🗓 QUICK FRESHES for Homeschool Families – Week of 22 September 2024

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 once each week. Visit our River Houses calendar page to print your own homeschool calendars and planners for the entire year.

🌞 🌏 🌕 Did you and your students see last week’s PARTIAL LUNAR ECLIPSE? I saw it, and it was quite a bit better than I expected. If you missed it or want to re-live the experience, head back over to the timeanddate.com livestream page for the event and you can re-watch it all from beginning to end.

🇺🇸 OUR STATE-OF-THE-WEEK is Georgia, and our COUNTRIES are Bahrain 🇧🇭, Bangladesh 🇧🇩, Barbados 🇧🇧, and Belarus 🇧🇾. (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 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.

🗓 TODAY, Sunday (22 September 2024) — Happy First Day of (Astronomical) Fall! Today is the September Equinox, known as the autumnal or fall equinox in the northern hemisphere and the vernal or spring equinox in the southern hemisphere (where today is the first day of spring). 🍂 Today is also the 266th day of 2024; there are 100 days remaining in this leap year. Learn more about different modern and historical calendars in the Science & Technology section of your recommended world almanac. 📚 On this day in 1776, American spy Nathan Hale, age 21, was executed by the British in New York City. His final words were said to be, “I only regret that I have but one life to lose for my country.” 🇺🇸 Today is also the birthday of the great experimental physicist Michael Faraday (1791–1867). ⚡️ And not only that, it’s Hobbit Day! 🌋 Our homeschool poem-of-the-week for the last week of September, as astronomical summer becomes fall, is a pensive equinoctial lyric by Emily Dickinson. Print your own River Houses Poetry Calendar and follow along with us throughout the 2024–2025 homeschool year. 🍃

Monday (23 September 2024) — Today is the birthday of Gaius Octavius Thurinus, better known as Augustus Caesar, the first emperor of the Roman Empire (63 B.C. – A.D. 14). For a great homeschool overview of the rise (and eventual fall) of Rome, turn to page 110 in your River Houses history encyclopedia. 🏛

Tuesday (24 September 2024) — On this day in 1789, the U.S. Congress, acting under the new Constitution, established the federal judiciary system and specified a structure for the Supreme Court (with six, not the current nine, justices). ⚖️ And … it’s Na·tion·al Punc·tu·a·tion Day!@*&(#)&*@!! ❣️  #️⃣

Wednesday (25 September 2024) — Today is the birthday of the great American geneticist and Nobel laureate Thomas Hunt Morgan (1866–1945), who established the role of chromosomes in the process of inheritance. 🔬 It’s also the birthday of American poet and children’s author Shel Silverstein (1930–1999). 📚 The great Canadian classical pianist Glenn Gould was born on this day in 1932. 🎹 And our Wednesday tour of American Heritage Sites this week will take you to Andersonville National Historic Site in Georgia. 🇺🇸

Thursday (26 September 2024) — On this day in 1687, during the Venetian siege of Athens, a bomb fell on the Parthenon, which was being used by the Ottoman Turks for munitions storage. The roof, parts of the frieze, and many of the columns, which had stood for more than two thousand years, were destroyed. 🏛 Today is the birthday of American nurseryman and folk hero John Chapman (1774–1845), better known as Johnny Appleseed. 🍎 It’s also the birthday of American poet and Nobel laureate T.S. Eliot (1888–1965), author of (among other things) Old Possum’s Book of Practical Cats, a wonderful read-aloud book for children. 🐈

Friday (27 September 2024) — On this day in 1941, the S.S. Patrick Henry, the first of a fleet of nearly 3000 “Liberty Ships” that transported supplies and troops during World War II, was launched in Baltimore, Maryland. ⚓️ And our Friday Bird Families lesson this week will introduce you to the Quails, Curassows, Guans, Partridges, Grouse, and Turkeys. Print your own River Houses Calendar of American Birds and follow the flyways with us throughout the year. 🦃

Saturday (28 September 2024) — Today is the birthday of the great philologist Sir William Jones (1746–1794), who first recognized the extent of the vast Indo-European family of languages that encompasses everything from Icelandic to Hindi. 🗣 And on this day in 1928, Scottish microbiologist Alexander Fleming noticed that mold growing on some of his laboratory samples was killing colonies of bacteria. The result of this chance observation was the discovery of the first antibiotic, penicillin. 🔬

Sunday (29 September 2024) — Today is the birthday of the great Spanish writer Miguel de Cervantes (1547–1616). 🇪🇸 It’s also the birthday of the pioneering Austrian-American economic philosopher Ludwig von Mises (1881–1973). 💵 And not only that, it’s also the birthday of the great Italian-American physicist and Nobel laureate Enrico Fermi (1901–1954). ⚛️ And our Sunday States & Countries for next week will be Connecticut 🇺🇸, Belgium 🇧🇪, Belize 🇧🇿, Benin 🇧🇯, and Bhutan 🇧🇹.

🥂 🍂 OUR WEEKLY TOAST is our equinoctial traditional, for the disappearing daylight hours: “May the shadows of evening calm the excitement of the day.”

❡ 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: Belarus in eastern Europe is one of our countries-of-the-week, so our Weekly World River is the Drut River, an important tributary of the great Dnieper. You can find its location in your recommended homeschool atlas, and you can read more about it in the Drut 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. 🏡