🗓 QUICK FRESHES for Homeschool Families – Week of 29 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.

🇺🇸 OUR STATE-OF-THE-WEEK is Connecticut, and our COUNTRIES are Belgium 🇧🇪, Belize 🇧🇿, Benin 🇧🇯, and Bhutan 🇧🇹. (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 a waning crescent — a good time for stargazing! 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 (29 September 2024) — Today is the 273rd day of 2024; there are 93 days remaining in this leap year. Learn more about different modern and historical calendars in the Science & Technology section of your recommended world almanac. 📚 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). ⚛️

Monday (30 September 2024) — Today is the birthday of William Wrigley Jr. (1861–1932), founder of the Wrigley chewing gum company. 🍬 And the Hoover Dam on the Arizona–Nevada border was dedicated on this day in 1935. 🏗

Tuesday (1 October 2024) — The first Ford Model T automobile was put on sale on this day in 1908. The price was $825. 🚗 The George Washington Bridge linking New York and New Jersey across the Hudson River was opened on this day in 1931. 🌉 Our homeschool poem-of-the-week for the first week of October is “To Autumn” by John Keats, perhaps the most famous fall poem in the English language and a work that every literature student should know. Print your own River Houses Poetry Calendar and follow along with us throughout the year. 🍂 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 General 000s. 📚

Wednesday (2 October 2024) — Today is the first day of the week you’ve all been waiting for: Fat Bear Week at Katmai National Park! Vote for your favorite fat bear online! 🐻 Today is also the birthday of Indian lawyer, philosopher, and political leader Mohandas Gandhi (1869–1948). 🇮🇳 And it’s also the birthday of American poet Wallace Stevens (1879–1955). 🖋 The comic strip Peanuts premiered on this day in 1950. 🥜 And our Wednesday tour of American Heritage Sites this week will take you to Weir Farm National Historical Park in Connecticut. 🇺🇸

Thursday (3 October 2024) — Today is the birthday of English veterinarian James Herriot (1916–1995), author of All Creatures Great and Small and other popular books about animals. 🐑 🐂 🐓 🐖 🐐

Friday (4 October 2024) — On this day in 1582, the Gregorian calendar was adopted on the European continent by decree of Pope Gregory (of course) XIII. Today was the 4th of the month, and tomorrow was declared to be the 15th. (The English-speaking world didn’t make the change for almost two more centuries.) 🗓 Our Friday Bird Families lesson this week will introduce you to the water-loving Grebes and Flamingos. Print your own River Houses Calendar of American Birds and follow the flyways with us throughout the year. 🦩

Saturday (5 October 2024) — Today is the birthday of the American physicist and engineer Robert Goddard (1882–1945), inventor of the liquid-fueled rocket that made spaceflight possible. 🚀 And since this is the first Saturday of the month, we’ll post our regular monthly preview today of some of the astronomical events you and your students can watch for over the next few weeks. 🔭

Sunday (6 October 2024) — Today is the birthday of the Norwegian explorer, ethnographer, and ocean-voyager Thor Heyerdahl (1914–2002). 🌊 And our Sunday States & Countries for next week will be Massachusetts 🇺🇸, Bolivia 🇧🇴, Bosnia & Herzegovina 🇧🇦, Botswana 🇧🇼, and Brazil 🇧🇷.

🥂 🍁 OUR WEEKLY TOAST and our first weekly poem for upcoming month of October are one and the same: “To Autumn.”

❡ 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: Benin in western Africa is one of our countries-of-the-week, so our Weekly World River is the Okpara River, which forms part of the border between Benin and Nigeria, and which, like most rivers in Benin, flows south into the Atlantic Ocean. You can find its location in your recommended homeschool atlas, and you can read more about it in the Okpara 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. 🏡