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.
🇺🇸 OUR STATE-OF-THE-WEEK is Utah, and our COUNTRIES are Tonga 🇹🇴, Trinidad & Tobago 🇹🇹, Tunisia 🇹🇳, and Turkey 🇹🇷. (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 waning — a good time for moon watching! 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 341–356 in your current world almanac. Browse through our homeschool astronomy posts for even more.
🗓 TODAY, Sunday (9 July 2023) — Today is the 190th day of 2023; there are 175 days remaining in this common year. Learn more about different modern and historical calendars on pages 357–363 in your River Houses almanac. 📚 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 lives — a defense mounted by a 23-year-old colonial colonel named George Washington. ⚔️
Monday (10 July 2023) — The highest temperature ever recorded on earth, 134ºF (57ºC), was reached on this day in 1913 in Death Valley, California. 🌡 Today is the birthday of the French-Swiss theologian and religious reformer John Calvin (1509–1564), one of the key figures of the Protestant Reformation. ✝️ And on this day in 1962, the world’s first communications satellite, Telstar, was launched into earth orbit from Cape Canaveral in Florida. 🛰
Tuesday (11 July 2023) — On this day in 1804, Aaron Burr, Vice President of the United States, mortally wounded Alexander Hamilton, former Secretary of the Treasury, in a pistol duel in Weehawken, New Jersey. Hamilton died the next day. ⚔️ Today is also the birthday of the English physician and home education advocate Thomas Bowdler (1754–1825), whose family editions of Shakespeare, lightly expurgated so they would be suitable for reading aloud to women and children, gave us the English word “bowdlerize.” 🎭 And on this day in 1960, Harper Lee’s popular American novel To Kill a Mockingbird was first published. 📖
Wednesday (12 July 2023) — Today is the birthday of the great American writer, philosopher, and naturalist Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862). 🌳 It’s also the birthday of the American artist Andrew Wyeth (1917–2009). 🎨 And our Wednesday tour of World Heritage Sites this week will take you to the Amphitheater of El Jem in Tunisia. 🇹🇳
Thursday (13 July 2023) — Today is the generally accepted birthdate of the ancient Roman politician, general, and dictator Julius Caesar (100–44 B.C.). 🏛 It’s also the birthday of the great English nature poet John Clare (1793–1864). 🏞
Friday (14 July 2023) — Today is the birthday of the celebrated composer Gerald Finzi (1901–1956), known for his musical settings of many classic English lyric poems. 🎼 On this day in 2015, the interplanetary space probe New Horizons made its closest approach to Pluto (less than 8000 miles from the surface). ♇ And our Friday Bird Families post this week will (again) introduce you to the ubiquitous Emberizid Sparrows (Part II). Print your own River Houses Calendar of American Birds and follow the flyways with us throughout the year. 🦅
Saturday (15 July 2023) — Today is the birthday of the great Dutch artist Rembrandt van Rijn (1606–1669). 🎨 On this day in 1799, near the town of Rashid (Rosetta) in Egypt, a French captain in Napoleon’s army discovered a smooth black stone with a trilingual inscription in hieroglyphs, demotic Egyptian, and Greek. The Rosetta Stone, one of the world’s most famous archeological objects, made it possible to translate ancient Egyptian hieroglyphs for the first time. 🇪🇬 And our homeschool poem-of-the-week for the third week of the month is Emily Dickinson’s playful lyric “Answer, July,” for the span of the year. Print your own River Houses Poetry Calendar and follow along with us. 🗓
Sunday (16 July 2023) — Today is the midpoint of Hercules Term and thus one of the four cross-quarter days of the River Houses year. How are things going in your homeschool? 💪 The District of Columbia was established as the capital of the United States on this day in 1790. 🇺🇸 Today is the birthday of the American religious leader Mary Baker Eddy (1821–1910), founder of the Christian Science movement. ✝️ It’s also the birthday of the Norwegian explorer Roald Amundsen (1872–1928), leader of the first expedition to reach the South Pole. 🇦🇶 On this day in 1969, the Apollo 11 spacecraft was launched from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida. Four days later, Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin became the first men to walk on the moon. 🌕 And our Sunday States & Countries for next week will be Oklahoma 🇺🇸, Turkmenistan 🇹🇲, Tuvalu 🇹🇻, Uganda 🇺🇬, and Ukraine 🇺🇦.
🥂 OUR WEEKLY TOAST is an old wish for summer wisdom: “May our hearts never be oppressed by the follies of fashion.”
❡ Toasts can be a fun educational tradition for your family 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!”). Many of our current examples are adapted from two old collections: Marchant’s “Toasts and sentiments” (1888) and the anonymous Social and Convivial Toast-Master (1841). What will you toast in your homeschool this week? 🥂
🌍 🇹🇷 EVERYTHING FLOWS: Turkey in western Asia is one of our countries-of-the-week, so our Weekly World River is (in modern Turkish) Büyük Menderes, although it’s better known to the world as the ancient Meander River, from which is derived the English word “meander.” You can find its location in your recommended homeschool atlas, and you can read more about it in the Büyük Menderes 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 your almanac (pages 695–697), 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. 🌎 🌍 🌏
🙀 AND DON’T FORGET: Friday the 13th comes on a Thursday this month!
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. You can also print your own River Houses calendars of educational events and follow along with us. 🗓
❡ 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. 🏡