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.
๐ JULY is our special MOON MONTH in the River Houses! Why not go outside this evening and start learning the phases of the moon over the next two weeks.
๐ฏ It is also my pleasure to inform you that๏ธ NATIONAL MOTH WEEK is now underway! Don’t forget to download your free moth coloring book today!
๐บ๐ธ OUR STATE-OF-THE-WEEK is New Mexico, and our COUNTRIES are United Arab Emiratesย ๐ฆ๐ช, United Kingdomย ๐ฌ๐ง, United Statesย ๐บ๐ธ, and Uruguayย ๐บ๐พ. (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 a waxing crescentย โ aย good time for stargazing and moonwatching! 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 through our regular homeschool astronomy posts for even more.
๐ TODAY, Sunday (23 July 2023) โ Today is the 204th day of 2023; there are 161 days remaining in this common year. Learn more about different modern and historical calendars on pages 357โ363 in your recommended world almanac.ย ๐ On this day in 1995, what would become one of the brightest comets of the twentieth century was discovered independently by American astronomers Alan Hale and Thomas Bopp. Comet HaleโBopp was visible to the naked eye through much of 1996 and 1997, but if you missed it, you’re out of luck, because it won’t be back for another 2500 years.ย โ๏ธ
Monday (24 July 2023) โ Today is the birthday of “The Liberator,” Simรณn Bolรญvar (1783โ1830), one of the most important figures in the history of Latin America. Bolรญvar played a central role in establishing the independence of Bolivia (which was named for him), Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, Panama, and Venezuela.ย ๐ง๐ด On this day in 1847, a group of Mormon pioneers under the leadership of Brigham Young arrived in the Salt Lake Valley and established the settlement that became Salt Lake City, Utah.ย ๐ And on this day in 1969, the Apollo 11 capsule carrying astronauts Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin, and Michael Collins successfully splashed down in the Pacific Ocean about 800 miles southwest of Hawaii.ย ๐จโ๐๐จโ๐๐จโ๐ ๐ ๐ ๐ ๐จโ๐๐จโ๐๐จโ๐
Tuesday (25 July 2023) โ Today is the birthday of the German medical researcher Paul Langerhans (1847โ1888) who discovered the insulin-secreting cell clusters of the pancreas, known today as the islets of Langerhans.ย ๐ฌ Today is also the birthday of the English biochemist and crystallographer Rosalind Franklin (1920โ1958) who played a key role in the discovery of the double-helical structure of DNA.ย ๐งฌ
Wednesday (26 July 2023) โ The great painter of the American West, George Catlin, was born on this day in 1796.ย ๐จ The most well known of the many attempts to create a universal language for all mankind got underway on this day in 1887 with the publication of Unua Libro, the First Book setting forth the proposed international language of Esperanto.ย ๐ฃ And our Wednesday tour of World Heritage Sites this week will take you to the Church of Atlรกntida in Uruguay.ย ๐บ๐พ
Thursday (27 July 2023) โ The inimitable Bugs Bunny made his screen debut on this day in 1940 in a short animated film called A Wild Hare. Elmer Fudd couldn’t catch him then, and hasn’t to this day.ย ๐ฐ
Friday (28 July 2023) โ The International Monarch Monitoring Blitz is underway from today through August 6th! Count Monarch butterflies for fun and profit! (Well, maybe not profit. But for fun and science!) Take a look and see if it’s a project you and your young naturalists would like to join.ย ๐ฆ Today is the birthday of the great English polymath Robert Hooke (1635โ1703), one of the pioneers of microscopy and the first person to apply the world “cell” to the basic structural unit of living things.ย ๐ฌ And one of the most innovative poets of the nineteenth century, Gerard Manley Hopkins, was born on this day in 1844.ย ๐ Our Friday Bird Families post this week will introduce you to the familiar Blackbirds and their allies. Print your own River Houses Calendar of American Birds and follow the flyways with us throughout the year.ย ๐ฆ
Saturday (29 July 2023) โ The seven-mile-long Cape Cod Canal first opened on this day in 1914, significantly reducing sailing time between Boston and New York (and markedly increasing safety). ๐ข
Sunday (30 July 2023) โ Today is the birthday of the great (and largely homeschooled) English writer Emily Bronte (1818โ1848), author of Wuthering Heights.ย ๐ It’s also the birthday of the American engineer and industrialist Henry Ford (1863โ1947).ย ๐ And our Sunday Statesย & Countries for next week will be Arizonaย ๐บ๐ธ, Uzbekistanย ๐บ๐ฟ, Vanuatuย ๐ป๐บ, Vatican Cityย ๐ป๐ฆ, andย Venezuela ๐ป๐ช.
๐ฅ ๐ OUR WEEKLY TOAST is an old traditional, offered for the crew of Apollo 11 who safely returned from the moon this week in 1969: “A fair welcome at the end of a long journey.”
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 ๐บ๐พ EVERYTHING FLOWS: Uruguay in southern South America is one of our countries-of-the-week, so our Weekly World River is the Rosario River (Rรญo Rosario), an important tributary of the great Rรญo de la Plata. You can find its location in your recommended homeschool atlas, and you can read more about it in the Rosario 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 world 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