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 Did you see yesterday’s SOLAR ECLIPSE?
๐บ๐ธ OUR STATE-OF-THE-WEEK is Maryland, and our COUNTRIES are Bruneiย ๐ง๐ณ, Bulgariaย ๐ง๐ฌ, Burkina Fasoย ๐ง๐ซ, and Burundiย ๐ง๐ฎ. (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! You can explore the night sky 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 on pages 341โ356 in your current world almanac. Browse through our regular homeschool astronomy posts for even more.
๐ TODAY, Sunday (15 October 2023) โ Today is the 288th day of 2023; there are 77 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 1783 at Faubourg Saint-Antoine near Paris, รtienne Montgolfier (1745โ1799) became the first human being to ascend from the surface of the earth in a hot-air balloon.ย ๐ And our homeschool poem-of-the-week for the third week of October is Robert Frost’s “After Apple-Picking,” for the fall harvest. Print your own River Houses Poetry Calendar and follow along with us throughout the year.ย ๐
Monday (16 October 2023) โ Today is the midpoint of Cygnus Term and thus one of the four cross-quarter days of the River Houses year. How are things going in your homeschool?ย ๐ฆข Today is also the birthday of American lexicographer and education pioneer Noah Webster (1758โ1843), of dictionary fame.ย ๐ And it’s also the birthday of the Irish playwright and novelist Oscar Wilde (1854โ1900).ย ๐ญ On this day in 1859, in one of the precipitating events of the American Civil War, the abolitionist John Brown (1800โ1859) led an armed raid on the United States arsenal at Harpers Ferry, Virginia.ย ๐
Tuesday (17 October 2023) โ On this day in 1777, one of the most important days in the course of the American Revolution, British General John Burgoyne surrendered his entire army at Saratoga, New York.ย ๐ณ
Wednesday (18 October 2023) โ The great American novel Moby-Dick by Herman Melville was first published on this day in 1851 in London (sic).ย ๐ณ And today is also the birthday of the great rock-and-roll pioneer Chuck Berry (1926โ2017).ย ๐ธ Our Wednesday tour of World Heritage Sites this week will take you to the ancient Thracian Tomb of Kazanlak in Bulgaria.ย ๐ง๐ฌ
Thursday (19 October 2023) โ Today is the birthday of Sir Thomas Browne (1605โ1682), author of some of the most luminous prose in the English language.ย โฑ๏ธ And on this day in 1781 at Yorktown, Virginia, British forces under the command of Lord Cornwallis surrendered to George Washington and Comte de Rochambeau, effectively ending the American Revolution.ย ๐
Friday (20 October 2023) โ Today is the birthday of the architect Sir Christopher Wren (1632โ1732), who rebuilt much of central London after the Great Fire of 1666.ย ๐ And on this day in the year 1803, the United States Senate ratified the Louisiana Purchase.ย ๐บ๐ธ Our Friday Bird Families post this week will introduce you to the Swifts and Hummingbirds. Print your own River Houses Calendar of American Birds and follow the flyways with us throughout the year.ย ๐ฆ
Saturday (21 October 2023) โ Today is the birthday of the great English poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772โ1834).ย ๐ And since we talked a lot about apples this past week, it’s only fitting to note that today is celebrated as Apple Day in the United Kingdom.ย ๐
Sunday (22 October 2023) โ Today is the birthday of the great Hungarian composer and pianist Franz Liszt (1811โ1886).ย ๐น On this day in 1879, Thomas Edison tested his design for the first practical and long-lasting incandescent light bulb.ย ๐ก Our homeschool poem-of-the-week for this coming week, as October grows thin, is a song for the approaching cold by the great Maine folk artist Gordon Bok. 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 South Carolinaย ๐บ๐ธ, Cabo Verdeย ๐จ๐ป, Cambodiaย ๐ฐ๐ญ, Cameroonย ๐จ๐ฒ, and Canadaย ๐จ๐ฆ.
๐ฅ ๐ OUR WEEKLY TOAST is for the anniversary of Yorktown: “May the miseries of war never more have existence amongst enlightened nations.”
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 ๐ง๐ซ EVERYTHING FLOWS: Burkina Faso in western Africa is one of our countries-of-the-week, so our Weekly World River is the Black Volta or Mouhoun River, one of the principal rivers of Burkina Faso (which was formerly known as Upper Volta). You can find its location in your recommended homeschool atlas, and you can read more about it in the Black Volta 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