🗓️ QUICK FRESHES for Homeschool Families – Week of 22 March 2026

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. Subscribe to our free homeschool newsletter 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.

🇺🇸 OUR STATE-OF-THE-WEEK is Iowa, and our COUNTRIES are Mexico 🇲🇽, Micronesia 🇫🇲, Moldova 🇲🇩, and Monaco 🇲🇨. (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 a waxing crescent — a good time for stargazing and learning the moon’s phases! You can explore the solar system 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 in the Astronomy section your current world almanac. Browse through our regular homeschool astronomy posts for even more.

🗓️️ TODAY, Sunday (22 March 2026) — Today is the 81st day of 2026; there are 284 days remaining in this common year. Learn more about different modern and historical calendars in the Science & Technology section of your recommended world almanac. 📚 Today is also the birthday of the English artist Randolph Caldecott (1846–1886), for whom the Caldecott awards for illustrated children’s books are named. 🎨 And our homeschool poem-of-the-week for the fourth week of March is Robert Frost’s lyrical meditation “Nothing Gold Can Stay,” a great memorization poem for early spring. Print your own River Houses Poetry Calendar and follow along with us throughout the year. 🌱

Monday (23 March 2026) — On this day in 1775 at St. John’s Church in Richmond, Virginia, Patrick Henry delivered his famous speech “Give me liberty, or give me death!” 🇺🇸

Tuesday (24 March 2026) — Today is the birthday of the great Victorian artist and designer William Morris (1834–1896). 🖊️ It’s also the birthday of the Hungarian-American magician Harry Houdini (1874–1926). Shazam! 🎩 🐇

Wednesday (25 March 2026) — Today is the birthday of the American agronomist and Nobel Laureate Norman Borlaug (1914–2009), who may have saved more lives than any human being in history. For some notes on his importance, see pages 464–465 in your River Houses history encyclopedia. 🌽 🌾 Today is also Tolkien Reading Day! 🐉 And our Wednesday tour of American Heritage Sites this week will take you to the Herbert Hoover National Historic Site and Birthplace in Iowa. 🇺🇸

Thursday (26 March 2026) — On this day in 1812, the Gerrymander was born! 🗳️ And on this day in 1830, The Book of Mormon was first published in Palmyra, New York. 📖 Three great writers were also born on this day: A.E. Housman (1859–1936), Robert Frost (1874–1963), and Tennessee Williams (1911–1983). 🖊️

Friday (27 March 2026) — On this day in 1912, the city of Tokyo, Japan, presented a gift of 3000 cherry trees to the city of Washington, D.C. You can follow their annual flowering at cherryblossomwatch.com. 🌸 And our Friday Bird Families lesson this week will introduce you to the garrulous Crows and Jays (Part II). Print your own River Houses Calendar of American Birds and follow the flyways with us throughout the year. 🦅

Saturday (28 March 2026) — The great Italian Renaissance painter and architect Raphael was born on this day in 1483. 🎨 And today is also the birthday of the Moravian theologian and educator John Amos Comenius (1592–1670), author of Orbis Sensualium Pictus (1658), one of the first-ever picture books for children (wherein we learn that the goose gagleth, the duck quaketh, and the bear grumbleth). 🦆

Sunday (29 March 2026) — Today is the birthday of two unrelated Waltons: the English composer William Walton (1902–1983) and the American businessman Sam Walton (1918–1992), the founder of Walmart. 🎵 🛒 And our Sunday States & Countries for next week will be Wisconsin 🇺🇸, Mongolia 🇲🇳, Montenegro 🇲🇪, Morocco 🇲🇦, and Mozambique 🇲🇿.

🥂 OUR WEEKLY TOAST is an old traditional wish: “May honest men be great, and great men honest.”

❡ 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: Mexico in southern North America is one of our countries-of-the-week, so our Weekly World River is the grand Rio Grande, which rises in the U.S. state of Colorado but then flows south and forms part of the border between the United States and Mexico (where it’s often called the Rio Bravo instead of the Rio Grande). You can find its location in your recommended homeschool atlas, and you can read more about it in the Rio Grande 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 (above), or start with the river lists in the World Exploration & 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 and your students 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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