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.
๐โ๐โ๐ AN ANNULAR SOLAR ECLIPSE will be coming up on Saturday, October 14th, and some part of it will be visible across all of North America. If you live anywhere near the path of annularity it will be worth traveling to see it; people in other areas are guaranteed a partial eclipse (weather permitting). Mark your calendars now and get the details right here.
๐บ๐ธ OUR STATE-OF-THE-WEEK is Connecticut, and our COUNTRIES are Belgiumย ๐ง๐ช, Belizeย ๐ง๐ฟ, Beninย ๐ง๐ฏ, and Bhutanย ๐ง๐น. (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 waningย โ aย 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 341โ356 in your current world almanac. Browse through our regular homeschool astronomy posts for even more.
๐ TODAY, Sunday (1 October 2023) โ Today is the 274th day of 2023; there are 91 days remaining in this common year. Learn more about different modern and historical calendars on pages 357โ363 in your recommended world almanac.ย ๐ The first Ford Modelย T automobile was put on sale on this day in 1908. The price was $825.ย ๐ The George Washington Bridge linking New York and New Jersey across the Hudson River was opened on this day in 1931.ย ๐ And our homeschool poem-of-the-week for the first week of October is “Toย Autumn” by John Keats, perhaps the most famous fall poem in the English language and aย work that every literature student should know. Print your own River Houses Poetry Calendar and follow along with us throughout the year.ย ๐
Monday (2 October 2023) โ Today is the birthday of Indian lawyer, philosopher, and political leader Mohandas Gandhi (1869โ1948).ย ๐ฎ๐ณ It’s also the birthday of American poet Wallace Stevens (1879โ1955).ย ๐ And the comic strip Peanuts premiered on this day in 1950.ย ๐ฅ
Tuesday (3 October 2023) โ Today is the birthday of English veterinarian James Herriot (1916โ1995), author of All Creatures Great and Small and other popular books about animals.ย ๐ย ๐ย ๐ย ๐ย ๐ 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.ย ๐
Wednesday (4 October 2023) โ 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!ย ๐ป 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.)ย ๐ And our Wednesday tour of World Heritage Sites this week will take you to the Neolithic Flint Mines at Spiennes in Belgium.ย ๐ง๐ช
Thursday (5 October 2023) โ Today is the birthday of the American physicist and engineer Robert Goddard (1882โ1945), inventor of the liquid-fueled rocket that made spaceflight possible.ย ๐
Friday (6 October 2023) โ Today is the birthday of the Norwegian explorer and ethnographer Thor Heyerdahl (1914โ2002).ย ๐ And our Friday Bird Families post this week will introduce you to the Pigeons and Doves. Print your own River Houses Calendar of American Birds and follow the flyways with us throughout the year.ย ๐
Saturday (7 October 2023) โ On this day in 1571, off the coast of western Greece, warships from Spain and Venice defeated the naval forces of the Ottoman Empire in the Battle of Lepanto and prevented further Ottoman expansion into western Europe. For a quick homeschool review of this important historical turning point, make your way to page 248 in your River Houses history encyclopedia.ย ๐ Today is also the birthday of the early American choral composer William Billings (1746โ1800).ย ๐ถ The great Danish physicist and Nobel laureate Niels Bohr was born on this day in 1885.ย โ๏ธ 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.ย ๐ญ
Sunday (8 October 2023) โ On this day in 1956, New York Yankees pitcher Don Larsen threw the only perfect game in World Series history.ย โพ๏ธ Our homeschool poem-of-the-week for the second week of October will be Emily Dickinson’s autumnal gem “God made a little Gentian,” for all late-bloomers. Print your own River Houses Poetry Calendar and follow along with us throughout the year.ย ๐ And our Sunday Statesย & Countries for next week will be Massachusettsย ๐บ๐ธ, Boliviaย ๐ง๐ด, Bosnia & Herzegovinaย ๐ง๐ฆ, Botswanaย ๐ง๐ผ, and Brazilย ๐ง๐ท.
๐ฅ ๐ OUR WEEKLY TOAST and our weekly poem for the beginning of October are one and the same: “To Autumn.”
โกโ Toasts can be a wonderful educational tradition for your homeschool lunch or dinner table. We offer one each weekย 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 (“Toย unpredictability in toasting!”). What will you toast in your homeschool this week?ย ๐ฅ
๐ ๐ง๐ช EVERYTHING FLOWS: Belgium in western Europe is one of our countries-of-the-week, so our Weekly World River is the Yser River, which flows through Belgium and part of France and empties into the North Sea at Nieuwpoort, Belgium. You can find its location in your recommended homeschool atlas, and you can read more about it in the Yser 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, 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.ย ๐ซ
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