🗓 QUICK FRESHES for Homeschool Families – Week of 18 February 2024

Quick Freshes is our regular Sunday almanac for the homeschool week ahead. Pick one or two (or more!) of the items below each week and use them to enrich your homeschooling schedule. Add your name to our free mailing list to get posts like these delivered right to your mailbox each week. Visit our River Houses calendar page to print your own homeschool calendars and planners for the entire year.

🐦 THE GREAT BACKYARD BIRD COUNT is underway right now (16–19 February) all across the country and around the world! It’s one of the best homeschool science activities all year. How many birds have you counted in your neighborhood?

🇺🇸 OUR STATE-OF-THE-WEEK is Arkansas, and our COUNTRIES are Lebanon 🇱🇧, Lesotho 🇱🇸, Liberia 🇱🇷, and Libya 🇱🇾. (Our separate Sunday States & Countries post for the week went up just a few minutes ago.)

🌔 THE MOON at the beginning of this week is gibbous and waxing — a good time for moon watching! You can explore the night sky and the features of the moon in your backyard astronomy guide and your homeschool world atlas, and you can learn a host of stellar and lunar facts on pages 333–348 in your current world almanac. Browse through our regular homeschool astronomy posts for even more.

🗓 TODAY, Sunday (18 February 2024) — Today is the 49th day of 2024; there are 317 days remaining in this leap year. Learn more about different modern and historical calendars on pages 349–355 in your recommended world almanac. 📚 The famous American stained-glass artist Louis Comfort Tiffany was born on this day in 1848. 🎨

Monday (19 February 2024) — This is the third Monday in February, and that makes today the Washington’s Birthday federal holiday in the United States. (Many people unofficially call it “Presidents’ Day” because Lincoln’s birthday is nearby.) 🇺🇸 Today is also the birthday of the Polish astronomer and polymath Nicolaus Copernicus (1473–1543), one of the great figures in the history of science. 🌞 🌍

Tuesday (20 February 2024) — Today is the birthday of the great American photographer Ansel Adams (1902–1984). 📷

Wednesday (21 February 2024) — On this day in 1918, the last individual Carolina Parakeet, the only species of parrot native to the United States, died in captivity in the Cincinnati Zoo. 🦜 😔 And our Wednesday tour of World Heritage Sites this week will take you to Maloti–Drakensberg Park in Lesotho. 🇱🇸

Thursday (22 February 2024) — Today is the (actual) birthday of George Washington (1732–1799), the first President of the United States. 🇺🇸 And speaking of presidents, on this day in 1924, President Calvin Coolidge delivered the first-ever radio address from the White House. 📻 Our homeschool poem-of-the-week for the last week of February is John Keats’ famous sonnet “On First Looking into Chapman’s Homer,” for all watchers of the skies. Print your own River Houses Poetry Calendar and follow along with us throughout the year. 🔭

Friday (23 February 2024) — Today is the birthday of the great German-English composer George Frideric Handel (1685–1759). 🎺 And our Friday Bird Families post this week will introduce you to the Parrots! 🦜

Saturday (24 February 2024) — On this day in 1803, the Supreme Court handed down a landmark decision in Marbury v. Madison that established the principle of judicial review. ⚖️ Today is also the birthday of the American painter and illustrator Winslow Homer (1836–1910). 🎨 And, there’s a full moon tonight, so that means we’ll have a report from the Lunar Society of the River Houses on the many independent “citizen science” projects that are available to homeschool students. 🌕

Sunday (25 February 2024) — The first African-American to serve in the U.S. Congress, Hiram Rhodes Revels, Republican of Mississippi, was sworn in on this day in 1870. 🇺🇸 Today is also the birthday of the great French impressionist painter and sculptor Pierre-Auguste Renoir (1841–1919). 🎨 And our Sunday States & Countries for next week will be Michigan 🇺🇸, Liechtenstein 🇱🇮, Lithuania 🇱🇹, Luxembourg 🇱🇺, and Madagascar 🇲🇬.

🥂 🇺🇸 OUR WEEKLY TOAST for this Washington’s Birthday week invites you to remember that in early America, no one was toasted more often than George Washington. This 1788 musical offering by Francis Hopkinson of Philadelphia was but one among thousands:

’Tis “Washington’s health!” Fill a bumper all round,
For he is our glory and pride.
Our arms shall in battle with conquest be crown’d
Whilst virtue and he’s on our side.

❡ Toasts can be a wonderful educational tradition for your homeschool lunch or dinner table. We offer one each week — you can take it up, or make up one of your own (“To North American dinosaurs!”), or invite a different person to come up with one for each meal (“To unpredictability in toasting!”). What will you toast in your homeschool this week? 🥂

🌎 🇱🇧 EVERYTHING FLOWS: Lebanon in the Middle East is one of our countries-of-the-week, so our Weekly World River is the Litani River, the longest river in Lebanon. You can chart its course in your recommended homeschool atlas, and you can read more about it in the Litani River entry in Wikipedia or perhaps on your next visit to your local library.

❡ Children of Ocean: Why not do a homeschool study of world rivers over the course of the year? Take the one we select each week, or start with the river lists in the “World Exploration and Geography” section of your world almanac, and make it a project to look them all up in your atlas, or in a handy encyclopedia either online or on a weekly visit to your local library. A whole world of geographical learning awaits you. 🌎 🌍 🌏

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

❡ Lively springs: This is one of our regular “Quick Freshes” posts looking at the homeschool week ahead. Add your name to our River Houses mailing list and get these weekly messages delivered right to your mailbox all through the year. 📫

❡ Homeschool calendars: We have a whole collection of free, printable, educational homeschool calendars and planners available on our main River Houses calendar page. They will help you create a light and easy structure for your homeschool year. Give them a try today! 🗓

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❡ Join us! The aim of the River Houses project is to create a network of friendly local homeschool support groups — local chapters that we call “Houses.” Our first at-large chapter, Headwaters House, is now forming and is open to homeschoolers everywhere. Find out how to become one of our founding members on the Headwaters House membership page. 🏡