🗓 QUICK FRESHES for Homeschool Families – Week of 8 June 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.

📺 One of the best ways to spend your SUMMER educational time is by watching good quality historical DOCUMENTARIES and discussing them as a family. Take a look at our recommended list and see if you can fit some of them into your schedule.

🇺🇸 OUR STATE-OF-THE-WEEK is Montana, and our COUNTRIES are Somalia 🇸🇴, South Africa 🇿🇦, South Sudan 🇸🇸, and Spain 🇪🇸. (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 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 rus (ruris in its possessive form), which means countryside. Write it on your homeschool blackboard and send your students to your family dictionary to see how many related English words they can find. (Rural, rustic, and more!) (And don’t miss the wonderful English verb rusticate.)

🗓 TODAY, Sunday (8 June 2025) — Today is the 159th day of 2025; there are 206 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 the birthday of Francis Crick (1916–2004), co-discoverer (with James Watson) of the double-helical structure of DNA. 🧬 Our homeschool poem-of-the-week for the second week of June is Francis Scott Key’s “Defence of Fort M’Henry,” much better known today as “The Star-Spangled Banner,” for Flag Day (the 14th). Print your own River Houses Poetry Calendar and follow along with us throughout the year. 🇺🇸

Monday (9 June 2025) — The Roman emperor Nero died (by suicide) on this day in A.D. 68, sparking a civil war and “the year of four emperors.” 🏛 And speaking of emperors, today is the birthday of the great Russian emperor Peter the Great (1672–1725). 👑

Tuesday (10 June 2025) — Today is the birthday of celebrated children’s book author Maurice Sendak (1928–2012). 🖋

Wednesday (11 June 2025) — And speaking of greats again, Alexander the Great, one of the most influential figures in ancient history, died on this day in the year 343 B.C. at the age of only 32. You can read more about him on page 97 of your River Houses history encyclopedia. 🏛 On this day in 1776, the Continental Congress appointed Thomas Jefferson, John Adams, Benjamin Franklin, Roger Sherman, and Robert Livingston a committee of five to draft a declaration of independence. 🖋 📜 🇺🇸 And our Wednesday tour of American Heritage Sites this week will take you to Little Bighorn Battlefield National Monument in Montana. 🇺🇸

Thursday (12 June 2025) — The Baseball Hall of Fame was dedicated on this day in 1939 in Cooperstown, New York. ⚾️

Friday (13 June 2025) — It’s Friday the 13th! 🙀 Today is the birthday of the great Scottish physicist James Clerk Maxwell (1831–1939). ⚛️ It’s also the birthday of the great Irish poet William Butler Yeats (1865–1939). 🖋 And our Friday Bird Families lesson this week will introduce you to the Fringilline Finches, the Cardueline Finches, and their allies. Print your own River Houses Calendar of American Birds and follow the flyways with us throughout the year. 🦅

Saturday (14 June 2025) — Today is Flag Day! 🇺🇸 On this day in 1775, the Continental Congress authorized the creation of the Continental Army. ⚔️ And on this day in 1777, the United States Congress adopted the Stars and Stripes as the United States national flag. 🇺🇸 And since this is the second Saturday of the month, we’ll introduce you to one of the Great Stars of the northern hemisphere night sky. This month: Spica, the brightest star in the constellation Virgo. 🌟

Sunday (15 June 2025) — Assyrian scribes recorded the occurrence of a total solar eclipse on this day in the year 763 B.C. The date of that eclipse serves as a fixed reference point for much of ancient Mesopotamian chronology. 🌏 🌑 🌞 On this day in 1215, King John of England set his seal to Magna Carta, the Great Charter that is the historical foundation of English (and so American) law. ⚖️ Our homeschool poem-of-the-week for the third week of June is Henry Wadsworth Longfellow’s “The Children’s Hour,” for Father’s Day, observed each year on the third Sunday in June. Print your own River Houses Poetry Calendar and follow along with us throughout the year. 🏰 And our Sunday States & Countries for next week will be Washington 🇺🇸, Sri Lanka 🇱🇰, Sudan 🇸🇩, Suriname 🇸🇷, and Sweden 🇸🇪.

🥂 🇺🇸 THIS WEEK’S TOAST is our traditional offering for Flag Day, June 14th: “To the Star-Spangled Banner: long may it wave o’er the land of the free and the home of the brave.”

❡ 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: South Africa is one of our countries-of-the-week, so our Weekly World River is the Caledon River, one of South Africa’s major rivers. You can find its location in your recommended homeschool atlas, and you can read more about it in the Caledon 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. 🏡