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. Our 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 420), so this week’s state is:
πΊπΈ Kansas State Bird and FlowerKANSAS (the 34th state, 29 January 1861) β The Sunflower State. Capital: Topeka. Kansas can be found on page 571 in your almanac and on plates 39 and 142 in your atlas. Name origin: “Sioux word for βsouth wind peopleβ” (almanac page 422). State bird: Western Meadowlark (bird guide page 530). Website:portal.kansas.gov.
β‘β Little lessons: You can teach a hundred little lessons with our 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 wealth of new geographical and historical information, as well as a host of valuable reading and research skills. π
We go through the countries of the world in alphabetical order, so this week’s countries, with their official websites, are:
π΅π°β PAKISTAN in southern Asia. Population: 210,797,836. Capital: Islamabad. Government: Federal parliamentary republic. Website:www.pakistan.gov.pk (in English).
π΅πΌβ PALAU in the western Pacific Ocean. Population: 21,600. Capital: Ngerulmud. Government: “Presidential republic in free association with U.S.” (almanac page 822). Website:www.palaugov.pw (in English).
π΅π¦β PANAMA in Central America. Population: 3,847,647. Capital: Panama City. Government: Presidential republic. Website:www.presidencia.gob.pa (in Spanish).
π΅π¬β PAPUA NEW GUINEA in the southwestern Pacific Ocean. Population: 7,143,996. Capital: Port Moresby. Government: Parliamentary democracy under constitutional monarchy. Website:www.pm.gov.pg (in English).
These all appear in your current almanac, atlas, and history encyclopedia as well (riverhouses.org/books). The almanac, for example, has profiles of the nations of the world on pages 745β852; 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 489β599; 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) have you been making in your homeschool this Leo Term? π
β‘β 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. π
β‘β Come, here’s the map: Teaching your students to be fluent with high-quality maps β not just basically competent, but fluent β 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 (riverhouses.org/books) 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 will guide you in your voyages of discovery. πΊ
β‘β 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. βοΈ π π π³ π π
We wrote last month about Comet ATLAS C2019/Y4, a new comet discovered at the very end of December that had the potential to put on a great show over the next few weeks:
Some astronomers conjectured that ATLAS might even become a “Great Comet,” easily visible to the naked eye for many days. But now, alas, it appears that Comet ATLAS is breaking up.
Apparent fragmentation of Comet ATLAS C2019/Y4 as of 12 April 2020. (Image: Milen Minev, Velimir Popov, and Emil Ivanov via apod.nasa.gov.)
NASA’s APOD astronomers explain what we’re seeing in the image above:
“Cruising through the inner solar system, Comet ATLAS C2019/Y4 has apparently fragmented. Multiple separate condensations within its diffuse coma are visible in this telescopic close-up from April 12, composed of frames tracking the comet’s motion against trailing background stars. Discovered at the end of December 2019, this comet ATLAS showed a remarkably rapid increase in brightness in late March. Northern hemisphere comet watchers held out hope that it would become a bright naked-eye comet as it came closer to Earth in late April and May. But fragmenting ATLAS is slowly fading in northern skies. The breakup of comets is not uncommon though. This comet ATLAS is in an orbit similar to the Great Comet of 1844 (C/1844 Y1) and both may be fragments of a single larger comet.“ (apod.nasa.gov)
So it looks like this “Great Comet of 2020” may fail us. But don’t despair. The solar system is a big place, and there are many more comets to discover β perhaps your young astronomers will one day be among their discoverers.
What other celestial sights and astronomical apparitions have you been examining in your homeschool this Leo Term?Β π
Every Friday we invite you and your homeschool students to learn about a different group of North American birds in your recommended bird guide (riverhouses.org/books). 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 (three different families) are the Nuthatches (pages 388β389), the Creepers (pages 390β391), and the Wrens (pages 390β395).
[See attached blog post for images and video]
If you’re teaching younger children, the way to use these posts is just to treat your bird guide as aΒ picture book and spend aΒ 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 dense information, the kind of book they will encounter in many different fields of study. Here are the bird guide’s introductions to this week’s groups, written in the customary telegraphic style:
“NUTHATCHES β Family Sittidae. These short-tailed acrobats climb up, down, and around tree trunks and branches. Species: 28 World, 4 N.A. [North America]“
“CREEPERS β Family Certhiidae. With slightly decurved bills, these little tree-climbers dig insects and larvae from bark. Stiff tail feathers serve as props. Species: 9 World, 1 N.A.“
“WRENS β Family Troglodytidae. Found throughout most of North America, wrens are chunky birds with slender, slightly decurved bills. Tails are often uptilted. Loud song and vigorous territorial defense belie the small size of most species. Species: 82 World, 11 N.A.“
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 aΒ new group β about the Wrens, for example. How many species? (82 worldwide.) Are there any near us? (11 species in North America, and the individual maps will give us more detail.) What are their distinctive features? (Small, chunky, loud voice, and so on.) (And “decurved” is a lovely word, isn’t it β be sure to send someone to your homeschool dictionary to look that one up. And what might be the opposite of “decurved”? Why, “recurved” of course!)Β π
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, for the Wren family, why not investigate the friendly and familiar House Wren (page 392), a noisy little bird found across most of North America.
[See attached blog post for images and video]
All sorts of biological information is packed into the brief species descriptions in your bird guide β can your students tease it out? How big is the House Wren? (just 4ΒΎ inches long.) What is its scientific name? (Troglodytes aedon.) 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.)
House Wrens are small and brown with a cocked tail (like most wrens, as the family description above suggests), and they can be found in open country, farmlands, and quiet suburban backyards. (They generally avoid denser urban environments.) They are hole nesters and will readily take advantage of artificial nest boxes when they are available. And for tiny birds, they are quite loud, producing a long bubbling song that can be heard from quite a distance.
[See attached blog post for images and video]
In the Nuthatch family this week, why not look at the Red-breasted Nuthatch (page 388), another species found across all of North America. Nuthatches are tree-trunk specialists, and they spend all day climbing up and down trees foraging for insects.
[See attached blog post for images and video]
Or in the Creeper family, take a look at the Brown Creeper (page 390), another transcontinental tree-trunk specialist with a thin decurved bill.
[See attached blog post for images and video]
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 have you been making in your homeschool this Leo Term? π
β‘β 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, 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.Β π¦
β‘β Vade mecum: The front matter in your bird guide (riverhouses.org/books) (pages 6β13) explains a littleΒ bit about basic bird biology and about some of the technical terminology used throughout the book β why not have your students study it asΒ a special project. Have them note particularly the diagrams showing the parts ofΒ a bird (pages 10β11) so they’ll be able to tell primaries from secondaries and flanks from lores. π¦
β‘β Words for birds: You may not think of your homeschool dictionary (riverhouses.org/books) asΒ a nature reference, but aΒ 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.Β π
β‘β 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 (riverhouses.org/books) includes an excellent world atlas that will help your students appreciate many aspects of biogeography, the science of the geographical distribution of living things.Β π
β‘β State birds: Two species included in this week’s families are United States state birds: the Cactus Wren (Campylorhynchus brunneicapillus), the state bird of Arizona, and the Carolina Wren (Thryothorus ludovicianus), the state bird of South Carolina. πΊπΈ
This is a special American Revolution week in the River Houses, and that means we have an extra homeschool poem-of-the-week! Yesterday we read Ralph Waldo Emerson’s “Concord Hymn,” and today we have Henry Wadsworth Longfellow’s “Paul Revere’s Ride.” These have been two of the most popular American poems for generations, and every smart homeschooler should know them.
“Paul Revere’s Ride” is about this Saturday night, the night before the 19th of April. Here’s one of many fine dramatic readings available online for you to enjoy:
And here is the text with its galloping gait, addressed directly to your students β listen, my children, and you shall hear:
Paul Revere’s Ride π
Listen, my children, and you shall hear
Of the midnight ride of Paul Revere,
On the eighteenth of April, in Seventy-five;
Hardly a man is now alive
Who remembers that famous day and year.
He said to his friend, “If the British march
By land or sea from the town to-night,
Hang a lantern aloft in the belfry arch
Of the North Church tower as a signal light, β
One, if by land, and two, if by sea;
And I on the opposite shore will be,
Ready to ride and spread the alarm
Through every Middlesex village and farm,
For the country folk to be up and to arm.”
Then he said, “Good night!” and with muffled oar
Silently rowed to the Charlestown shore,
Just as the moon rose over the bay,
Where swinging wide at her moorings lay
The Somerset, British man-of-war;
A phantom ship, with each mast and spar
Across the moon like a prison bar,
And a huge black hulk, that was magnified
By its own reflection in the tide.
Meanwhile, his friend, through alley and street,
Wanders and watches with eager ears,
Till in the silence around him he hears
The muster of men at the barrack door,
The sound of arms, and the tramp of feet,
And the measured tread of the grenadiers,
Marching down to their boats on the shore.
Then he climbed the tower of the Old North Church,
By the wooden stairs, with stealthy tread,
To the belfry-chamber overhead,
And startled the pigeons from their perch
On the sombre rafters, that round him made
Masses and moving shapes of shade, β
By the trembling ladder, steep and tall,
To the highest window in the wall,
Where he paused to listen and look down
A moment on the roofs of the town,
And the moonlight flowing over all.
Beneath, in the churchyard, lay the dead,
In their night-encampment on the hill,
Wrapped in silence so deep and still
That he could hear, like a sentinel’s tread,
The watchful night-wind, as it went
Creeping along from tent to tent,
And seeming to whisper, “All is well!”
A moment only he feels the spell
Of the place and the hour, and the secret dread
Of the lonely belfry and the dead;
For suddenly all his thoughts are bent
On a shadowy something far away,
Where the river widens to meet the bay, β
A line of black that bends and floats
On the rising tide, like a bridge of boats.
Meanwhile, impatient to mount and ride,
Booted and spurred, with a heavy stride
On the opposite shore walked Paul Revere.
Now he patted his horse’s side,
Now gazed at the landscape far and near,
Then, impetuous, stamped the earth,
And turned and tightened his saddle girth;
But mostly he watched with eager search
The belfry-tower of the Old North Church,
As it rose above the graves on the hill,
Lonely and spectral and sombre and still.
And lo! as he looks, on the belfry’s height
A glimmer, and then a gleam of light!
He springs to the saddle, the bridle he turns,
But lingers and gazes, till full on his sight
A second lamp in the belfry burns!
A hurry of hoofs in a village street,
A shape in the moonlight, a bulk in the dark,
And beneath, from the pebbles, in passing, a spark
Struck out by a steed flying fearless and fleet:
That was all! And yet, through the gloom and the light,
The fate of a nation was riding that night;
And the spark struck out by that steed, in his flight,
Kindled the land into flame with its heat.
He has left the village and mounted the steep,
And beneath him, tranquil and broad and deep,
Is the Mystic, meeting the ocean tides;
And under the alders, that skirt its edge,
Now soft on the sand, now loud on the ledge,
Is heard the tramp of his steed as he rides.
It was twelve by the village clock,
When he crossed the bridge into Medford town.
He heard the crowing of the cock,
And the barking of the farmer’s dog,
And felt the damp of the river fog,
That rises after the sun goes down.
It was one by the village clock,
When he galloped into Lexington.
He saw the gilded weathercock
Swim in the moonlight as he passed,
And the meeting-house windows, blank and bare,
Gaze at him with a spectral glare,
As if they already stood aghast
At the bloody work they would look upon.
It was two by the village clock,
When he came to the bridge in Concord town.
He heard the bleating of the flock,
And the twitter of birds among the trees,
And felt the breath of the morning breeze
Blowing over the meadows brown.
And one was safe and asleep in his bed
Who at the bridge would be first to fall,
Who that day would be lying dead,
Pierced by a British musket-ball.
You know the rest. In the books you have read,
How the British Regulars fired and fled, β
How the farmers gave them ball for ball,
From behind each fence and farm-yard wall,
Chasing the red-coats down the lane,
Then crossing the fields to emerge again Under the trees at the turn of the road,
And only pausing to fire and load.
So through the night rode Paul Revere;
And so through the night went his cry of alarm
To every Middlesex village and farm, β
A cry of defiance and not of fear,
A voice in the darkness, a knock at the door,
And a word that shall echo forevermore!
For, borne on the night-wind of the Past,
Through all our history, to the last,
In the hour of darkness and peril and need,
The people will waken and listen to hear
The hurrying hoof-beats of that steed,
And the midnight message of Paul Revere.
Longfellow had a wonderful sense of the dramatic, and it’s easy to see why this poem has been so popular for more than 150 years. It’s geographically very specific, and all the places named are real places. Paul Revere was in fact one of a whole network of “alarm riders” that night who carried word of the British march out of Boston β he was the most prominent figure and quite suitable as a literary central subject, but he was not alone.
Paul Revere (on horseback, naturally) in the North End of Boston near the Old North Church. (Image: Wikimedia Commons.)
The poem takes liberties with the details in the sequence of events β it’s an imaginative work of literature, not an academic history. In particular, Revere himself didn’t make it all the way to Concord that night, although other riders did. But if Longfellow’s dramatic telling inspires people to learn more of the historical facts, then it has served its purpose well.
Longfellow bicentennial stamp (2007) with scenes from “Paul Revere’s Ride” in the background, including the Somerset, the lanterns in the North Church tower, and the night rider passing village and farm.
Many of the places mentioned in “Paul Revere’s Ride” are included within the Boston National Historical Park and the Minute Man National Historical Park, two units of the National Park System that you can visit some day on your homeschool travels. And if your students would like to learn more about Paul Revere himself, invite them to explore the Paul Revere House, another popular historical site and museum.
Be sure to share “Paul Revere’s Ride” this April with your students β you’ll be glad you did!
What wonderful words and poetical productions have you been studying in your homeschool this Leo Term? π
β‘β Listen, my children, and you shall hear: 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 β that’s all it takes to begin a new poetical friendship and learn a few lovely words that will stay with you for life. π
β‘β Literary lives: The website of the Poetry Foundation includes biographical notes and examples of the work of many important poets (including Longfellow) that are suitable for high school students and homeschool teachers. π
The American Revolution began on the 19th of April in 1775 when local militiamen in the towns of Lexington and Concord, Massachusetts, first offered forcible resistance to a British attempt to seize colonial stores of arms and ammunition. By the end of that day, 49 Americans and 73 British soldiers had been killed and a war had begun.
“By the rude bridge that arched the flood.” The North Bridge and the Concord River in 2017. (Image: RJO.)
In your homeschool this week, why not memorize the four-line opening stanza of Ralph Waldo Emersonβs famous βConcord Hymn,β one of our homeschool poems-of-the-week for this third week of April. It was written for the town of Concordβs Independence Day celebration in 1837 when the first battle monument was dedicated at Concordβs North Bridge. It describes quite precisely the geographical setting of that day:
Concord Hymn
By the rude bridge that arched the flood,
Β Β Β Β Their flag to April’s breeze unfurled,
Here once the embattled farmers stood,
Β Β Β Β And fired the shot heard round the world.
The foe long since in silence slept;
Β Β Β Β Alike the conqueror silent sleeps;
And Time the ruined bridge has swept
Β Β Β Β Down the dark stream which seaward creeps.
On this green bank, by this soft stream,
Β Β Β Β We set to-day a votive stone,
That memory may their deed redeem,
Β Β Β Β When, like our sires, our sons are gone.
Spirit, that made those heroes dare
Β Β Β Β To die, and leave their children free,
Bid Time and Nature gently spare
Β Β Β Β The shaft we raise to them and Thee.
When your students first approach a new poem or begin to look more carefully at an old and familiar poem, encourage them to examine structure as well as meaning. If you count the syllables in “Concord Hymn,” you’ll find that it is indeed written in one of the standard hymn meters: “long meter” or “eights-and-eights.” Each line has exactly eight syllables, and the rhyme scheme follows a simple ABAB pattern, which makes the poem easy to recite and remember. And although we generally read it today, at its debut in 1837 it was sung. Why not invite your students to learn it by singing along, just as the people of Concord did more than 180 years ago:
β’
Emerson’s “Concord Hymn” is one of the most famous of all American history poems, and it has been studied in schools and beloved by Americans of all ages for generations. Be sure to make it part of your homeschool students’ store of literary knowledge.
“Concord Hymn” on the LexingtonβConcord Sesquicentennial commemorative stamp, 1925.
What wonderful words and poetical productions are you studying in your homeschool this Leo Term? π¦
β‘β The shot heard round the world: 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 β that’s all it takes to begin a new poetical friendship and learn a few lovely words that will stay with you for life. π
β‘β Literary lives: The website of the Poetry Foundation includes biographical notes and examples of the work of many important poets (including Ralph Waldo Emerson) that are suitable for high school students and homeschool teachers. π
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 online at the UNESCO World Heritage Centre and in Wikipedia.
What world treasures have you been exploring in your homeschool this Leo Term? π¦
β‘β Books in the running brooks: You can always turn to your 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 745β852; 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 489β599; 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. π³πͺ
This is one of our homeschool history weeks in the River Houses, the week of the Nineteenth of April, the day the American Revolution began in 1775.
If you’d like to teach some Revolutionary history in your little home academy this week β without having to venture out from your temporary quarantine β here’s a carefully prepared collection of original documents, lesson plans, and open-ended discussion questions assembled by history teacher James Walsh of Kentucky, all ready to go for you and your students:
The United States declared its independence in 1776, but to understand independence, students need to understand the events that led up to it. That’s what this collection of primary sources and discussion questions will help them do.
“After the conclusion of the French and Indian War in 1763, relations between the American colonists and the British Crown and Parliament quickly deteriorated. By 1776, many of the colonists, and representatives of all 13 colonies, were ready to declare their independence and take up arms. This set of sources focuses on a selection of events, legislation, and perspectives from both sides during this time period. The documents, images, and artifacts help the student-historian understand the process of going from loyal subjects of the British Crown to rebels willing to risk their lives. Through this inquiry, together with other knowledge, the student should be able to understand the background of Americaβs Revolution and some of the factors leading to all revolutions.“ (Road to Revolution)
The primary sources available for study include engravings and illustrations, private letters, official documents, and even a politically contentious colonial teapot. βοΈ
What other historical events have you been studying in your homeschool this Leo Term? π¦
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 (and planners!) for the entire year.
This is a special week that we mark each year in the River Houses: the week of the Nineteenth of April, the day the American Revolution began in 1775.
πΊπΈ OUR STATE-OF-THE-WEEK is Oregon, and our COUNTRIES are Niger π³πͺ, Nigeria π³π¬, Norway π³π΄, and Oman π΄π². (Our separate Sunday States & Countries post for the week went up just a few minutes ago.)
π TODAY, Sunday (12 April 2020) β Today is the 103rd day of 2020; there are 263 days remaining in this leap year. Learn more about different kinds of modern and historical calendars on pages 350β356 in your River Houses almanac (riverhouses.org/books). π On this day in 1861, Confederate artillery opened fire on Union-held Fort Sumter in the harbor of Charleston, South Carolina, touching off the American Civil War. (For a quick review of the Civil War, turn to page 314 in your River Houses history encyclopedia.) βοΈ And on this day in 1961, Soviet cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin (1934β1968) became the first human being ever to orbit the earth. (You can find him also in your history encyclopedia, on page 578.) π¨βπ
Monday (13 April 2020) β Today is the birthday of Thomas Jefferson (1743β1826), the principal author of the Declaration of Independence and the third President of the United States. πΊπΈ And the Jefferson Memorial in Washington, D.C., was dedicated on this day in 1943 by President Franklin Roosevelt, on the 200th anniversary of Jefferson’s birth. π
Tuesday (14 April 2020) β Today is the birthday of the great cartographer Abraham Ortelius (1527β1598), who produced history’s first atlas of the world. π And on this day in 1986, more than 90 people were killed when the heaviest hailstones ever recorded (more than two pounds each) fell on the Gopalganj district of Bangladesh. β
Thursday (16 April 2020) β On this day in the year 73, the Jewish fortress of Masada fell to the Roman army after several months of siege. β‘οΈ And on this day in 1963, Martin Luther King Jr. wrote his famous “Letter from Birmingham Jail” after being arrested for protesting segregation in Alabama. π
Saturday (18 April 2020) β On the evening of this day in 1775, Paul Revere and a network of alarm riders fanned out from Boston to warn the surrounding countryside that British troops were marching overnight to seize the colonistsβ stores of arms and ammunition in the nearby town of Concord. Join us today for a special reading of Henry Wadsworth Longfellowβs famous American poem “Paul Revereβs Ride.” π And on this day in 1906, aΒ major earthquake and fire destroyed much of San Francisco, California. π₯
Sunday (19 April 2020) β The American Revolution began on this day in 1775 when British troops fired on the local militia on Lexington Green and then advanced to Concord where they met with growing resistance and were driven back to Boston. By the end of the day, 49 Americans and 73 British soldiers had been killed. πΊπΈβοΈπ¬π§
π₯ OUR WEEKLY TOAST: “To Concord and Lexington and all the little towns of America.”
β‘β Toasts can be a fun educational tradition for your family table. We offer one each week β 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!”). What will you toast this week? π₯
π πΊπΈ EVERYTHING FLOWS: Ordinarily we post a Weekly World River from one of our countries-of-the-week, but we make one exception each year: in honor of the Nineteenth of April, this weekβs World River is always the quiet Concord River, just west of Boston, which has figured prominently in the American imagination for more than 200 years. You can read more about it in the comprehensive Concord River entry in Wikipedia or on your next visit to your local library.
The Concord River at the North Bridge, just west of Boston, Massachusetts. “Here once the embattled farmers stood / AndΒ fired the shot heard round the world.” (Image: RJO, with assistance from Horace the Otter.)
β‘β 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 691β693), 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. π
AND DON’T FORGET: Friday the 13th comes on a Monday this month! π
What do you have planned for your homeschool this week? π
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. Our 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 420), so this week’s state is:
πΊπΈ Oregon State Bird and FlowerOREGON (the 33rd state, 14 February 1859) β The Beaver State. Capital: Salem. Oregon can be found on page 583 in your almanac and on plates 36 and 142 in your atlas. Name origin: “Origin unknown. One theory is that the name derives from wauregan, meaning ‘beautiful,’ term used by Indians in New England” (almanac page 422). State bird: Western Meadowlark (bird guide page 530). Website:oregon.gov.
β‘β Little lessons: You can teach a hundred little lessons with our 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 wealth of new geographical and historical information, as well as a host of valuable reading and research skills. π
We go through the countries of the world in alphabetical order, so this week’s countries, with their official websites, are:
π³πͺβ NIGER in north-central Africa. Population: 20,501,509. Capital: Niamey. Government: Semi-presidential republic. Website:www.presidence.ne (in French).
π³π¬β NIGERIA in western Africa. Population: 208,679,114. Capital: Abuja. Government: Federal presidential republic. Website:nigeria.gov.ng (in English).
π³π΄β NORWAY in northwestern Europe. Population: 5,421,399. Capital: Oslo. Government: Parliamentary constitutional monarchy. Website:www.regjeringen.no (in Norwegian and English).
π΄π²β OMAN in the Middle East. Population: 3,564,276. Capital: Muscat. Government: Absolute monarchy. Website:www.oman.om (in Arabic and English).
These all appear in your current almanac, atlas, and history encyclopedia as well (riverhouses.org/books). The almanac, for example, has profiles of the nations of the world on pages 745β852; 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 489β599; 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) have you been making in your homeschool this Leo Term? π
β‘β 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. π
β‘β Come, here’s the map: Teaching your students to be fluent with high-quality maps β not just basically competent, but fluent β 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 (riverhouses.org/books) 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 will guide you in your voyages of discovery. πΊ
β‘β 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. βοΈ π π π³ π π
April is the middle month of Leo Term in the River Houses, and as our monthly star calendar will tell you, April’s Great Star is Regulus, the brightest star in constellation Leo the Heavenly Lion. Its formal designation is Ξ±Β Leonis β “alpha of Leo.” Leo and Regulus are high in the southern sky in the early evening this month, passing over to the west as the night goes on.
The constellation Leo, showing the position of its alpha star, Regulus, the “Little King” that is the heart of the lion. The dashed red line is the ecliptic, the path that the sun, moon, and planets follow across the sky. (Image: Wikimedia Commons.)
If you want to introduce your students to Regulus and Leo you can start with some basic astronomy and astronomical mythology from your backyard star guide (riverhouses.org/books):
“Leo is a large and easily recognized constellation that sits in a rather empty portion of the sky, just beyond Ursa Major and between its fellow zodiacal constellations Cancer and Virgo. A sickle-shaped asterism represents the lion’s head, mane, and chest. Shaped like a backward question mark, the period of this giant piece of celestial punctuation is marked by the brilliant star Regulus, while the stars trailing to the east mark Leo’s hindquarters. This is one of the easier constellations to construct mentally, as it resembles the classic image of the Sphinx.
“The beacon-like, blue-white light of Regulus has long made it easy to see. Observation records of it date back to Babylonian tablets from around 2100 B.C. The sphinx, an icon of ancient Egyptian civilization, may have been modeled after this celestial beast. Better known in antiquity as Cor Leonis, the Lion’s Heart, its current name is actually taken from a Latin word meaning “little king,” and it is often known as the Royal star…. Regulus lies 79 light-years away, shining some 160 times brighter than our own sun and with a diameter five times larger. Binoculars and small telescopes show a very dim companion star. The fainter star’s real distance from Regulus is about 100 times the distance tiny Pluto orbits from our sun.“ (National Geographic Backyard Guide to the Night Sky, page 200)
That’s plenty for beginning students β your little lesson is done. If you want to get more advanced, the Wikipedia page on Regulus is packed with additional information on everything from astrometry to cultural history.
Regulus A (the primary star of the system) and its Regulus B-C neighbors (actually two stars, but appearing single here). (Image: Wikimedia Commons.)
The Regulus we see with the naked eye is blue-white, but that Regulus is actually just the primary star (RegulusΒ A) of a quadruple system that is arranged into two pairs: Regulus A and a suspected white dwarf that is detectable only spectroscopically, and Regulus B and C (aΒ pair that is visible as a single star in binoculars and small telescopes). The B-C pair orbit each other, and together they orbit the primary star Regulus A and its own tiny companion.
The constellation Leo the Lion (and Leo Minor), in an imaginative illustration from Urania’s Mirror (1824), showing its alpha star Regulus as “Cor Leonis,” the Heart of the Lion. (Image: Wikimedia Commons.)
The primary star in the Regulus system, Regulus A, is spinning so fast that it bulges out at the equator: it takes only 16 hours to complete one rotation, in contrast to about 25 days for the sun. The four-star Regulus system is estimated to be about one billion years old β quite old, but less than a quarter of the age of our own solar system. If you’d like to give Regulus an in-person inspection just bring your earth-based spaceship up to the speed of light and you’ll be able to get there in only 79 years. π
Sometime this month, take your homeschool students out at dusk and introduce them to this nearby system of stars, and teach them its name, and so give them a new friend for life.
What stellar observations have you been making in your homeschool this Leo (!) Term? π¦
β‘β Alpha and beta and gamma, oh my: Most of the principal stars within each constellation have both old vernacular names β Vega, Sirius, Arcturus, and so on β as well as more formal scientific designations. The German astronomer Johann Bayer (1572β1625) 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: Ξ±β (alpha, brightest), Ξ²β (beta, second brightest), Ξ³β (gamma, third brightest), Ξ΄β (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 Ξ±β Lyrae (“alpha of Lyra”), the brightest star in Canis Major (the star Sirius) becomes Ξ±β 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 Οβ (sigma) star of Orion to be? Not very bright β it’s far down the alphabet β but Οβ Orionis happens to mark the top of Orion’s sword, so even though it’s not very bright it’s still notable and easy to locate on a dark night. β¨
β‘β Star bright: The brightness of a star as we see it in our night sky is its magnitude β or more properly, its apparent magnitude. The scale of star magnitudes was developed long before modern measuring instruments were invented, so it can be a little bit confusing for beginners. Originally, the brightest stars in the sky were called “first magnitude” and the less-bright stars “second magnitude,” “third magnitude,” and so on, down to the dimmest stars visible to the naked eye, which were called “sixth magnitude.” In the nineteenth century the star Vega (our August star) was chosen as the standard brightness reference and its value on the magnitude scale was defined to be zero (0.0). Five steps in magnitude (from 0.0 to 5.0 or from 1.0 to 6.0) was defined to be a change in brightness of 100 times: a star 100 times dimmer than Vega (0.0) was defined to be a magnitude 5.0 star. Vega is not quite the brightest star is the sky, however, so the scale also had to be extended into negative numbers: Sirius (our March star), for example, is magnitude β1.5, about three times brighter than Vega (at 0.0). The planet Venus at its brightest is about magnitude β4.2; the full moon is about magnitude β12.9; the sun is magnitude β26.7. By contrast, the dimmest stars visible to the naked eye in a populated, light-polluted area are about magnitude 3.0; the dimmest stars visible under very dark conditions are about magnitude 6.5. The Hubble Space Telescope in orbit around the earth has photographed distant stars and galaxies below magnitude 30, the dimmest celestial objects humans have seen so far. π
β‘β And all dishevelled wandering stars: How far away are the stars? Do they all occupy a single celestial “dome” that rotates through the heavens (as some ancient and medieval astronomers believed), or are they scattered through space at different individual distances? Astronomers had long suspected that the fixed stars existed at different distances from us, but early attempts to measure those distances failed. It was not until the early 1800s that instruments and measuring techniques became precise enough to allow the first stellar distances to be calculated using the technique of parallax. Parallax is the displacement in the apparent position of an object with respect to the background when an observer moves from side to side. It’s an ordinary phenomenon you experience every day β it’s how we judge distances as we move through the landscape. Stellar parallaxes are extremely small β fractions of an arc-second (one 3600th of a degree) β and they are calculated by measuring a star’s position against the background at opposite sides of the earth’s orbit, six months apart. (That’s the astronomical equivalent of taking one step to the side.) Vega, our August star, was one of the first stars to have its parallax measured; modern estimates put it at about 0.13 arc-seconds. Apply some trigonometry, and that yields a distance of about 25 light-years. π
β‘β Watchers of the skies: Teaching your students to recognize the constellations is one of the simplest and most enduring gifts you can give them. We recommend the handy Backyard Guide to the Night Sky (riverhouses.org/books) as a general family reference β it will help you identify all the northern hemisphere constellations and will point out many highlights, including the names and characteristics of the brightest stars. Your recommended world atlas also has beautiful maps of the whole northern and southern hemisphere night skies on plates 121β122. Why not find a dark-sky spot near you this month and spend some quality homeschool time beneath the starry vault. π
β‘β First star I see tonight: This is one of our regular Homeschool Astronomy posts featuring twelve of the most notable 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 β and make each one of them a homeschool friend for life. π
First time visitor? We post a wide range of easy-to-use educational ideas and “little lessons” that will enrich your homeschooling schedule all through the year. Please add your name to our free mailing list! (Just one message a week, and no spam.) π
Every Friday we invite you and your homeschool students to learn about a different group of North American birds in your recommended bird guide (riverhouses.org/books). 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 (three different families) are the Chickadees and Titmice (pages 382β387), the Penduline Tits and Verdins (pages 386β387), and the Long-tailed Tits and Bushtits (pages 386β387).
[See attached blog post for images and video]
If you’re teaching younger children, the way to use these posts is just to treat your bird guide as aΒ picture book and spend aΒ 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 dense information, the kind of book they will encounter in many different fields of study. Here are the bird guide’s introductions to this week’s groups, written in the customary telegraphic style:
“CHICKADEESΒ Β· TITMICE β Family Paridae. Small, hardy birds with short wings. Active and agile, they often hang upside down to feed. The are among the most familiar visitors to feeders. Species: 59 World, 12 N.A. [North America]“
“PENDULINE TITSΒ Β· VERDINS β Family Remizidae. These small, spritely birds with finely pointed bills inhabit arid scrub country, feed in brush chickadee-style, and build spherical nests. Species: 10 World, 1 N.A.“
“LONG-TAILED TITSΒ Β· BUSHTITS β Family Aegithalidae. Tiny and long-tailed. Except when breeding, feed in large, twittering flocks. Build an elaborate hanging nest. Species: 10 World, 1 N.A.“
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 aΒ new group β about the Chickadees and Titmice, for example. How many species? (59 worldwide.) Are there any near us? (12 species in North America, and the individual maps will give us more detail.) What are their distinctive features? (Small, agile, short-winged, often hang upside down, and so on.)
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, for the Chickadee family, why not investigate the Black-capped Chickadee (page 384), a familiar and friendly backyard bird found across most of northern North America.
[See attached blog post for images and video]
All sorts of biological information is packed into the brief species descriptions in your bird guide β can your students tease it out? How big is the Black-capped Chickadee? (5ΒΌ inches long.) What is its scientific name? (Poecile atricapillus.) 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.)
As the family description indicates, Chickadees readily come to bird feeders and many people known them as backyard birds. Black-capped Chickadees typically nest in holes that they excavate in dead trees β they don’t have the drilling power of woodpeckers, so they usually select a well-rotted tree that can be easily picked apart. And of course they get their name from their familiar chick-a-dee-dee-dee-dee call:
[See attached blog post for images and video]
If you live in the southern or southwestern United States, out of the Black-cap’s range, take a look at the Carolina Chickadee and the Mountain Chickadee (page 384), two similar species with ranges that extend farther to the south.
You can do little ten-minute lessons of this kind with any of the species in your bird guide that catch your interest. Pick a species that is near you, or one that looks striking, or one that has a strange name, and explore. For example, in one of this week’s other families, the Penduline Tits and Verdins, take a look at the Verdin (page 386), a tiny yellow-headed bird of the southwest.
[See attached blog post for images and video]
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 have you been making in your homeschool this Leo Term? π
β‘β 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, 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.Β π¦
β‘β Vade mecum: The front matter in your bird guide (riverhouses.org/books) (pages 6β13) explains a littleΒ bit about basic bird biology and about some of the technical terminology used throughout the book β why not have your students study it asΒ a special project. Have them note particularly the diagrams showing the parts ofΒ a bird (pages 10β11) so they’ll be able to tell primaries from secondaries and flanks from lores. π¦
β‘β Words for birds: You may not think of your homeschool dictionary (riverhouses.org/books) asΒ a nature reference, but aΒ 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.Β π
β‘β 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 (riverhouses.org/books) includes an excellent world atlas that will help your students appreciate many aspects of biogeography, the science of the geographical distribution of living things.Β π
β‘β State birds: One species included this week is a United States state bird twice over: the Black-capped Chickadee (Poecile atricapillus), featured above, the state bird of both Maine and Massachusetts. πΊπΈ
![[North Bridge, Concord]](https://riverhouses.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/rjohara-2017-09-04-052.jpg)
This is one of our homeschool history weeks in the River Houses, the week of the Nineteenth of April, the day the American Revolution began in 1775. 
