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.
๐บ๐ธ OUR STATE-OF-THE-WEEK is Wyoming, and our COUNTRIES are Tanzaniaย ๐น๐ฟ, Thailandย ๐น๐ญ, Timor-Leste (East Timor)ย ๐น๐ฑ, and Togoย ๐น๐ฌ. (Our separate Sunday Statesย & Countries post for the week went up just a few minutes ago.)
๐ THE MOON at the beginning of this week is gibbous and waxing, heading toward full tomorrow. You can explore the night sky and the features of the moon in your recommended backyard astronomy guide and your homeschool world atlas, and you can learn a host of stellar and lunar facts on pages 341โ356 in your current world almanac. Browse our many homeschool astronomy posts for even more.
๐ TODAY, Sunday (2 July 2023) โ Noon today is the mid-point of this common (non-leap) year: 182.5 days have passed, and 182.5 days remain. You can learn more about different modern and historical calendars on pages 357โ363 in your River Houses almanac.ย ๐ On this day in 1776, the Continental Congress passed the Lee Resolution, declaring the Thirteen Colonies independent of Great Britain.ย ๐บ๐ธ Today is also the birthday of Thurgood Marshall (1908โ1993), the first African-American appointed to the United States Supreme Court.ย โโ๏ธ And, the first Walmart store opened on this day in 1962 in Rogers, Arkansas!ย ๐
Monday (3 July 2023) โ On this day in 1775, on orders from the Continental Congress and a year before Independence was declared, George Washington took command of the thousands of New England militiamen encamped outside of Boston, and the Continental Army was born. ๐บ๐ธ Today is the birthday of the early American painter John Singleton Copley (1738โ1815), who memorialized many prominent figures of the American Revolutionary period.ย ๐จ And today is also the birthday of the American songwriter, actor, and Yankee Doodle Dandy George M. Cohan (1872โ1942).ย ๐ต One of the most mysterious archeological objects in the world, the Phaistos Disk, was discovered on this day in 1908 in the ancient Minoan palace of Phaistos on Crete. You can learn more about the Minoan civilization that produced the Phaistos disk (and see a picture of it) on page 76 of your River Houses history encyclopedia.ย ๐ฌ And, there’s a full moon tonight, so that means weโll have a report from the River Houses Lunar Society on the many independent “citizen science” projects that are available to homeschool students.ย ๐
Tuesday (4 July 2023) โ HAPPY INDEPENDENCE DAY! ๐ On this day in 1776, the Continental Congress adopted the Declaration of Independence.ย ๐บ๐ธ And on this day in 1802, the United States Military Academy opened at West Point, New York.ย โ๏ธ The great American novelist and short-story writer Nathaniel Hawthorne was born on this day in 1804.ย ๐ On this day in 1826, on the 50th anniversary of the adoption of the Declaration of Independence, Thomas Jefferson died in Virginia and John Adams died in Massachusetts.ย ๐บ๐ธ And on this day in 1872, Calvin Coolidge, the 30th President of the United States, was born in Plymouth Notch, Vermont.ย โฐ And 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 Historical and Geographical 900s.ย ๐
Wednesday (5 July 2023) โ One of the most famous books in the history of science, Isaac Newton’s Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica (Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy), was published in London on this day in 1687.ย ๐ And somewhat less sublime: the canned luncheon meat SPAM was first introduced to the American market on this day in 1937!ย ๐ฝ Our Wednesday tour of World Heritage Sites this week will take you to the Ruins of Kilwa Kisiwani and Songo Mnara in Tanzania.ย ๐น๐ฟ
Thursday (6 July 2023) โ In one of the great setbacks of the early phase of the American Revolution, British General John Burgoyne forced American troops to abandon Fort Ticonderoga on the New YorkโVermont border on this day in 1777.ย โ๏ธ
Friday (7 July 2023) โ Today is the birthday of the great Austrian composer Gustav Mahler (1860โ1911).ย ๐ผ And on this day in 1928, sliced bread was sold for the first time by the Chillicothe Baking Company in Missouri. It was the greatest thing since, um, sliced bread!ย ๐ Our Friday Bird Families post this week will introduce you to the ubiquitous Emberizid Sparrows. Print your own River Houses Calendar of American Birds and follow the flyways with us throughout the year.ย ๐ฆ
Saturday (8 July 2023) โ Speaking of the Minoans, today is the birthday of the great British archaeologist Sir Arthur Evans (1851โ1941), who rediscovered the ancient Minoan civilization.ย ๐ฌ Our homeschool poem-of-the-week for the second week of July is Phillis Wheatley’s “Liberty and Peace,” for the new American republic that was born on the Fourth of July. Print your own River Houses Poetry Calendar and follow along with us throughout the year.ย ๐บ๐ธ 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: Arcturus, the brightest star in the constellation Boรถtes the Herdsman.ย ๐
Sunday (9 July 2023) โ On this day in 1755, a British-American force under the command of General Edward Braddock was defeated and almost destroyed as they fought to capture Fort Duquesne (modern-day Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania) from its French and Indian defenders. We remember “Braddock’s Defeat” today mainly because of an effective rear-guard defense that saved many livesย โ a defense mounted by a 23-year-old colonial colonel named George Washington.ย โ๏ธ And our Sunday Statesย & Countries for next week will be Utahย ๐บ๐ธ, Tongaย ๐น๐ด, Trinidad and Tobagoย ๐น๐น, Tunisiaย ๐น๐ณ, and Turkeyย ๐น๐ท.
๐ฅ ๐ THIS WEEK’S TOAST is one of our old traditional offerings that goes back at least as far as 1853, for Independence Day:
To the memory of the man
That owned the land,
That raised the corn,
That fed the goose,
That bore the quill,
That made the pen,
That wrote the Declaration of Independence.
โกโ Toasts can be a fun educational tradition for your family table. We offer one each week โ 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?ย ๐ฅ
๐ ๐น๐ฟ EVERYTHING FLOWS: Tanzania in eastern Africa is one of our countries-of-the-week, so our Weekly World River is the Rufiji River in eastern Tanzania. You can find its location in your recommended homeschool atlas, and you can read more about it in the Rufiji River entry in Wikipedia or perhaps on your next visit to your local library.
โกโ 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 your almanac (pages 695โ697), 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. Aย whole world of geographical learning awaits you.ย ๐โ๐โ๐
What do you have planned for your homeschool this week?ย ๐
โกโ 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. You can also print your own River Houses calendars of educational events and follow along with us.ย ๐
โกโ 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!ย ๐
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โกโ Join us! The aim of the River Houses project is to create a network of friendly local homeschool support groupsย โ local chapters that we call โHouses.โ 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.ย ๐ก