The River Houses Homeschool Network

🚂 LIBRARY LESSONS: Railroad History at the Library of Congress

14 May 2019 by Bob O'Hara

For live links, click to: riverhouses.org/2019-railroad-history 😊

This month is the 150th anniversary of the completion of the North American Transcontinental Railroad — an event that had an enormous impact on the economic, geographical, and cultural development of the United States.

We wrote earlier about the driving of the famous golden spike that marked the railroad’s completion — an icon of American history that every student should recognize. To continue this railroad theme, here’s an outline of some great primary resources at the Library of Congress that you can invite your history-oriented homeschool students to explore:

➔ Promontory Summit and the Transcontinental Railroad (Library of Congress)

Hundreds of original maps, documents, reports, newspapers, and images of American railroad history are all available there — material enough for countless homeschool history lessons.

“‘Joining of the Tracks, Promontory, Utah’ from ‘How we built the Union Pacific railway, and other railway papers and addresses’ (image 82), www.loc.gov/item/10035482“

Railroads were to the nineteenth century what computers have been to the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries: creators of wealth, drivers of social and economic opportunity, focal points of innovation, and networks for communication. Why not adopt them as an educational theme this month in your homeschool.

What treasures have you discovered in your library lately? 😊

❡ Explore more: For a quick review of the importance of railroads in American and world history, turn to pages 293 and 310 in your River Houses history encyclopedia (riverhouses.org/books). It’s just the background you need for a wonderful homeschool history lesson.

❡ Dukedoms large enough: Have you found all the local libraries in your area? There may be more than you realize, and there’s no better homeschool field trip than a field trip to a new library! The WorldCat Library Finder will help you find all the library collections near you — public and private, large and small — and the WorldCat catalog itself will help you locate the closest copy of almost any book in the world. 😊

❡ When in doubt, go to the library: This is one of our regular Homeschool Books & Libraries posts. Add your name to our free weekly mailing list (riverhouses.org/newsletter) and get great homeschool teaching ideas delivered right to your mailbox all through the year. 📚

🚀 LEARNING ABOUT SKYLAB, America’s First Space Station

14 May 2019 by Bob O'Hara

For images and links, click to: riverhouses.org/2019-skylab 😊

Do you have a space enthusiast or a future astronaut in your homeschool? Then why not take a few minutes this week to learn about Skylab, America’s first space station, launched on this day in 1973.

After the successful Apollo Program and the moon landings of the 1960s, the next step for NASA was the construction of a semi-permanent space station. That space station was Skylab, and it was to go into operation in May 1973 with two launches in succession: first the unmanned station itself, and then the next day the astronaut crew who would dock with the station and take control. But all did not go according to plan. The station’s solar panels didn’t deploy correctly, and the launch of the crew was delayed until engineers could figure out how the astronauts could repair the solar panels in orbit (which they did, two weeks later). Once those problems were overcome, the Skylab program moved forward successfully and had many important scientific accomplishments.

Here’s NASA’s official Skylab website, full of interesting information about the Skylab program and its discoveries:

➔ Skylab Mission Pages (NASA)

And here’s a five-minute Skylab documentary, also from NASA, that gives a good overview of the program:

➔

To get a real sense of the historical moment, there’s nothing better than a live recording of the launch itself — this one is from NBC News. Students today may have a hard time understanding how millions of people all across the country were glued to their televisions during these early space launches:

➔

Perhaps you have a future astronaut in your homeschool. The International Space Station awaits, and then, on to Mars! 🚀

Skylab U.S. commemorative stamp, 1974. (The 1970s were not an age of great postal art.)

What extraterrestrial discoveries have you made in your homeschool lately? 😊

❡ Stay in the loop: This is one of our regular homeschool space and astronomy posts. Add your name to our free weekly mailing list (riverhouses.org/newsletter) and get great homeschool teaching ideas delivered right to your mailbox all through the year. 🗞

🗓 QUICK FRESHES for Homeschool Families – Week of 12 May 2019

12 May 2019 by Bob O'Hara

For live links, click to: riverhouses.org/2019-05-12 😊

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! Visit our River Houses calendar page (riverhouses.org/calendars) and print your own homeschool calendars for the entire year.

💐 HAPPY MOTHER’S DAY to all homeschool moms everywhere! What would the world do without you? 👩‍👧‍👦

🇺🇸 OUR STATE-OF-THE-WEEK is Nebraska, and our countries are Saint Kitts and Nevis 🇰🇳, Saint Lucia 🇱🇨, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines 🇻🇨, and Samoa 🇼🇸. (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 gibbous and waxing — a good time for moon watching! You can dial up this week’s constellations and explore the moon’s features with your homeschool star atlas and world atlas (riverhouses.org/books).

🗓 TODAY (Sunday, 12 May) — Today is the 132nd day of 2019; there are 233 days remaining in the year. Learn more about different kinds of modern and historical calendars on pages 358–364 in your River Houses almanac (riverhouses.org/books). ⬩ It’s MOTHER’S DAY! 🌷 It’s also the birthday of famed nurse and social reformer Florence Nightingale (1820–1910). 👩‍⚕️ And not only that, it’s also birthday of legendary American actress Katharine Hepburn (1907–2003). 🎭

Monday (13 May) — On this day in 1861, astronomer John Tebbutt of Windsor, Australia, discovered C/1861 J1, better known as the Great Comet of 1861. ☄️

Tuesday (14 May) — On this day in 1787, delegates from the several states convened in Philadelphia to draft a new federal Constitution to replace the original Articles of Confederation. 🇺🇸 And on this day in 1973, the United States’ first space station, Skylab, was launched from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida. 🚀

Wednesday (15 May) — Today is the birthday of American children’s author L. Frank Baum (1856–1919), the creator of the Wizard of Oz. ✍️ On this day in 1928, the Walt Disney character Mickey Mouse made his first appearance in a silent short called “Plane Crazy.” 🐭 Our homeschool poem-of-the-week for the third week of May is Robert Frost’s “Birches,” for play and growing up. Print your own River Houses Poetry Calendar (riverhouses.org/calendars) and follow along with us throughout the year.

Thursday (16 May) — Today is the birthday of American educator Elizabeth Palmer Peabody (1804–1894), who established the first public kindergarten in the United States. 🏫

Friday (17 May) — Today is the birthday of the English physician Edward Jenner (1749–1823), developer of the smallpox vaccine, one of the greatest discoveries in the history of medicine. 👨‍⚕️ The first Kentucky Derby was run on this day in 1875. (The winning horse was named Aristides.) 🏇 And on this day in 1902, Greek archaeologist Valerios Stais first recognized the significance of the object now called the Antikythera mechanism, one of the most remarkable artifacts the ancient world ever produced. 🏛

Saturday (18 May) — Today is the birthday of Mathew Brady (1822–1896), the famous photographer of the American Civil War. 📷 Today is also the birthday of Italian-American screenwriter and director Frank Capra (1897–1991), producer of such film classics as Mr. Smith Goes to Washington (1939) and It’s a Wonderful Life (1946). 🎥 And, there’s a full moon tonight, so that means we’ll have a report on student research projects from the River Houses Lunar Society (riverhouses.org/lunar). 🌕

Sunday (19 May) — On this day in 1780, smoke from major forest fires in Canada drifted south across the northeastern states, blotting out the sun and leading many to fear that the end of the world was at hand. Candles had to be lit at noon and frogs began croaking as if it were nightfall on New England’s famous “Dark Day.” 🕯 Arctic explorer Sir John Franklin set out from Greenhithe, England, on this day in 1845, hoping to discover and chart the Northwest Passage. Franklin and his ships were never heard from again. The Franklin expedition’s disappearance was one of the great nautical mysteries of the nineteenth century. ⚓️

🥂 YOUR WEEKLY TOAST: “To friendship — may it be as lasting as time.”

❡ 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 variety in toasting!”). Our current set of toasts are mostly taken from an old anthology called Pocock’s Everlasting Songster (Gravesend, 1804). What will you toast this week?

🌎 EVERYTHING FLOWS: Our countries-of-the-week all happen to be small island nations this week and so they have no major rivers, but being volcanic and mountainous they do have many beautiful waterfalls. Our Weekly World “River” will therefore be the falls of the Wallilabou River in Saint Vincent and the Grenadines. You can locate the island of Saint Vincent in your recommended homeschool atlas (riverhouses.org/books), and you can read a little more about this river in the brief Wallilabou River entry in Wikipedia or perhaps on your next visit to your local library.

Falls on the Wallilabou River, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines. (Image: tripsavvy.com.)

❡ 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 691–693), 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 Monday 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 (riverhouses.org/newsletter) 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 (riverhouses.org/calendars) and follow along with us. 👍

🇺🇸 🌎 SUNDAY STATES: Nebraska, Saint Kitts and Nevis, Samoa, and More

12 May 2019 by Bob O'Hara

For live links, click to: riverhouses.org/2019-nebraska 😊

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 (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 429), so this week’s state is:

🇺🇸
Nebraska State Quarter
NEBRASKA (the 37th state, 1 March 1867) — The Cornhusker State. Capital: Lincoln. Nebraska can be found on page 577 in your almanac and on plates 39 and 142 in your atlas. Name origin: “From Omaha or Otos Indian word meaning ‘broad water’ or ‘flat river,’ describing the Platte River” (almanac page 430). State bird: Western Meadowlark (bird guide page 530). Website: www.nebraska.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 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 world of new geographical and historical information, as well as a host of valuable reading and research skills. 😊

❡ Explore more: If you’re planning a comprehensive unit study of one or more of the U.S. states, be sure to investigate the primary source materials for teachers available from the Library of Congress.

This week’s countries, with their official websites, are:

🇰🇳 SAINT KITTS AND NEVIS in the West Indies. Population: 53,094. Capital: Basseterre. Website: www.gov.kn (in English).
🇱🇨 SAINT LUCIA in the West Indies. Population: 165,510. Capital: Castries. Website: www.govt.lc (in English).
🇻🇨 SAINT VINCENT AND THE GRENADINES in the West Indies. Population: 101,844. Capital: Kingstown. Website: www.gov.vc (in English).
🇼🇸 SAMOA in the south Pacific Ocean. Population: 201,316. Capital: Apia. Website: www.samoagovt.ws (in English).

These countries all appear in your current almanac, atlas, and history encyclopedia as well (riverhouses.org/books). The almanac, for example, has profiles of all the nations of the world on pages 745–852; 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 geographical discoveries have you made in your homeschool this week? 😊

❡ 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 practice their critical reading and thinking skills.

❡ 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 (riverhouses.org/calendars) and follow along with us as we take a homeschool tour of the United States and the whole world over the course of the year. 🌎

🌟 STAR BRIGHT: Polaris for May

11 May 2019 by Bob O'Hara

For live links, click to: riverhouses.org/2019-polaris 😊

May is the last month of Leo Term in the River Houses, and as the monthly River Houses Star Calendar will tell you, our great-star-of-the-month for May is Polaris, the North Star or Pole Star in the constellation Ursa Minor, the Little Bear. Its formal designation is α Ursae Minoris — “alpha of Ursa Minor.”

Polaris at the center of a time-lapse image of the north celestial pole. (Image: Wikimedia Commons.)

Polaris is not an especially bright star — only magnitude 2 or so — and there’s nothing intrinsically special about it. Nevertheless, it’s one of the most important stars in the sky from our terrestrial human point of view because the earth’s orientation in space happens to put Polaris directly above our north pole. That means that as the earth rotates each day on its axis, all the other stars turn through the sky, but Polaris keeps its place: it’s a fixed point in the otherwise turning sky.

Which way is north? Look to Polaris. Want to know your latitude in the northern hemisphere? Your latitude corresponds to the angular elevation of Polaris above a level horizon. If you were at the equator, Polaris would be exactly at the horizon all night, and if you then walked your way to the north pole, Polaris would be at a higher and higher point each night until you reached the pole, when it would be 90º up from the horizon — straight overhead at the zenith.

Polaris is the alpha star — the brightest star — in the small constellation Ursa Minor, the Little Bear or Little Dipper. It’s the star at the end of the Little Dipper’s handle, and you can find it by locating the Big Dipper (Ursa Major), which is generally more conspicuous, and following the two “pointer” stars of the Big Dipper across the sky to Polaris.

The Big Dipper (Ursa Major), the Little Dipper (Ursa Minor), and the pointer stars that will lead you to Polaris. (Image: Wikimedia Commons.)

The planisphere on the front of your star atlas (riverhouses.org/books) will help you locate Polaris, and that’s plenty for beginning students — your little lesson is done. If you want to get more advanced, the Wikipedia page on Polaris is packed with additional information on everything from astrometrics to cultural history.

Polaris and the surrounding stars of Ursa Minor. (Image: Wikimedia Commons.)

The Polaris we see as a single star is in fact a triple star system. The primary star of the system — the source of nearly all the light that comes to us — is a yellow supergiant more than 30 times the diameter of the sun. It has a tiny close companion that can only be detected in powerful telescopes, and a more distant companion that can be fairly easily resolved by amateur observers. The Polaris system is about 400 light years distant — the light we see when we look at Polaris was actually emitted by the star about 400 years ago.

“I am as constant as the northern star,” says Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar. This month, take your homeschool students out at dusk and introduce them to this great fixed star, and teach them its name, and so give them a new friend for life.

What stellar observations have you made in your homeschool lately? 😊

❡ Alpha and beta and gamma, oh my: Most of the principal stars within each constellation have both old vernacular names — Vega, Sirius, Arcturus, and so on — as well as more formal scientific designations. The German astronomer Johann Bayer (1572–1625) devised the formal system of star designations that is still in common use today. In Bayer’s system, the stars in each constellation, from brightest to dimmest, are assigned a lowercase letter of the Greek alphabet: α (alpha, brightest), β (beta, second brightest), γ (gamma, third brightest), δ (delta, fourth brightest), and so on. This letter designation is combined with the Latin name of the constellation in its possessive (genitive) form: Lyra becomes Lyrae (“of Lyra”), Canis Major becomes Canis Majoris (“of Canis Major”), and so on. The brightest star in the constellation Lyra (the star Vega) thus becomes α Lyrae (“alpha of Lyra”), the brightest star in Canis Major (the star Sirius) becomes α Canis Majoris (“alpha of Canis Major”), and so on, through all 24 Greek letters and all 88 constellations. How bright would you expect, say, the σ (sigma) star of Orion to be? Not very bright — it’s far down the alphabet — but σ Orionis happens to be the top star of Orion’s sword, so even though it’s not very bright it’s still notable and easy to locate on a dark night.

❡ Watchers of the skies: Teaching your students to recognize the constellations is one of the simplest and most enduring gifts you can give them. The planisphere on the front of your River Houses star atlas (riverhouses.org/books) will let you dial up the northern hemisphere sky for any night of the year, and the descriptions and maps of each constellation will point out the highlights, including the names and characteristics of the brightest stars. Your general world atlas also has beautiful maps of the whole northern and southern hemisphere night skies on plates 121–122. Why not find a dark-sky spot near you this month and spend some quality homeschool time beneath the starry vault. 🌠 🔭 🌌 🌟

❡ First star I see tonight: This is one of our monthly “great star” posts featuring twelve of the brightest stars of the northern hemisphere night sky. Download and print your own copy of our River Houses Star Calendar (riverhouses.org/calendars) and follow along with us as we visit a different great star each month. 🌟

🐦 WHAT BIRDS Are Migrating Through Your Neighborhood?

10 May 2019 by Horace the Otter

For live links, click to: riverhouses.org/2019-ebird-charts 😊

May is Bird Migration Month in the River Houses — we think bird study is one of the best subjects you can take up in a homeschool environment. But how can you find out what birds are present and migrating through your local area? A good bird guide will give you a general idea, but what about week by week in your specific state, county, or town?

For that information you can turn to the wonderful eBird.org website, sponsored by Cornell University. eBird is a big site with many features and services, and it will not only let you record your own bird observations, but will also show you summary data for any part of the country (or the world).

Suppose you’re a homeschooler in Minot, North Dakota (to select a random location). Minot is in Ward County, so if you use eBird’s geographical browsing tool you can navigate your way to the seasonal bar charts for Ward County, North Dakota. Here’s a sample of what they look like:

Seasonal chart for birds of Ward County, North Dakota. (Image: eBird.org.)

Can your students see how to interpret this chart? (That’s an important basic academic skill right there.) Each row represents a species of bird: Bobolink, Western Meadowlark, Eastern Meadowlark, and so on. The columns represent the weeks and months of the year, from January to December. The thickness of the green bars indicates how often each species is reported during a given week. For example: the first few Bobolinks begin to arrive during the first two weeks of May (where we are right now); they become more common by the end of the month and are regularly seen through June and July; and then by August and September they’re still present, but not as often reported. By the end of September they’re gone (except for an occasional stray).

So if you’re a homeschooler in Minot, North Dakota, the Bobolinks have just arrived in your vicinity, as have the Baltimore Orioles; in a few more days the Orchard Orioles will join them. Western Meadowlarks, Red-winged Blackbirds, and several other species arrived earlier in the season and by now have settled in for the summer.

But where can you go to see these birds? Switch to the map view in eBird, and you’ll get something like this — it’s this week’s map for Western Meadowlarks in the Ward County area:

Western Meadowlark records in the Ward County region of North Dakota. (Image: eBird.org.)

This map shows all the Western Meadowlark observations that have been entered into eBird for this region of North Dakota. The red symbols stand for observations made the last 30 days; the blue symbols for observations older than 30 days. The larger symbols are eBird “hotspots” — public locations such as parks or wildlife refuges that anyone (including you and your students) can visit and explore.

But what if you don’t even know what a Western Meadowlark is? 😊 We do recommend an excellent bird guide for all homeschool families — printed books are often the best educational tools, especially for young people — but that information is also available online in eBird. If you click the species name in the bar chart, you’ll get a detailed profile that looks like this:

Western Meadowlark profile from eBird.org.

eBird is a wonderful resource that can become a regular part of your homeschool science and natural history studies. Bookmark it and give it a browse, and see what avian visitors are passing through your homeschool neighborhood this month. 😊

❡ Books in the running brooks: Our recommended homeschool reference library (riverhouses.org/books) includes an excellent bird guide that would serve your homeschool well. Many other similar guides are also available — find one that’s a good fit for your family and take it with you on all your outings, whether far afield or just out to the backyard. 🦉

❡ Nature notes: This is one of our regular Homeschool Natural History posts. Add your name to our free weekly mailing list (riverhouses.org/newsletter) and get more great homeschool teaching ideas delivered right to your mailbox all through the year. 😊

🚂 THE GOLDEN SPIKE 1869–2019

10 May 2019 by Bob O'Hara

For live links, click to: riverhouses.org/2019-golden-spike 😊

The Golden Spike that completed the first North American transcontinental railway was driven into place in Promontory Summit, Utah, one hundred and fifty years ago today. There are lots of anniversary celebrations underway:

➔ SPIKE 150 Celebrations

You may be able to teach a little lesson about this important historical anniversary today just by checking your pocket change, since the Golden Spike has been an American icon for this entire century and a half, appearing (among many other places) on the 2007 Utah state quarter.

Utah state quarter from 2007, featuring the Golden Spike and the transcontinental railroad. (Image: U.S. Mint.)

For the hundredth anniversary of the Spike, the U.S. Mint produced a beautiful centennial commemorative medal (not one that you’re likely to find in your pocket change).

Golden Spike commemorative medal from 1969. (Image: U.S. Mint.)

The Post Office has been in the game, too, marking the 75th anniversary of the Spike with a beautifully engraved commemorative stamp in 1944.

It would be hard to overestimate the historical importance railroads in the development of human society from the nineteenth century to today. For a good ten-minute lesson to share with your homeschoolers today, turn to page 293 in your recommended homeschool history encyclopedia for an introduction to rail and the Industrial Revolution, and then to page 310 for notes on the American Transcontinental Railroad and the settlement of the American West.

What historical discoveries have you made in your homeschool this week? 😊

❡ Stay in the loop: This is one of our regular Homeschool Holidays & Anniversaries posts. Add your name to our free weekly mailing list (riverhouses.org/newsletter) and get more great homeschool teaching ideas delivered right to your mailbox all through the year. 📚

🔍 STUDENT RESEARCH OPPORTUNITIES: The Whitman Bicentennial

9 May 2019 by Bob O'Hara

For live links, click to: riverhouses.org/2019-whitman-bicentennial 😊

Here’s something that would probably look really good on a college application.

We often write here about opportunities for homeschool students to participate in real academic research projects — it’s the idea behind our “Lunar Society” plan to encourage homeschoolers to develop their skills in science and scholarship. Here’s a brand new opportunity of this kind that might be a perfect fit for your home academy.

This month (the 31st actually) is the 200th anniversary of the birth of the great American poet Walt Whitman (1819–1892). There are all sorts of Whitman bicentennial activities going on around the country, and one of them is a new crowdsourced project from the Library of Congress that invites readers to transcribe many of the library’s Whitman-related documents:

➔ Whitman at 200 – A Crowdsourced Project at the Library of Congress

This is the Library’s latest “By the People” project. (Here’s our earlier notice about these projects.) The Library has scanned hundreds of original manuscripts and documents by and about Whitman, and your task, should you choose to accept it, is to transcribe (type out) these documents on the Library’s research platform. Scanned manuscripts and hand-annotated typescripts can be read by humans, but unless there is a modern digital transcript they can’t be easily searched and analyzed by computer — and that kind of searching and analysis is essential to modern scholarship.

Proof copy of “O captain! my captain!” with manuscript corrections by Whitman. (Image: Library of Congress.)

People who contribute to this project (your students, for example) will gain experience working with primary source materials of historical importance; they’ll get a much richer appreciation for “real history” as opposed to the simplified and synthetic history that appears in textbooks; and they’ll learn how a large research project operates, while they themselves make contributions to it.

If you have a high-school aged homeschooler with a liking for history or literature, and with good language skills and a strong attention to detail — very important for a project like this — take a look at “Whitman at 200” and sign up to participate if it strikes your interest. This is just the sort of work that might favorably impress a college admissions committee somewhere down the line.

What scholarly and scientific discoveries have you made in your homeschool this month? 😊

❡ Whether they work together or apart: The Internet provides exceptional opportunities for homeschool students to participate in real research projects in a variety of scientific and scholarly fields, something that would have been impossible only a few years ago. Pay a visit to our Lunar Society page to read about many more projects that your family can join. 🔬 🔭 🖥 🦋 🔍 🌻 ⚗️ ✒️ 📖 🌲 😊

🇷🇴 WEEKLY WORLD HERITAGE: The Dacian Fortresses of the Orăștie Mountains in Romania

8 May 2019 by Bob O'Hara

For live links, click to: riverhouses.org/2019-dacia 😊

Romania is one of our homeschool countries-of-the-week, so why not spend a few minutes today learning about one of Romania’s World Heritage Sites: the Dacian Fortresses of the Orăștie Mountains.

Remains of the Dacian Fortresses of the Orăștie Mountains in west-central Romania. (Image: Wikimedia Commons.)

The ancient kingdom of Dacia, north of modern Bulgaria on the Black Sea coast, occupied most of what is today Romania and Moldova:

“Built in the 1st centuries B.C. and A.D. under Dacian rule, these fortresses show an unusual fusion of military and religious architectural techniques and concepts from the classical world and the late European Iron Age. The six defensive works, the nucleus of the Dacian Kingdom, were conquered by the Romans at the beginning of the 2nd century A.D.; their extensive and well-preserved remains stand in spectacular natural surroundings and give a dramatic picture of a vigorous and innovative civilization.“ (UNESCO World Heritage Centre #906)

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 post one every Wednesday, drawn from one of our homeschool countries-of-the-week. You can find a complete list online at the UNESCO World Heritage Centre and in Wikipedia.

What world treasures have you explored in your homeschool this week? 😊

❡ Books in the running brooks: You can always turn to your recommended River Houses almanac, atlas, and history encyclopedia (riverhouses.org/books) for more information about any of our countries-of-the-week. The almanac has profiles of all the nations of the world on pages 745–852; 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. 🇷🇴

❡ The great globe itself: This is one of our regular Homeschool States & Countries posts. Add your name to our free weekly mailing list (riverhouses.org/newsletter) and get more great homeschool teaching ideas delivered right to your mailbox all through the year. 🌍

👩‍👧‍👦 WONDERFUL WORDS: On Mother’s Day

8 May 2019 by Bob O'Hara

For live links, click to: riverhouses.org/2019-lansky 😊

Mother’s Day weekend is almost upon us! ❤️ Children of course need to learn the proper social protocols that surround occasions such as this, and poet Bruce Lansky comes to their rescue with this little verse — it’s our homeschool poem-of-the-week for the second week of May:

On Mother’s Day
On Mother’s Day it isn’t smart
To give your mom a broken heart.
So here are things you shouldn’t say
To dear old mom on Mother’s Day:
Don’t tell her that you’ll never eat
A carrot, celery, bean, or beet.
Don’t tell her you think smoking’s cool.
Don’t tell her you’ve dropped out of school.
Don’t tell her that you’ve drowned the cat.
Don’t tell her that she looks too fat.
Don’t tell her when you’re grown you’ll be
A starving poet — just like me.

Homeschool children all grow up to eat their vegetables, and they certainly never smoke, and they are kind to all animals! And you know, I don’t think you’ve ever looked so trim and slender! Happy Mother’s Day! 👩‍👧‍👦

A Mother’s Day bouquet, from the Biodiversity Heritage Library.

What wonderful words have you found and what literary discoveries have you made in your homeschool this week? 😊

❡ Explore more: The Poetry Foundation’s website includes biographical notes and examples of the work of many notable poets (including children’s poet Bruce Lansky) that are suitable for high school students and homeschool teachers.

❡ Here, said the year: This post is one of our regular homeschool poems-of-the-week. Print your own River Houses Poetry Calendar (riverhouses.org/calendars) and follow along with us as we visit forty-eight of our favorite friends.

📚 LEARNING THE LIBRARY: The Artistic 700s

7 May 2019 by Bob O'Hara

For live links, click to: riverhouses.org/2019-dewey-700 😊

Tuesday is our Books & Libraries Day in the River Houses, and on the first Tuesday of each month we invite you and your homescholars to explore one of the major Dewey Decimal classes at your local library. If you start at the beginning of the River Houses year in September and run until July, you can “adopt” one major class each month and cover the whole of knowledge (!) in a year.

The class for May is the 700s, which covers Arts & Recreation. (The Dewey system is grouped into hundreds, so “the 700s” means the numbers running from 700 to 799.)

Here’s what you’ll find at your local library in the Artistic 700s:

CLASS 700 – ARTS & RECREATION
- 700 – Arts (General)
- 710 – Area Planning & Landscape Architecture
- 720 – Architecture
- 730 – Sculpture, Ceramics, & Metalwork
- 740 – Graphic Arts & Decorative Arts
- 750 – Painting
- 760 – Printmaking & Prints
- 770 – Photography, Computer Art, Film, Video
- 780 – Music
- 790 – Sports, Games, & Entertainment

Each of these “tens” divisions is subdivided further of course. For example, in the 750s (Painting) you’ll find works on Techniques (751), Color (752), Symbolism (753), History of Painting (759), and so on.

So if you’ve got a future architect in your homeschool, the 720s are the place to go this month. A future photographer? Head for the 770s. A future musician? Try the 780s. A future high-stakes gambler? Go and explore 795 (or maybe not). 🎲😊🎲

When you’re learning the library with your students, be sure they understand that any library collection that uses the Dewey Decimal Classification will be arranged in the same way: the numbers run from 000 to 999 in every Dewey-based library, so if you’re interested in, say, sculpture, you’ll find it in the 730s in both the small-town library near you and in the big-city library across the country. If you have an opportunity to make field trips to multiple libraries over the course of the year you’ll be able to demonstrate that in practice and get your students accustomed to orienting themselves by reading the numbers aloud as you walk together down the ranges: “710 … 720 … 725 … here it is, 730.”

Learning these library basics will help your students become independent life-long learners and will ensure that they’ll feel right at home in any library they visit.

What delightful decimals have you discovered in your library lately? 😊

❡ Make it a tradition: Why not spend a few minutes during your first library visit each month and devise a little Dewey tradition of your own. Read the title page of one book in the 700s, one in the 710s, one in the 720s, one in the 730s, and so on. Find the very first book in the class (the lowest 700) and the very last book in the class (the highest 799). Find the thinnest book and the thickest book in each class. Make a list of your three favorite numbers in each class. If you follow a simple pattern like this month-by-month over the course of the year you’ll be surprised how much information your students will absorb and how many skills they will develop without even realizing it. 📚

❡ Planning ahead: If you’d like to map out a custom year-long Dewey project for your homeschool, here’s the first-Tuesday schedule we follow in the River Houses: Introducing Dewey (September); The General 000s (October); The Philosophical 100s (November); The Religious 200s (December); The Social 300s (January); The Linguistic 400s (February); The Scientific 500s (March); The Technological 600s (April); The Artistic 700s (May); The Literary 800s (June); The Historical 900s (July). 🗓

❡ When in doubt, go to the library: This is one of our regular Homeschool Books & Libraries posts. Add your name to our free weekly mailing list (riverhouses.org/newsletter) and get more great homeschool teaching ideas delivered right to your mailbox all through the year. 📚

🗓 QUICK FRESHES for Homeschool Families – Week of 5 May 2019

5 May 2019 by Bob O'Hara

For live links, click to: riverhouses.org/2019-05-05 😊

🇺🇸 OUR STATE-OF-THE-WEEK is Nevada, and our countries are Qatar 🇶🇦, Romania 🇷🇴, Russia 🇷🇺, and Rwanda 🇷🇼. (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 new! That’s the best time of the month for stargazing since the sky will be darkest. You can dial up this week’s constellations and explore the moon’s features with your homeschool star atlas and world atlas (riverhouses.org/books).

🗓 TODAY (Sunday, 5 May) — Today is the 124th day of 2019; there are 241 days remaining in the year. Learn more about different kinds of modern and historical calendars on pages 358–364 in your River Houses almanac (riverhouses.org/books). ⬩ The famous performance venue known today as Carnegie Hall opened in New York City on this day in 1891, with famed Russian composer Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky as guest conductor. 🎵

Monday (6 May) — Today is the birthday of the American admiral and polar explorer Robert Peary (1856–1920). 🎿 And on this day in 1954, British athlete Roger Bannister (1929–2018) ran history’s first four-minute mile. 🏃

Tuesday (7 May) — Two great “B’s” were born on this day: the English poet Robert Browning (1812–1889) and the German composer Johannes Brahms (1833–1897). 🖋 And since this is the first Tuesday of the month, today we’ll invite you to browse a new Dewey Decimal class with your students on your next visit to your local library. This month: the Artistic 700s. 📚

Wednesday (8 May) — Today is the birthday of the great Austrian-British economist and Nobel laureate Friedrich Hayek (1899–1992). 💰 And today in 1945 was V-E Day, the end of World War II in Europe. ✌️ Our homeschool poem-of-the-week for the second week of May is Bruce Lansky’s “On Mother’s Day,” for all homeschool moms. 👩‍👧‍👦 Print your own River Houses Poetry Calendar (riverhouses.org/calendars) and follow along with us throughout the year.

Thursday (9 May) — Lincoln Cathedral was consecrated on this day in the year 1092. It was the first building to surpass the Great Pyramid of Giza in height and was the tallest building in the world for more than 200 years. ⛪️

Friday (10 May) — On this day in 1775, in one of the great early successes of the American Revolution, a small group of colonial militia under the command of Ethan Allen and Benedict Arnold (not yet a traitor) seized British-held Fort Ticonderoga on Lake Champlain “in the name of the great Jehovah and the Continental Congress!” 🇺🇸 And on this day in 1869 at Promontory Point, Utah, a golden spike joined east and west and completed the First Transcontinental Railroad across the United States. 🚂

Saturday (11 May) — Today is the birthday or two great American composers: Irving Berlin (1888–1989) and William Grant Still (1895–1978). 🎵 And since this is the second Saturday of the month, we’ll learn today about one of the great stars of the northern hemisphere: Polaris, the North Star. 🌟

Sunday (12 May) — HAPPY MOTHER’S DAY to homeschool moms everywhere! ❤️ Today is the birthday of famed nurse and social reformer Florence Nightingale (1820–1910). 👩‍⚕️ It’s also the birthday of legendary American actress Katharine Hepburn (1907–2003). 🎭

🥂 YOUR WEEKLY TOAST: “May the friends we love be sincere and the country we live in be free.”

🌍 EVERYTHING FLOWS: Romania is one of our countries-of-the-week, so our Weekly World River is the Olt River, the longest river that flows entirely within Romania. You can chart its course in your recommended homeschool atlas (riverhouses.org/books), and you can read more about it in the Olt River entry in Wikipedia or perhaps on your next visit to your local library.

The Olt River near Turnu Roşu in central Romania. (Image: Wikimedia Commons.)

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