🗓 QUICK FRESHES for Homeschool Families – Week of 30 March 2025

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 California, and our COUNTRIES are Myanmar (Burma) 🇲🇲, Namibia 🇳🇦, Nauru 🇳🇷, and Nepal 🇳🇵. (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! 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.

🦦 HORACE THE OTTER says your LATIN word for the week is the noun murus, which means wall. Write it on your homeschool blackboard and send your students to your family dictionary to see how many related English words they can find. (Mural, extramural, intramural, and more!)

🗓 TODAY, Sunday (30 March 2025) — Today is the 89th day of 2025; there are 276 days remaining in this common year. Learn more about different modern and historical calendars in the Science & Technology section of your recommended world almanac. 📚 On this day in 1867, the United States purchased Alaska from the Russian Empire for about two cents an acre. 🏔

Monday (31 March 2025) — The great French philosopher and mathematician René Descartes was born on this day in 1596. 📈 And on this day in 1774, Great Britain ordered the closure of the major trading port of Boston, escalating the tensions that would eventually lead to the American Revolution. 🇬🇧 ⚔️ 🇺🇸

Tuesday (1 April 2025) — Today is the first day of the annual spaghetti harvest in Ticino, Switzerland. Buon appetito! 🍝 It’s also the birthday of the great seventeenth century physician William Harvey (1578–1657), who first described the circulation of the blood in the human body. ❤️ Since this is the first Tuesday of the month, today we’ll invite you to browse a new Dewey Decimal class with your students on your next visit to your local library. This month: the Technological 600s. 📚 And our homeschool poem-of-the-week for the first week of April is the Prologue to Geoffrey Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales, which opens with April showers. Print your own River Houses Poetry Calendar and follow along with us throughout the year. ☔️

Wednesday (2 April 2025) — The United States Mint was established on this day in 1792. 💰 Today is also the birthday of the Danish novelist and children’s author Hans Christian Andersen (1805–1875), which means that it’s International Children’s Book Day too! 📚 And our Wednesday tour of American Heritage Sites this week will take you to San Francisco Maritime National Historical Park in California. 🇺🇸

Thursday (3 April 2025) — Today is the birthday of the great English poet George Herbert (1593–1633). 🖋 It’s also the birthday of the American naturalist and author John Burroughs (1837–1921). 🏞

Friday (4 April 2025) — Today is the birthday of the American Quaker artist Edward Hicks (1780–1849), famous for his “Peaceable Kingdom.” 🎨 And our Friday Bird Families lesson this week will introduce you to the Larks and Swallows. Print your own River Houses Calendar of American Birds and follow the flyways with us throughout the year. 🦅

Saturday (5 April 2025) — Happy First Contact Day! On this day in 2063, a Vulcan survey ship will land near Bozeman, Montana, bringing to an end our long galactic childhood. 🖖 And speaking of alien worlds: 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. 🔭

Sunday (6 April 2025) — The Civil War Battle of Shiloh began on this day in 1862 near Shiloh, Tennessee. Herman Melville would later commemorate the battle in his poem “Shiloh: A Requiem.” ⚔️ And our Sunday States & Countries for next week will be Minnesota 🇺🇸, the Netherlands 🇳🇱, New Zealand 🇳🇿, Nicaragua 🇳🇮, and Niger 🇳🇪.

🥂 🖖 OUR WEEKLY TOAST, for First Contact Day, is a Vulcan traditional. The host says: “Peace and long life.” And the guests respond: “Live long and prosper.”

❡ 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: Myanmar (Burma) in southern Asia is one of our countries-of-the-week, so our Weekly World River is the Burma’s Lemro River, which empties into the Bay of Bengal. You can find its location in your recommended homeschool atlas, and you can read more about it in the Lemro 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 (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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❡ 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. 🏡