to the Continental Congress “that these United Colonies are, and of right ought to be, free and independent States.” The formal adoption of the Lee Resolution less than a month later, on 2 July 1776, established American independence. 🇺🇸

Tuesday (8 June 2021) — Today is the birthday of Francis Crick (1916–2004), co-discoverer (with James Watson) of the double-helical structure of DNA. 👨‍🔬 Our homeschool poem-of-the-week for the second week of June is Francis Scott Key’s “Defence of Fort M’Henry,” much better known as “The Star-Spangled Banner,” for Flag Day (the 14th). 🇺🇸 Print your own River Houses Poetry Calendar and follow along with us throughout the year. 🖋

Wednesday (9 June 2021) — The Roman emperor Nero died (by suicide) on this day in the year A.D. 68, sparking a civil war and “the year of four emperors.” 🏛 And speaking of emperors, today is the birthday of the great Russian emperor Peter the Great (1672–1725). 👑 Our Wednesday tour of World Heritage Sites this week will take you to the Mercury Mines of Idrija and Almadén in Slovenia. 🇸🇮

Thursday (10 June 2021) — Today is the birthday of celebrated children’s book author Maurice Sendak (1928–2012). 🖋

Friday (11 June 2021) — Alexander the Great, one of the most influential figures in ancient history, died on this day in the year 343 B.C. at the age of only 32. You can read more about him on page 97 of your River Houses history encyclopedia. 🏛 And on this day in 1776, the Continental Congress appointed Thomas Jefferson, John Adams, Benjamin Franklin, Roger Sherman, and Robert R. Livingston a committee of five to draft a declaration of independence. 🖋 📜 🇺🇸 Our Friday Bird Families post this week will introduce you to a host of small birds: the Fringilline Finches, Cardueline Finches, Longspurs, and Snow Buntings. Print your own River Houses Calendar of American Birds and follow the flyways with us throughout the year. 🦅

Saturday (12 June 2021) — Today is the birthday of the German-Jewish diarist and Holocaust victim Anne Frank (1929–1945). 📖 The Baseball Hall of Fame was dedicated on this day in 1939 in Cooperstown, New York. ⚾️ And since this is the second Saturday of the month, we’ll introduce you to another one of the Great Stars of the northern hemisphere night sky. This month: Spica, the brightest star in the constellation Virgo. 🌟

Sunday (13 June 2021) — Today is the birthday of the great Scottish physicist James Clerk Maxwell (1831–1939). ⚛️ It’s also the birthday of the great Irish poet William Butler Yeats (1865–1939). 🖋

🥂 OUR WEEKLY TOAST: “May we never engage in a bad cause, and never fly from a good one.”

❡ Toasts can be a fun educational 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 unpredictability in toasting!”). Many of our current toasts are taken from an old collection that appeared in Routledge’s Manual of Etiquette (London, ca. 1870). What will you toast this week? 🥂

🌏 🇸🇧 EVERYTHING FLOWS: The Solomon Islands in the Pacific Ocean is one of our countries-of-the-week, so our Weekly World River is the Lunga River on the island of Guadalcanal. You can find its location in your recommended homeschool atlas, and you can read more about it in the Lunga River entry in Wikipedia or perhaps on your next visit to your local library.

The Lunga River on the island of Guadalcanal, Solomon Islands. (Image: Wikimedia Commons.)

❡ Daughters of Ocean: 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 699–701), 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. 🌏

AND DON’T FORGET: Friday the 13th comes on a Sunday this month! 🙀

What do you have planned for your homeschool this week? 😊

❡ Lively springs: This is one of our regular “Quick Freshes” posts looking at the homeschool week ahead. Add your name to our River Houses mailing list and get these weekly messages delivered right to your mailbox all through the year. You can also print your own River Houses calendars of educational events and follow along with us. 🗓

🌎 🇺🇸 SUNDAY STATES: South Dakota, Singapore, Solomon Islands, and More

6 June 2021 by Bob O'Hara

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 our recommended homeschool reference library includes a current world almanac, a world atlas, and a history encyclopedia that make these reviews fun and easy. Our own annual review begins at the start of the River Houses year in September and goes through the states in the traditional order of admission to the Union (almanac page 458), so this week’s state is:

🇺🇸
South Dakota State Flag
SOUTH DAKOTA (the 40th state, 2 November 1889) — The Coyote State, The Mount Rushmore State. Capital: Pierre. South Dakota can be found on page 592 in your almanac and on plates 39 and 142 in your atlas (10th and 11th eds.). Name origin: “Sioux word ‘Dakota,’ meaning ‘friend’ or ‘ally’” (almanac page 459). State bird: Ring-necked Pheasant (bird guide page 60). Website: sd.gov.

❡ Little lessons: You can teach a hundred little lessons with our state-of-the-week, using your reference library as a starting point. Find the location of the state capital in your atlas each week. 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 just a few minutes each week and your little lesson is done. By the end of the year, without even realizing it, your students will have absorbed a wealth of new geographical and historical information, as well as a host of valuable reading and research skills. 😊

❡ Maps to color: National Geographic has a large blank United States map and a blank world map, complete with flags, printable in sections and ready to receive the colored pencils of your students. Why not give them a try this week. 🖍

We go through the countries of the world in alphabetical order, so this week’s countries, with their official websites, are:

🇸🇬 SINGAPORE in southeastern Asia. Population: 6,209,660. Capital: Singapore. Government: Parliamentary republic. Website: www.gov.sg (in English).
🇸🇰 SLOVAKIA in east-central Europe. Population: 5,440,602. Capital: Bratislava. Government: Parliamentary republic. Website: www.government.gov.sk (in English and Slovak).
🇸🇮 SLOVENIA in southeastern Europe. Population: 2,102,678. Capital: Ljubljana. Government: Parliamentary republic. Website: www.gov.si (in English and Slovenian).
🇸🇧 SOLOMON ISLANDS in the western Pacific Ocean. Population: 685,097. Capital: Honiara. Government: Parliamentary democracy under constitutional monarchy. Website: www.parliament.gov.sb (in English).

These all appear in your current almanac, atlas, and history encyclopedia as well. The almanac, for example, has profiles of the nations of the world on pages 752–859; the endpapers of the atlas are index maps that will show you where each of the individual national and regional maps can be found; the history encyclopedia includes individual national histories on pages 489–599; and you can find additional illustrations, flags, and other mentions through the indexes in each of these volumes.

What grand global geographical excursions (real or virtual) will you be making in your homeschool this Hercules Term? 😊

❡ 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 way or another, thus offering older students a good opportunity to exercise their critical reading and thinking skills. 🔍

❡ Come, here’s the map: Teaching your students to be fluent with high-quality maps — not just basically competent, but fluent — is one of the best educational gifts you can give them. Why not look up any one of our selected states or countries each week in your recommended homeschool atlas and show your students how to locate rivers, lakes, marshes, water depths, mountains and their elevations, highway numbers, airports, oil fields, railroads, ruins, battle sites, small towns, big cities, regional capitals, national capitals, parks, deserts, glaciers, borders, grid references, lines of longitude and latitude, and much more. There is so much information packed into professional maps of this kind that a magnifying glass is always helpful, even for young folks with good eyesight. The endpapers of the atlas and the technical map-reading information on Plate 2 (10th and 11th eds.) will guide you in your voyages of discovery. 🗺

❡ Plan an imaginary vacation: Here’s a fun exercise for your students: take one of the countries that we list each week and write out a family travel plan. How would you get there? How much will it cost? Will you need a passport? Where will you stay? Will you have to exchange your currency? How do you say hello the local language? What cities and attractions and landmarks will you visit? What foods will you eat? How will you get around (car, train, boat, mule)? Make a simple worksheet with blank spaces for the answers, have your students do the research, and start planning your world tour. ✈️ 🚞 🚗 🛳 🐎 😊

❡ The great globe itself: This is one of our regular Sunday States & Countries posts. Print your own River Houses States & Countries Calendar and follow along with us as we take an educational tour of the United States and the whole world over the course of the homeschool year. And don’t forget to add your name to our free mailing list to get more great homeschool teaching ideas delivered right to your mailbox every week. 🇺🇸 🌎

🔭 WATCHERS OF THE SKIES – June 2021

5 June 2021 by Bob O'Hara

On the first Saturday of every month we post educational skywatching notes for the homeschool month ahead.

One special event is coming up in a few days, in the early morning hours of Thursday the 10th: a partial solar eclipse! Alas, it will only be visible in the western hemisphere in the northeastern United States and Canada, but thanks to the wonders of the web, you and your students can watch it live from the cozy confines of your home academy. Tune in to the timeanddate.com eclipse page for all the details.

Here’s the monthly northern hemisphere night-sky review for June 2021 from the Hubble Space Telescope’s website — it features the evening constellations of the June including our term-namesake, Hercules:

And here’s another June night-sky review, courtesy of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in California — it also features this week’s solar eclipse, as well as the rising summer scorpion in the south:

One of the easiest astronomical exercises you and your students can do each month is print out your own free copy of the current two-page Evening Sky Map and monthly sky calendar available from skymaps.com:

➢ Evening Sky Maps – Northern Hemisphere Edition (updated monthly)

Each map includes a constellation chart for the month as well as a schedule of upcoming astronomical events and an astronomical glossary. (Monthly maps for the southern hemisphere and the equatorial regions are also available.)

The best stargazing nights in June will be toward the middle of the month: the moon will be new (and the sky darkest) on the 10th (the solar eclipse date, of course). As always, you can look up the moon’s phases in your River Houses almanac and also on the timeanddate.com website. 🌑🌓🌕🌗🌑

June is the first month of Hercules Term, our summer term in the River Houses. Our Great Star for the month of June is brilliant blue-white Spica (alpha Virginis), which we’ll be writing about next week. Print your own River Houses Star Calendar and follow along with us through the year as we learn about twelve of the high lights of the northern hemisphere night sky. 🌟

June is also the month of the summer solstice in the northern hemisphere — the astronomical beginning of summer — which falls this year on Sunday the 20th. (In the southern hemisphere the 20th will be the winter solstice — the astronomical beginning of winter.) The summer solstice is the “longest day” of the year: the day with the longest period of daylight and the shortest period of darkness. 🏙🌃🏙

What celestial observations will you and your students be making in your homeschool this June? 😊

❡ All the star-sown sky: Teaching your students to recognize the constellations 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. ✨

❡ The starry archipelagoes: For a great weekly astronomical essay, perfect for older homeschoolers, pay a visit to “The Sky This Week” from the U.S. Naval Observatory. These well-written pages, posted each Tuesday, usually focus on one or two special astronomical events or phenomena. If you have high school science students, have them read these pages aloud to you each week, or ask them to study them and narrate a summary back to you. 🌌

❡ Make friendship with the stars: This is one of our regular Homeschool Astronomy posts. Add your name to our free River Houses mailing list and get great homeschool teaching ideas delivered right to your mailbox every week. 🔭

🦅 FRIDAY BIRD FAMILIES: Wagtails and Pipits

4 June 2021 by Horace the Otter 🦦

Every Friday we invite you and your homeschool students to learn about a different group of North American birds in your recommended bird guide. It’s a great way to add a few minutes of informal science, geography, natural history, and imagination to your homeschool schedule throughout the year.

This week’s birds are the Wagtails and Pipits (pages 430–433).

If you’re teaching younger children, the way to use these posts is just to treat your bird guide as a picture book and spend a few minutes each week looking at all the interesting birds they may see one day. With that, your little lesson is done.

If you have older students, one of your objectives should be to help them become fluent with a technical reference book that’s packed with information, the kind of book they will encounter in many different fields of study. Here’s how your bird guide introduces this week’s birds:

WAGTAILS · PIPITS — Family Motacillidae. Slender-billed birds. Most species pump their tails as they walk. Wagtail flight is strongly undulating. Species: 67 World, 10 N.A. [North America]

When you’re training your young naturalists, teach them to ask and answer from their bird guide some of the first questions any naturalist would ask about a new group. How many species? (67 worldwide.) Are there any near us? (10 species in North America, and the individual maps will give us more detail.) What are their distinctive features? (Slender-billed, pump their tails up and down, undulating flight, and so on.) (And “undulating” is certainly a wonderful word, isn’t it — be sure to send someone to your homeschool dictionary to look that one up!) 🔎

Pick a representative species or two to look at in detail each week and read the entry aloud, or have your students study it and then narrate it back to you, explaining all the information it contains. This week, why not investigate the American Pipit (page 432), the only really widespread American species in the family, found all across the continent.

All sorts of biological information is packed into the brief species descriptions in your bird guide — can your students tease it out? How big is the American Pipit? (6½ inches long.) What is its scientific name? (Anthus rubescens.) Will you be able to find this species where you live? At what times of year and in what habitat? (Study the range map and range description carefully to answer those questions, and see the book’s back flap for a map key.) Do the males and females look alike? The adults and juveniles? What song or call does this species make? How can you distinguish it from similar species? (The text and illustrations should answer all these questions.)

Pipits are rather plain birds of open country, and they are most often seen on the ground or flying in small flocks. They nest in northern tundra regions and commonly winter in open farm fields and waste places, where they are well camouflaged when at rest. Their name comes from their common flight call.

For a second species in the Wagtail and Pipit family this week, take a look at the Eastern Yellow Wagtail (page 430), the only wagtail species that really has gotten a foothold on the North American continent.

Wagtails are mainly found in the Old World, and only a few species have ranges that extend eastward into western Alaska. They are generally more boldly patterned than pipits, but they are also ground-loving birds of open country.

You can do little ten-minute lessons of this kind with any of the species in your bird guide that catch your interest. Pick one that is near you, or that looks striking, or that has a strange name, and explore.

In all these Friday Bird Families posts, our aim is not to present a specific set of facts to memorize. We hope instead to provide examples and starting points that you and your students can branch away from in many different directions. We also hope to show how you can help your students develop the kind of careful skills in reading, observation, and interpretation that they will need in all their future academic work.

What ornithological observations and naturalistical notes will you be making in your homeschool this Hercules Term? 😊

❡ Homeschool birds: We think bird study is one of the best subjects you can take up in a homeschool environment. It’s suitable for all ages, it can be made as elementary or as advanced as you wish, it can be made solitary or social, and birds can be found just about anywhere at any season of the year. Why not track your own homeschool bird observations on the free eBird website sponsored by Cornell University. It’s a great way to learn more about what’s in your local area and about how bird populations change from season to season. 🐦

❡ Enchiridion: The front matter in your bird guide (pages 6–13) explains a little bit about basic bird biology and about some of the technical terminology used throughout the book — why not have your students study it as a special project. Have them note particularly the diagrams showing the parts of a bird (pages 10–11) so they’ll be able to tell primaries from secondaries and flanks from lores. 🦉

❡ Words for birds: You may not think of your homeschool dictionary as a nature reference, but a comprehensive dictionary will define and explain many of the standard scientific terms you will encounter in biology and natural history, although it will not generally contain the proper names of species or other taxonomic groups that aren’t part of ordinary English. (In other words, you’ll find “flamingo” but not Phoenicopterus, the flamingo genus.) One of the most important things students should be taught to look for in the dictionary is the information on word origins: knowing the roots of scientific terms makes it much easier to understand them and remember their meaning. 📖

❡ Come, here’s the map: Natural history and geography are deeply interconnected. One of the first questions you should teach your students to ask about any kind of animal or plant is, “What is its range? Where (in the world) does it occur?” Our recommended homeschool reference library includes an excellent world atlas that will help your students appreciate many aspects of biogeography, the science of the geographical distribution of living things. 🌎

❡ Nature notes: This is one of our regular Friday Bird Families posts for homeschool naturalists. Print your own copy of our River Houses Calendar of American Birds and follow along with us! You can also add your name to our free weekly mailing list to get great homeschool teaching ideas delivered right to your mailbox all through the year. 🐦 🦉 🦆 🦃 🦅

📸 PHOTO CHALLENGE – June 2021: “Birds in Flight” and “The Number Five”

3 June 2021 by Bob O'Hara

Calling all homeschool photographers! One of the independent projects we recommend to homeschool students is the monthly Wikimedia Commons Photo Challenge. The June challenge is now open and the announced themes are “Birds in Flight” and “The Number Five.” You can see sample photos and learn how to submit your own entry here:

➢ Wikimedia Commons Photo Challenge – Open Themes (updated monthly)

The Wikimedia Commons Photo Challenge encourages people to take and submit high-quality images for the public Wikimedia Commons database, the source from which Wikipedia and many other websites draw their images. Once you’ve registered and submitted an entry, you can also participate in the selection of future themes and in the voting for the monthly winners.

If you have talented young photographers in your home academy, why not encourage them to sign up and submit an entry. Working on a specific theme over a period of a few weeks is a great way for students to develop both their technical camera skills and their visual composition skills. And if you submit a number of entries over time you can assemble a personal portfolio page to show off your work — that would be good experience in how to create a professional presentation of yourself for future employment or college admissions.

You can find more ideas for independent homeschool projects in a wide range of scientific and scholarly fields on our River Houses Lunar Society page.

What photographic, artistic, and scientific discoveries will you be making in your homeschool this Hercules Term? 😊

❡ Explore more: Your recommended world almanac has a long list of famous artists on pages 214–217, and that list includes famous photographers. Why not pick out a name or two to research each month, either online or on your next visit to your local library — it would be a great way to give your students a little extra photographic inspiration! 📸

❡ Follow along with us: This is one of our regular “Lunar Society” posts about the many independent projects we recommend to homeschool students. Add your name to our weekly mailing list and get great homeschool teaching ideas delivered right to your mailbox all through the year. 🗞

🌍 🇸🇳 WEEKLY WORLD HERITAGE: The Island of Gorée in Senegal

2 June 2021 by Bob O'Hara

Senegal in western Africa is one of our homeschool countries-of-the-week, so why not spend a few minutes today learning about one of Senegal’s World Heritage Sites: the Island of Gorée.

The Island of Gorée as it appears today off the coast of Senegal. (Image: Wikimedia Commons.)

The Island of Gorée was a slave-trading port in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Although it is indisputably an authentic site, recent scholarship suggests that its numerical importance has been exaggerated in comparison with other locations along the African coast.

The Island of Gorée testifies to an unprecedented human experience in the history of humanity. Indeed, for the universal conscience, this “memory island” is the symbol of the slave trade with its cortege of suffering, tears and death.

The painful memories of the Atlantic slave trade are crystallized in this small island of 28 hectares lying 3.5 km off the coast from Dakar. Gorée owes its singular destiny to the extreme centrality of its geographical position between the North and the South, and to its excellent strategic position offering a safe haven for anchoring ships, hence the name “Good Rade” [“Good Roadstead” or anchoring place]. Thus, since the 15th century it has been prized by various European nations that have successively used it as a stopover or slave market. First terminus of the “homeoducs” who drained the slaves from the hinterland, Gorée was at the centre of the rivalry between European nations for control of the slave trade. Until the abolition of the trade in the French colonies, the Island was a warehouse consisting of over a dozen slave houses. Amongst the tangible elements that reflect Gorée’s universal value are, notably, the Castle, a rocky plateau covered with fortifications which dominate the Island; the Relais de l’Espadon, former residence of the French governor; etc.

The Island of Gorée is now a pilgrimage destination for the African diaspora, a foyer for contact between the West and Africa, and a space for exchange and dialogue between cultures through the confrontation of ideals of reconciliation and forgiveness. (UNESCO World Heritage Centre #26)

You can find a gallery of additional photos of the Island of Gorée on the World Heritage Centre’s website.

What world treasures will you be exploring in your homeschool this Hercules Term? 😊

🖋 🌞 WONDERFUL WORDS (and Music!): “Sumer is i-cumin in”

1 June 2021 by Bob O'Hara

The weather is warming up, the birds are laying their eggs, and the trees are all leafed-out — summer is on its way! Our homeschool poem-of-the-week for the first week of June and the first week of Hercules Term, our summer term in the River Houses, is one of the oldest songs in the English language. Its author is unknown, but it was probably written sometime in the 1200s and is in the Wessex dialect of Middle English — loudly sing, “cuckoo”!

Sumer is i-cumin in

Sing, cuccu, nu. Sing, cuccu.
Sing, cuccu. Sing, cuccu, nu.

Sumer is i-cumin in —
Lhude sing, cuccu!
Groweth sed and bloweth med
And springth the wude nu.
Sing, cuccu!

Awe bleteth after lomb,
Lhouth after calve cu,
Bulluc sterteth, bucke verteth —
Murie sing, cuccu!
Cuccu, cuccu,
Wel singes thu, cuccu.
Ne swik thu naver nu!

“Sumer is i-cumin in” is a round, like “Row, row, row your boat,” intended to be sung by multiple voices, but it is often printed as a simple poem and can easily be read as such. Here’s a modern English translation, courtesy of the Wessex Parallel WebTexts Project at Southampton University in England:

Sing, cuckoo, now. Sing, cuckoo.
Sing, cuckoo. Sing, cuckoo, now.

Summer has arrived —
Sing loudly, cuckoo!
The seed is growing and the meadow is blooming,
And the wood is coming into leaf now.
Sing, cuckoo!

The ewe is bleating after her lamb,
The cow is lowing after her calf,
The bullock is prancing, the billy-goat farting —
Sing merrily, cuckoo!
Cuckoo, cuckoo,
You sing well, cuckoo.
Never stop now!

You may wish, or perhaps you may not wish, to delight your local ten-year-old by explaining that “Sumer is i-cumin in” is believed by some scholars to contain the first English appearance of the verb “to fart” (“verteth”), although that translation is disputed by other learned philologists. (I’m rather partial to the reading “buck cavorteth,” which seems to me to fit the context most naturally.)

Here’s how you can present “Sumer is i-cumin in” this week in your homeschool: just go about your usual school activities singing the opening lines all day — “Sumer is i-cumin in, sing, cuccu!” Your students will pick it right up and make it a June tradition:

(That’s the European Cuckoo shown, correctly, in the video — a species that really does sing “cuccu,” unlike our North American cuckoos.)

“Sumer is i-cumin in” has been a staple of high school and college English classes for generations. By sharing it with your students this summer you’ll be introducing them to the rich and ancient heritage of the English language.

What wonderful words and poetical productions will you be studying in your homeschool this Hercules Term? 😊

❡ Sing, cuccu! If a special line or turn of phrase happens to strike you in one of our weekly poems, just copy it onto your homeschool bulletin board for a few days and invite your students to speak it (or sing it!) aloud — that’s all it takes to begin a new poetical friendship and learn a few lovely words that will stay with you for life. 🌞

❡ Explore more: For a quick review of the European Middle Ages, the era within which this little song originated, turn to page 188 in your River Houses history encyclopedia. 📚

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