For live links, click to: riverhouses.org/2019-nevada 😊
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 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:
🇺🇸Nevada State QuarterNEVADA (the 36th state, 31 October 1864) — The Silver State, the Sagebrush State. Capital: Carson City. Nevada can be found on page 578 in your almanac and on plates 37 and 142 in your atlas. Name origin: “Spanish, meaning ‘snow-clad’” (almanac page 430). State bird: Mountain Bluebird (bird guide page 408). Website:nv.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. 😊
This week’s countries, with their official websites, are:
🇶🇦 QATAR in the Middle East. Population: 2,363,569. Capital: Doha. Website:portal.www.gov.qa (in English and Arabic).
🇷🇴 ROMANIA in southeastern Europe. Population: 21,457,116. Capital: Bucharest. Website:www.gov.ro (in Romanian, English, and French).
🇷🇺 RUSSIA in eastern Europe and Asia. Population: 142,122,776. Capital: Moscow. Website:government.ru (in Russian and English).
🇷🇼 RWANDA in east-central Africa. Population: 12,187,400. Capital: Kigali. Website:www.gov.rw (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 best stargazing nights in May will be toward the beginning of the month — the moon is new (and the sky darkest) today, the 4th. As always, you can track the moon’s phases at the excellent timeanddate.com website.
May is the third month of Leo Term, the third of the four three-month terms that make up the River Houses year. Our great star for the month of May is Polaris, the North Star, 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 high lights of the northern hemisphere night sky.
What celestial observations have you made in your homeschool lately? 😊
❡ 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. Find a dark-sky spot near you this month and spend some quality homeschool time beneath the starry vault. 🌠 🔭 🌌
❡ Star bright: This is one of our regular homeschool astronomy posts. Add your name to our River Houses mailing list and get more great homeschool teaching ideas delivered right to your mailbox every week. 😊
For live links, click to: riverhouses.org/2019-migration-month 😊
The merry month of May has arrived, and 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. It’s suitable for all ages, it can be made as elementary or as advanced as you wish, and birds can be found just about anywhere at any season of the year.
But this is the season, and this is the month, when there are more birds moving than at any other time. One of the best ways to give your students a sense of the scale and scope of bird migration is with the wonderful BirdCast website (birdcast.info), sponsored by Cornell University.
Birdcast.info is a daily “weather” forecast, and the weather it predicts is the nightly level of bird migration across the United States. (Did you know that most birds migrate at night? It’s true!)
Sample migration forecast from birdcast.info.
The colors on the nightly forecast maps show the expected intensity of migration across different parts of the country: red is more intense, blue is less intense. Although the seasonal timing of migration is generally governed by the photoperiod (the day-length), local variation in weather conditions can “bottle up” migrants for short periods, leading to heavy days and light days in any given region. Black areas on the forecast maps are zones of precipitation that are expected to block migrants from moving forward on any given night.
One of the most remarkable things available on the BirdCast website is live nightly migration tracking based on nationwide radar observations that see bird movements directly. As sunset moves from east to west across the country, the sky “lights up” with radar echoes of migrating birds — it’s quite dramatic.
Real-time sample radar image of migrating birds across the United States. (Image: birdcast.info.)
Birdcast.info will help you and your students connect what you see in your local neighborhood with the grand pattern of migration that is taking place across the whole continent during this busy month of May.
What ornithological discoveries have you made in your homeschool this week? 😊
❡ 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. 🦉
The Wikimedia Commons Photo Challenge encourages people to take and submit high-quality images for the public Wikimedia Commons database — the source from which most of the images in Wikipedia are drawn. Once you’ve registered and submitted an entry, you can also participate in the voting for the best entries each month.
Four U.S. Air Force pilots at Elmendorf Air Force Base, Alaska. A sample image for the theme “Women at Work” from this month’s Wikimedia Commons Photo Challenge. (Image: Wikimedia Commons.)
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 artistic skills.
What photographic, artistic, and scientific discoveries have you made in your homeschool this week? 😊
❡ Explore more: Your recommended world almanac (riverhouses.org/books) has a long list of famous artists on pages 185–188, 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! 📸
For live links, click to: riverhouses.org/2019-may-song 😊
Happy First of May! Our homeschool poem-of-the-week for the beginning of this merry month is a genuine folk song, meaning you’ll be hard pressed to find two versions of it that are the same. It probably dates back centuries and was anciently sung by old English “mayers” going from house to house and spreading springtime cheer (and probably asking for money, too):
OLD MAY SONG
All in this pleasant evening, together come are we,
For the Summer springs so fresh, green, and gay;
We shall not sing you May again until another year,
For to draw these cold winters away,
We’ll tell you of a blossom and buds on every tree,
Drawing near to the merry month of May.
Rise up, the master of this house, put on your chain of gold,
For the Summer springs so fresh, green, and gay;
We hope you’re not offended, with your house we make so bold,
Drawing near to the merry month of May.
Rise up, the mistress of this house, with gold along your breast,
For the Summer springs so fresh, green, and gay;
And if your body be asleep, we hope your soul’s at rest,
Drawing near to the merry month of May.
Rise up, the children of this house, all in your rich attire,
For the Summer springs so fresh, green, and gay;
For every hair upon your head shines like a silver wire,
Drawing near to the merry month of May.
God bless this house and harbour, your riches and your store,
For the Summer springs so fresh, green, and gay;
We hope the Lord will prosper you, both now and evermore,
Drawing near to the merry month of May.
So now we’re going to leave you, in peace and plenty here,
For the Summer springs so fresh, green, and gay.
A maypole ceremony by Ohio University students in the early 1900s. (Image: Wikimedia Commons.).
What wonderful words have you found and what literary discoveries have you made in your homeschool this spring season? 😊
❡ Rise up, the children of this house: 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. 😊
The Temple of the Sun at Machu Picchu, Peru. (Image: Wikimedia Commons.)
The Incan citadel of Machu Picchu is one of the most famous archeological sites in the Western Hemisphere:
“Machu Picchu stands 2,430 m above sea-level, in the middle of a tropical mountain forest, in an extraordinarily beautiful setting. It was probably the most amazing urban creation of the Inca Empire at its height; its giant walls, terraces and ramps seem as if they have been cut naturally in the continuous rock escarpments. The natural setting, on the eastern slopes of the Andes, encompasses the upper Amazon basin with its rich diversity of flora and fauna.“ (UNESCO World Heritage Centre #274)
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. 🌎
For live links, click to: riverhouses.org/2019-childrens-books 😊
Tuesday is our Books & Libraries Day in the River Houses when we write about book-related resources you can browse, save, and share with your students. Here’s a real treat: a new digital collection of classic children’s books, all online and free to read, from the Library of Congress:
“In celebration of the 100th anniversary of Children’s Book Week (April 29 to May 5),” the Library reports, they have released this “unique online collection of 67 historically significant children’s books published more than 100 years ago. Drawn from the Library’s collection, Children’s Book Selections are digital versions both of classic works still read by children today and of lesser-known treasures.”
There should be something for everyone in this wide-ranging collection:
“From Humpty Dumpty to Little Red Riding Hood, the books in this collection were published in the United States and England before 1924, are no longer under copyright, and are free to read and share. Highlights of the collection include examples of the work of American illustrators such as W.W. Denslow, Peter Newell and Howard Pyle, as well as works by renowned English illustrators Randolph Caldecott, Walter Crane and Kate Greenaway….
“The selections span many generations and topics, and reflect three central themes: Learning to Read: Materials produced to teach American children to read: ABC books, primers and a wooden hornbook. Reading to Learn: Materials that support classroom instruction in subjects such as mathematics, classical mythology, natural science and the structure and function of the Unites States government. Reading for Fun: Materials to nourish the imagination: fiction, poetry, fairy tales and toy books.“ (Library of Congress)
Why not browse this wonderful new (old) collection on a tablet, laptop, or large screen, and see if you can find some new (old) titles for your next homeschool read-aloud hour.
What treasures have you discovered in your library this week? 😊
❡ Dukedoms large enough: Have you visited all the local libraries in your area? There may be more than you realize! The WorldCat Library Finder (worldcat.org/libraries) will help you locate all the libraries near you — public and private, large and small — and the WorldCat catalog itself (worldcat.org) will help you find the closest copy of almost any book in the world. 😊
❡ Books in the running brooks: The sidebar on the River Houses website (riverhouses.org) has links to several important online library collections that we like to explore. Why not sit yourself down at a large screen for a while (rather than a phone), and give them a browse. 😊
Attention all homeschool historians, geographers, artists, and treasure hunters! Here’s something new for you to search for this month: the American Memorial Park “America the Beautiful” quarter from the U.S. Mint:
(Click for image: riverhouses.org/2019-marianas-quarter)
American Memorial Park “America the Beautiful” quarter, 2019. (Image: U.S. Mint.)
If you’re looking for a fun and easy way to include some interesting geographical and historical facts in your homeschool schedule (as well as a little treasure hunting along the way), you can’t do better than to keep an eye on the “America the Beautiful” quarters series. This commemorative series began in 2010 and each year five new designs are issued featuring national parks and other historic sites in the U.S. states and territories.
The latest quarter commemorates the American Memorial Park in the Northern Mariana Islands, a U.S. commonwealth in the western Pacific Ocean, and it has just gone into circulation:
“American Memorial Park in Northern Mariana Islands honors the thousands of American troops and local residents of Saipan who gave their lives during the Marianas Campaign of World War II. At the Court of Honor, the American flag is displayed at the center of the Flag Circle and surrounded by the Navy, Marine Corps, Army, and Coast Guard flags. The Court of Honor consists of 26 granite panels inscribed with the names of 5,204 service members who died.
“The design depicts a young woman in traditional attire at the front of the Flag Circle and Court of Honor. She is resting her hand on the plaque whose text honors the sacrifice of those who died in the Marianas Campaign of World War II.“ (U.S. Mint)
The Mint has a remarkably comprehensive set of free lesson plans available for the whole America the Beautiful series — you could make quite an American history course out of them. And the Mint also has a very nice simple album for this series (amzn.to/2D2A3dO) — just the thing to get some educational treasure hunting under way.
What numismatical discoveries have you made in your homeschool this week? 😊
❡ Come, here’s the map: The America the Beautiful quarters are a great tool for teaching about geography. Locate each park and each historic site in your homeschool atlas (riverhouses.org/books), and spread out your whole collection on atlas plate 35, the map of the entire United States. 🇺🇸
❡ Explore more: These quarters are great for teaching history, too. For an overview of the Pacific theater in World War II, turn to page 402 in your homeschool history encyclopedia (riverhouses.org/books), which also includes a map showing the location of the Northern Mariana Islands. ⚔️
❡ Make it a tradition: Why not pick up a roll of circulated quarters at your local grocery store or bank each week and invite your students to go through it around the kitchen table. A whole world of historical and geographical discovery awaits them. 💰
For live links, click to: riverhouses.org/2019-04-28 😊
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.
🇺🇸 OUR STATE-OF-THE-WEEK is West Virginia, and our countries are Peru 🇵🇪, the Philippines 🇵🇭, Poland 🇵🇱, and Portugal 🇵🇹. (Our separate Sunday States & Countries post for the week went up just a few minutes ago.)
🗓 TODAY (Sunday, 28 April) — Today is the 118th day of 2019; there are 247 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). ⬩ Today is the birthday of the American novelist Harper Lee (1926–2016), author of the school-standard story To Kill a Mockingbird. 🖋
Monday (29 April) — Monday is the birthday of the great American jazz musician and composer Duke Ellington (1899–1974). 🎹
Tuesday (30 April) — On this day in 1789 on the balcony of Federal Hall in New York City, George Washington took the oath of office to become the first President of the United States. 🇺🇸 And on this day in 1897, British physicist J.J. Thompson announced the discovery of the electron. ⚛️ Today is also the birthday of the great American choral conductor Robert Shaw (1916–1999). 🎼
Wednesday (1 May) — May is Bird Migration Month in the River Houses. Keep an eye on the season’s progress at birdcast.info. 🐦 The world’s first postage stamp, the Penny Black, was issued on this day in 1840 in the United Kingdom. 📬 And on this day in 1931 the Empire State Building was dedicated in New York City as (at the time) the tallest building in the world. 🏙 Our homeschool poem-of-the-week for the first week of May is the anonymous medieval song “All in this pleasant evening,” for the merry month ahead. Print your own River Houses Poetry Calendar (riverhouses.org/calendars) and follow along with us throughout the year.
Thursday (2 May) — The King James Version of the Bible, probably the most influential book in the history of the English language, was first published on this day in London in 1611. 📖
Friday (3 May) — Today is the birthday of the famous Italian Renaissance historian and political philosopher Niccolò Machiavelli (1469–1527). 👑 On this day in 1715, Edmond Halley (of comet fame) successfully predicted, to within four minutes’ accuracy, a total solar eclipse that was visible across much of Europe. ☀️🌑🌍 And since this is the first Friday of the month, we’ll post our regular monthly preview today of some of the astronomical events you and your students can be on the lookout for over the next few weeks.
Sunday (5 May) — The famous performance venue known today as Carnegie Hall opened in New York City on this day in 1891, with Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky as guest conductor. 🎵
🥂 YOUR WEEKLY TOAST: “May we live all the days of our lives.”
❡ 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: Peru is one of our countries-of-the-week, so our Weekly World River is the Ucayali River, one of the principal rivers of Peru and a major tributary of the Amazon. You can chart its course in your recommended homeschool atlas (riverhouses.org/books), and you can read more about it in the Ucayali River entry in Wikipedia or perhaps on your next visit to your local library.
The meandering Ucayali River of Peru, seen from space. (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 691–693), 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!
What do you have planned for your homeschool this week? 😊
For live links, click to: riverhouses.org/2019-west-virginia 😊
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 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:
🇺🇸West Virginia State QuarterWEST VIRGINIA (the 35th state, 20 June 1863) — The Mountain State. Capital: Charleston. West Virginia can be found on page 589 in your almanac and on plates 43 and 142 in your atlas. Name origin: “So named when western counties of Virginia refused to secede from the U.S. in 1863” (almanac page 430). State bird: Northern Cardinal (bird guide page 522). Website:www.wv.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 some valuable reading and research skills. 😊
This week’s countries, with their official websites, are:
🇵🇪 PERU in western South America. Population: 31,331,228. Capital: Lima. Website:www.peru.gob.pe (in Spanish).
🇵🇭 THE PHILIPPINES in southeastern Asia. Population: 105,893,381. Capital: Manila. Website:www.gov.ph (in English).
🇵🇱 POLAND in central Europe. Population: 38,420,687. Capital: Warsaw. Website:www.poland.gov.pl (in English).
🇵🇹 PORTUGAL in southwestern Europe. Population: 10,355,493. Capital: Lisbon. Website:www.portugal.gov.pt (in Portuguese).
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. ✈️ 🚞 🚗 🛳 🐎 😊
For live links, click to: riverhouses.org/2019-arbor-day 😊
Today is Arbor Day! Or more specifically, it’s national Arbor Day, since there are many other state Arbor Days across the U.S. (and even around the world). That makes this a great weekend to go out with your students and plant a tree — or maybe at least hug one. 😊🌳😊
Arbor Day began in the United States in Nebraska in 1872, and it’s now celebrated each year on the last Friday in April. Arbor Day is a day for planting and appreciating trees, and each year around Arbor Day the Arbor Day Foundation (arborday.org) provides millions of trees, ready for planting, to cities and towns, schools and colleges, and citizens across the country.
Why not bookmark and browse the many resources available from the Arbor Day Foundation and see how you can incorporate them into your own homeschooling activities. Here are some of the things happening near you this Arbor Day:
And here are some fun educational resources, including printable activity sheets that are perfect for homeschoolers, from the national Arbor Day Foundation:
Kuk is an archeological site that is believed to represent one of the few places on earth where local human populations independently developed agriculture:
“Kuk Early Agricultural Site consists of 116 ha of swamps in the western highlands of New Guinea 1,500 metres above sea-level. Archaeological excavation has revealed the landscape to be one of wetland reclamation worked almost continuously for 7,000, and possibly for 10,000 years. It contains well-preserved archaeological remains demonstrating the technological leap which transformed plant exploitation to agriculture around 6,500 years ago. It is an excellent example of transformation of agricultural practices over time, from cultivation mounds to draining the wetlands through the digging of ditches with wooden tools. Kuk is one of the few places in the world where archaeological evidence suggests independent agricultural development and changes in agricultural practice over such a long period of time.“ (UNESCO World Heritage Centre #887)
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. 🌏
