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:
πΊπΈ Pennsylvania State Bird and FlowerPENNSYLVANIA (the 2nd state, 12 December 1787) β The Keystone State. Capital: Harrisburg. Pennsylvania can be found on page 583 in your almanac and on plates 43 and 142 in your atlas. Name origin: “William Penn, Quaker, who was made full proprietor of area by King Charles II in 1681, suggested ‘Sylvania,’ or ‘woodland,’ for this tract. The king’s government owed 16,000 pounds to Penn’s father, Adm. William Penn, and the land was granted as partial settlement. Charles II added ‘Penn’ to ‘Sylvania,’ against the modest proprietor’s desires, in honor of the admiral” (almanac page 430). State bird: Ruffed Grouse (bird guide page 62). Website:www.pa.gov.
β‘β 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. π
This week’s countries, with their official websites, are:
π¦π΄ ANGOLA on the Atlantic coast of Africa. Population: 30,355,880. Capital: Luanda. Government: Presidential republic. Website:www.governo.gov.ao (in Portuguese and English).
π¦π¬ ANTIGUA AND BARBUDA in the West Indies. Population: 95,882. Capital: St. John’s. Government: Parliamentary democracy under constitutional monarchy. Website:www.ab.gov.ag (in English).
π¦π· ARGENTINA in South America. Population: 44,694,198. Capital: Buenos Aires. Government: Presidential republic. Website:www.argentina.gob.ar (in Spanish).
π¦π² ARMENIA in southwestern Asia. Population: 3,038,217. Capital: Yerevan. Government: Parliamentary democracy. Website:www.gov.am (in Armenian, English, and Russian). (Look at the beautiful Armenian script!) π
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 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 geographical discoveries have you made in your homeschool this week? 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 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
And here’s another September night-sky review, courtesy of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in California β it particularly features the monthly moon phases and the “solar conjunction” of Mars that you and your students can study this month:
One of the handiest things you and your students can do each month is print out your own copy of the current two-page Evening Sky Map and monthly sky calendar available from skymaps.com:
It includes a constellation chart for the month, as well as a schedule of upcoming astronomical events. (Monthly maps for the southern hemisphere and the equatorial regions are also available.)
The best stargazing nights in September will be toward the beginning and end of the month: the moon will be full (and the stars less visible) on the 14th. As always, you can look up the moon’s phases in your River Houses almanac (riverhouses.org/books) and also at the excellent timeanddate.com website.
September is the first month of Cygnus Term, the first of the four terms that make up the River Houses year. Our Great Star for the month of September is Deneb (alpha Cygni), which we’ll be writing about next week. Print your own River Houses Star Calendar (riverhouses.org/calendars) and follow along with us through the year as we learn about twelve of the high lights of the northern hemisphere night sky.
September is also the month of the autumnal (fall) equinox in the northern hemisphere β the astronomical beginning of fall β which “falls” this year on Monday the 23rd. (In the southern hemisphere the 23rd will be the vernal equinox β the astronomical beginning of spring.) On the day of the equinox we experience almost exactly twelve hours of light and twelve hours of darkness β “equal night and light.” ππ
What celestial observations will you and your students be making in your homeschool this month? 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. Your recommended backyard star guide and homeschool world atlas (riverhouses.org/books) both contain charts of the constellations that will show you the all the highlights. Find a dark-sky spot near you this month and spend some quality homeschool time beneath the starry vault. π π π
We’re going to be starting a new natural history feature today that we hope will run through the year: Friday Bird Families.
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.
Like our Sunday States & Countries posts, Friday Bird Families will be an opportunity for homeschool teachers to do a light and easy ten-minute lesson each week that can introduce their students to some new facts, vocabulary, and ideas, while at the same time providing a springboard for more in-depth study by anyone who wishes to learn more.
The plan is to go though our recommended homeschool bird guide and highlight one or two groups of American birds each week β names for your students to know and wildlife for them to watch for β and to mix these brief highlights with a few concepts and skills from biology, natural history, and general science that your students can learn and practice.
We’ve got a new printable (pdf) calendar available now with the Friday Bird Families schedule! Download it, print it, and add it to your family bulletin board today β you’ll find it on our main calendar page:
This recommended field guide isn’t a children’s book per se β it’s a standard reference book for the whole family. The front and back cover flaps are visual guides to all 87 families we’ll be looking at over the course of the year β from the Ducks, Geese, and Swans to the Blackbirds and Orioles, and everything in between β with a representative species or two shown for each. Browse through those pictures with your students and show them how to find the relevant pages for each family.
The guide’s helpful front matter includes important general explanations and diagrams β for example, of the parts of a bird. Don’t try to memorize that information β just know where it is so you and your students will be able to refer to it whenever a question arises. (“This description says the bird’s βloresβ are yellow. Where in the world are the βloresβ?”)
The main body of the guide contains the species descriptions and illustrations, with text on the left and matching illustrations on the right. These pages are dense with information. Pay particular attention to the range maps shown for each species and to the map-key on the book’s back flap that shows how to interpret the maps.
So here’s to a new project for our new River Houses year! What ornithological discoveries will you be making in your homeschool this term?Β π
β‘β Words for birds: You may not think of your homeschool dictionary (riverhouses.org/books) as a nature reference, but a good dictionary will define 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 look at in the dictionary is the information on word origins: understanding the roots of scientific terms makes it much easier to understand their meaning. 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 and comprehensive world atlas that will help your students to understand many aspects of biogeography β the science of the geographical distribution of living things. π
β‘β Rivers in the sky: How many birds are migrating this week? You can find out from the BirdCast website, sponsored by Cornell University, which offers daily bird migration forecasts in the spring and fall for the entire United States.Β π¦
The Wikimedia Commons Photo Challenge encourages people to take and submit high-quality images for the public Wikimedia Commons database β 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 selection of future themes and in the voting for the best entries each month.
Wild horses in Ε ar Mountains National Park, Kosovo. AΒ sample entry for the theme “Horses” 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 composition skills. And if you submit a number of entries over time you could build up a personal portfolio page to show off your work β that would be good experience in how to create a professional presentation of yourself for future employment or college admissions.
What photographic, artistic, and scientific discoveries have you made in your homeschool this week? π
β‘β Explore more: Your recommended world almanac (riverhouses.org/books) has a long list of famous artists on pages 185β188, 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 β it would be a great way to give your students a little extra photographic inspiration! πΈ
The Bamiyan Valley of Afghanistan. Note the large niche carved into the cliff face where the giant Buddha statue stood before its destruction by Taliban militants in 2001. (Image: Wikimedia Commons.)
The Bamiyan Valley in Afghanistan is home to a wide range of ancient Buddhist artworks and monastic structures carved directly into the valley cliffs:
“The cultural landscape and archaeological remains of the Bamiyan Valley represent the artistic and religious developments which from the 1st to the 13th centuries characterized ancient Bakhtria, integrating various cultural influences into the Gandhara school of Buddhist art. The area contains numerous Buddhist monastic ensembles and sanctuaries, as well as fortified edifices from the Islamic period. The site is also testimony to the tragic destruction by the Taliban of the two standing Buddha statues, which shook the world in March 2001.“ (UNESCO World Heritage Centre #208)
The most famous artworks in the Bamiyan Valley were two colossal Buddha statues, the larger one more than 150 feet tall, which stood in niches carved into the cliff face. They were sculpted in the sixth century, and both were destroyed as idolatrous and anti-Islamic by Taliban militants in March of 2001.
The larger of the two principal Buddha statues at Bamiyan, before (1963) and after (2008) its destruction by the Taliban in 2001. Note the human figures at the bottom of both images for scale. (Image: Wikimedia Commons.)
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 will you be exploring in your homeschool this week? 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 UNESCO’s one-paragraph 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. π¦π«
Every great institution should have a motto (or two). The United States has “EΒ Pluribus Unum” and “In God We Trust.” The Supreme Court has “Equal Justice Under Law.” The Boy Scouts have “Be Prepared.” McDonald’s has “I’m lovin’ it.”
The motto of the River Houses is Hoc erat in votis, which we translate freely as “ThisΒ was ever my wish.” The phrase comes from Book II of the Satires of the ancient Roman poet Horace, written about 30 B.C. “Satire” in the Horatian sense doesn’t carry the sharp connotation that it carries in modern English. Horace’s Satires are poems of daily life β modest, sometimes self-deprecating, never grandiloquent, mindful of human foibles and often amused by them.
The sixth satire in Horace’s Book II begins with a famous image of domestic contentment (just as we might wish for in a homeschool β aye, there’s the connection), and this little extract in its several renderings counts as our first homeschool poem-of-the-week for every new River Houses year:
Hoc erat in votis: modus agri non ita magnus,
hortus ubi et tecto vicinus iugis aquae fons
et paulum silvae super his foret.
“This is what I prayed for! β a piece of land not so very large, where there would be a garden, and near the house a spring of ever-flowing water, and up above these a little bit of woodland.“
“In the opening words,” the translator observes, “Horace gives utterance to a feeling of deep satisfaction as he contemplates the scene before him in the morning sunshine. His former prayer has been realized. Hence the past tense of erat.” This was ever my wish β and now here it all is before me.
Horace’s expression of contentment with domestic life has long been a favorite of country estate owners, and it has often been inscribed on the walls of rural villas.
Horace in the wild, inscribed on the wall of the Poggio Verde country villa in Lombardy, Italy. “Nil amplius oro.” (“Nothing more do I ask.”) (Image: ilpoggioverde.com.)
Here in the River Houses, we think these ancient lines from Horace capture something of the homeschool ideal as well, and that’s why we’ve drawn our motto from them. AΒ home with family and friends, a garden and a little stream β nothing more do we ask.
The verse translation that we especially like is this one from the English poet Jonathan Swift (1667β1745) β it reflects some of Horace’s light-heartedness:
Iβve often wished that I had clear,
For life, six hundred pounds a year,
A handsome house to lodge a friend,
A river at my gardenβs end,
A terrace walk, and half a rood
Of land, set out to plant a wood.
Starting from the Latin original and abbreviating Swift, we can produce this extended version of the River Houses motto: Hoc erat in votis β This was ever my wish: aΒ handsome house to lodge a friend, a river at my garden’s end.
Nothing more do we ask.
What wonderful words have you found and what literary discoveries have you made in your homeschool this week? π
β‘Β Explore more: The website of the Poetry Foundation includes biographical notes and examples of the work of many important poets (including Horace) that are suitable for high school students and homeschool teachers. π
β‘Β A river at my garden’s end: 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
Tuesday is our Homeschool Books & Libraries Day in the River Houses β we think teaching your students how to use the library independently is one of the best educational gifts you can give them. Most public libraries in the United States arrange their books according to the Dewey Decimal Classification, so teaching the basics of the “DDC” is one of the first things you’ll want to do.
If you start in September at the beginning of the River Houses year and run until July, you can “adopt” one of the major Dewey Decimal classes each month and cover the whole of knowledge (!) in a year. Our first Books & Libraries post each month invites you to do just that, and since this is the very first Books & Libraries post of the entire year, we’ll begin by inviting you to orient your students to the organization of your local library as a whole.
The Dewey Decimal system arranges books into “hundreds” according subject, and the major classes are:
By “hundreds” we mean the numbers running from 00 to 99 within each class: “theΒ 300s” (Social Sciences) means the numbers running from 300 to 399; “the 500s” (Science) means the numbers running from 500 to 599; and so on.
On your next library visit, take a few minutes with your students to find the 000s (“the zero-hundreds”), and then follow the maze of shelves around the library all the way through the 100s, the 200s, the 300s, and so on, to the 999s. You can make it a fun little adventure for your children, and a beginning-of-the-year tradition. Don’t try to memorize the classification or analyze it in detail β just follow the numbers from beginning to end and your little lesson is done.
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 youβre interested in, say, astronomy, youβll find it in the 520s 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 youβll 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: “500 … 505 … 510 … here it is, 520.”
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? π
β‘β 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); On Beyond Dewey (August). π
β‘β 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 β public and private, large and small β and the WorldCat catalog itself will help you locate the closest copy of almost any book in the world. π
National Fossil Day is coming on October 16th! The U.S. National Park Service sponsors National Fossil Day every year at this time, and this is in fact its 10th Anniversary!
“Join paleontologists, educators, and students in fossil-related events and activities across the country in parks, classrooms, and online during National Fossil Day. National Fossil Day is an annual celebration held to highlight the scientific and educational value of paleontology and the importance of preserving fossils for future generations.“ (National Park Service)
If you have a talented young artist in your homeschool, you should definitely look into the art contest that the Park Service sponsors for National Fossil Day. It’s open to all, with judging by age categories. The theme for this year’s contest is “Extinct Giants and Survivors of the Last Ice Age”:
The contest website has all the information you’ll need, and an entry form to fill out and send in with your submission. Entries must be received by October 4th, so you have just a month to plan, paint, package, and post.
What splendidly fossiliferous artistic creations will you be making in your homeschool this month? 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 for the entire year.
The 2019β2020 River Houses Year Begins. Let the river run!
β¦β This is the first week of CYGNUS TERM, our fall term in the River Houses (riverhouses.org/2019-cygnus).
πβ TODAY (Sunday, 1 September 2019) β Welcome to a New River Houses Year! π Today is the 244th day of 2019; there are 121 days remaining in the year. Learn more about different kinds of modern and historical calendars on pages 358β364 in your River Houses almanac (riverhouses.org/books). π For this first week of September, this first week of Cygnus Term, and this first week of the 2019β2020 River Houses year, our homeschool poem-of-the-week will be our traditional extract from Jonathan Swift’s adaptation of the Roman poet Horace (65β8 B.C.): “A handsome house to lodge a friend, / A river at my garden’s end.” π Print your own River Houses Poetry Calendar (riverhouses.org/calendars) and follow along with us throughout the 2019β2020 homeschool year as we visit forty-eight of our favorite literary friends. π
Monday (2 September 2019) β On this day in 1752, nearly two centuries after the countries of Continental Europe, Great Britain and her American colonies adopted the Gregorian Calendar: Wednesday, September 2nd, 1752, was followed by Thursday, September 14th, 1752. π
Tuesday (3 September 2019) β The American Revolution came to a formal end on this day in 1783 with the signing of the Treaty of Paris between Great Britain and the new United States of America. π¬π§ππΊπΈ And since this is the first Tuesday of the month and of the new school year, we’ll invite you today to join our annual library exploration of the whole of knowledge (really!) with an introduction to the Dewey Decimal Classification. π
Wednesday (4 September 2019) β On this day in the year 476, Emperor Romulus Augustulus was deposed by the provincial warlord Odoacer who declared himself King of Italy, bringing to an end the Western Roman Empire, which had lasted for nearly 500 years. π Today is also the birthday of the great Austrian composer Anton Bruckner (1824β1896). π΅
Thursday (5 September 2019) β In response to the Intolerable Acts, the First Continental Congress assembled on this day in Philadelphia in 1774. πΊπΈ On this day in 1836, Sam Houston was elected the first President of the Republic of Texas. π΅ (That’s π΅ what I get when I request an emoji for Texas.) π
Friday (6 September 2019) β On this day in 1522, the ship Victoria, the only survivor of the Magellan expedition, arrived back in Spain having completed history’s first circumnavigation of the world. π Today is also the birthday of the great English scientist John Dalton (1766β1844), one of the founders of modern chemistry. βοΈ
Saturday (7 September 2019) β Today is the birthday of Queen ElizabethΒ I of England (1533β1603), who gave her name to the Elizabethan Era. π And since this is the first Saturday of the month, we’ll post our regular monthly preview today of some of the astronomical events you and your students can watch for over the next few weeks. π
Sunday (8 September 2019) β Today is one of the most important anniversaries in world cultural history: on this day in 1966, the first episode of Star Trek, “The Man Trap,” was broadcast on NBC television. πππ
π₯β OUR TRADITIONAL TOAST for the first week of every River Houses year is this ancient offering, which we invite you to share around your family dinner table: “AΒ little health, aΒ little wealth, aΒ little house, and freedom.”
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₯
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
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. We go through the states in the traditional order of admission to the Union (almanac page 429), so this week’s state is:
πΊπΈ Delaware State Bird and FlowerDELAWARE (7 December 1787) β The First State. Capital: Dover. Delaware can be found on page 567 in your almanac and on plates 43 and 142 in your atlas. Name origin: “Named for Lord De La Warr, early governor of Virginia; first applied to river, then to Indian tribe (Lenni-Lenape)” (almanac page 430). State bird: Blue Hen Chicken. Website:delaware.gov.
β‘β 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. π
This week’s countries, with their official websites, are:
π¦π« AFGHANISTAN in southwestern Asia. Population: 34,940,837. Capital: Kabul. Government: Presidential Islamic republic. Website:president.gov.af/en (in English).
π¦π± ALBANIA in southeastern Europe. Population: 3,057,220. Capital: Tirana. Government: Parliamentary republic. Website:e-albania.al (in Albanian).
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 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 geographical discoveries have you made in your homeschool this week? 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 practice their critical reading and thinking skills. π
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
Happy September to all our readers and friends! Here are some things to look for in the homeschool month ahead.
September panel from Roman mosaic at El Djem, Tunisia, ca. A.D. 225. (Image: AdΒ Meskens / Wikimedia Commons.)September with 30 days is the first month of Cygnus Term, our fall term in the River Houses. Cygnus Term opens our school year and runs from from September through November. Visit our main calendar page (riverhouses.org/calendars) and print out some of our simple educational calendars β they’ll help you create a light and easy structure for your homeschool year. π
The month of September is so named because it was the seventh month (Latin septem, seven) of the ancient Roman calendar, which considered the spring equinox in March to be the beginning of the year. (That’s why next month is October, “Eighth,” followed by November, “Ninth,” and so on.) You can learn more about different kinds of modern and historical calendars on pages 358β364 in your River Houses almanac (riverhouses.org/books). π
September is the month of the autumnal equinox in the northern hemisphere β the astronomical beginning of autumn β which falls this year on Monday the 23rd. (In the southern hemisphere the 23rd will be the vernal equinox β the astronomical beginning of spring.) The autumnal and vernal equinoxes each year are the days of “equal night and light,” when the period of darkness and the period of daylight are very nearly the same. ππ
We’ll have homeschool poems this month from Horace (the Roman, not the otter), Robert Frost (for our common labor), Elizabeth Jennings (for approaching fall), and Emily Dickinson (for departing summer). Print your own River Houses Poetry Calendar and join us as we visit with forty-eight of our favorite friends over the course of the year. π
Our monthly Great Star for September is Deneb (alpha Cygni), which we’ll be writing about next week. Print your own River Houses Star Calendar and follow along as we visit twelve high lights of the northern hemisphere night sky and make them friends for life. π
Our Sunday states-of-the-week for September will be Delaware, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Georgia, and Connecticut (and our countries will run from Afghanistan to Bhutan). Print your own River Houses States & Countries Calendar and tour the whole world with us over the course of the year. πΊπΈ π
Our monthly Learning the Library post for September will introduce our annual tour of the Dewey Decimal system β follow along with us (on the first Tuesday of each month) and invite your students to explore the whole of knowledge (really!) over the course of the school year. π
Today marks the beginning of the River Houses year and the beginning of our Fall Term β Cygnus Term β which runs from September through November.
We put great stock in the educational value of the calendar in the River Houses. The calendar is the framework on which we human beings hang a great many of the facts we know about the world: historical events, natural phenomena, personal reminiscences, the seasons, blooming flowers, migrating birds, the sun and moon, the planets, the stars. A key part of every student’s intellectual development is the development of “calendar sense” β a sense of time and history.
Our annual River Houses calendar divides the homeschool year into four three-month terms (quarters) that roughly correspond to the seasons, and these terms are named after prominent seasonal constellations of the northern hemisphere:
β¦ Fall or Cygnus Term (SeptemberβNovember)
β¦ Winter or Orion Term (DecemberβFebruary)
β¦ Spring or Leo Term (MarchβMay)
β¦ Summer or Hercules Term (JuneβAugust)
This calendrical division is a new and open-ended idea that we’re developing for the River Houses, and we think has a great deal of educational potential. We’re looking forward to its elaboration as time goes on.
As you think about your own homeschool year, think about how different parts of it β curricular, co-curricular, social, or recreational β might be informally arranged into these three-month terms. You could have a different decorating theme in your classroom each term, for example, or you could schedule a regular trip to a special place at the beginning of each term to see how the seasons change. You could group your curricular work by term, or set goals at the beginning of each term that you want your students to meet. You could have your students measure their height and weight at the beginning of each term, or take their penny-jar to the bank for a quarterly deposit. At the end of each term you could assemble a portfolio of student accomplishments. With a little imagination you will be able to come up with a clever and comfortable arrangement and a new way to think about the structure of your educational year.
Today is the first day of Cygnus Term, named for the Great Swan of the Heavens that is high in the east at sunset now each evening, and that will be passing overhead to the west as the fall comes on. Your students’ vocabulary word for the day is “cygnet.” π And be sure to take note of the scientific names of the earthly swans on page 22 in your homeschool bird guide.
If you want to make a special astronomical study this Cygnus Term, your River Houses reference library (riverhouses.org/books) includes an excellent little guide to the night sky that will show you the location of Cygnus and its most prominent stars:
“Cygnus lies in what for observers is a dense and fascinating part of the sky. The bird’s wings span the Milky Way at a location packed with stars and an assortment of deep-sky objects. Owing to the positions of its brightest stars it is sometimes called the Northern Cross β the northern parallel to the Southern Cross constellation in the Southern Hemisphere. You will see Cygnus highest in the sky in late summer and early fall, with its head pointing south like a bird on its migratory path toward warmer climates.
“A thick band of dust lies within Cygnus, creating a dark space in the Milky Way that is easily visible to the naked eye under good conditions. This part of the Milky Way is known as the Cygnus Rift or the Northern Coalsack, a name borrowed from a similar dark spot found in the Southern Cross.“ (National Geographic Backyard Guide to the Night Sky, page 216)
Why not spend a little time out after dark with your students over the next three months and locate the Great Swan as it makes its nightly migratory flight to the west. Once you learn to spot him, youβll have a friend for life.
What educational adventures do you and your homescholars have planned for this Cygnus Term? π¦’
β‘β Quarter days and cross-quarter days: Dividing the year into quarters is an ancient and natural practice: the annual movement of the sun across the sky automatically gives us two equinoxes, two solstices, and four seasons. Our four terms are just a simple modification of that natural arrangement so that our River Houses calendar will align more conveniently with the ordinary months and with the more-or-less customary American school year. In many traditional calendrical systems, going back into the Middle Ages, the first day of each quarter is called a quarter day and the midpoint of each quarter is called a cross-quarter day. That means the quarter days of the River Houses year are 1 September, 1 December, 1 March, and 1 June, and the cross-quarter days are 15 October, 15 January, 15 April, and 15 July. (Fun fact: a vestige of the old system of quarter and cross-quarter days is Groundhog Day, also known as Candlemas on the Christian calendar: it’s the cross-quarter day between the winter solstice and the spring equinox.) Quarter days have for centuries been the traditional days on which school terms began, so homeschoolers who follow our River Houses calendar are participating in a very ancient tradition indeed. 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. Your recommended River Houses astronomy guide (riverhouses.org/books) has descriptions and maps of each constellation that point out the highlights, and the astronomical section of your recommended world atlas has beautiful large charts of both celestial spheres. Find a dark-sky spot near you this term and spend some quality homeschool time beneath the starry vault. π
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