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.
๐ย โบย ๐ DAYLIGHT SAVING TIME ends next Sunday (November 5th, the first Sunday in November) in most U.S. jurisdictions. At 2:00 a.m. on November 5th you should set your clocks back to 1:00 a.m.
๐บ๐ธ OUR STATE-OF-THE-WEEK is New Hampshire, and our COUNTRIES are the Central African Republic ๐จ๐ซ, Chad ๐น๐ฉ, Chile ๐จ๐ฑ, and China ๐จ๐ณ. (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 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 (29 October 2023) โ Today is the 302nd day of 2023; there are 63 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 (or night) in 1964, three men broke into the American Museum of Natural History in New York and executed the largest jewel theft in American history, netting more than $400,000 worth of gems. The thieves were soon caught and most of the gems were recovered, including the Star of India, one of the world’s largest sapphires, which had been hidden in a bus station locker in Miami.ย ๐
Monday (30 October 2023) โ Today is the birthday of the influential American modernist poet Ezra Pound (1885โ1972).ย ๐ And on this day in 1938, Orson Welles broadcast his famous radio version of H.G. Wells’ “The War of the Worlds,” leading many people across the United States to believe that a Martian invasion of the earth had begun.ย ๐ฝ
Tuesday (31 October 2023) โ Happy Halloween!ย ๐ย ๐ปย ๐ฆย ๐ท๏ธย โฐ The Protestant Reformation began on this day in 1517 when Martin Luther nailed his 95 Theses to the door of All Saints’ Church in Wittenberg, Germany. For a quick homeschool review of the Reformation and its consequences, turn to pages 197 and 256โ259 in your recommended River Houses history encyclopedia.ย ๐ Today is the birthday of the great English poet John Keats (1795โ1821).ย ๐ And it’s also the birthday of Juliette Gordon Low (1860โ1927), founder of the Girl Scouts of America.ย ๐ช
Wednesday (1 November 2023) โ William Shakespeare’s play The Tempest was first performed on this day in 1611.ย ๐ญ Today is the birthday of the German geophysicist and meteorologist Alfred Wegener (1880โ1930), who developed the theory of continental drift.ย ๐ Our homeschool poem-of-the-week for the first week of November is Robert Frost’s “A Leaf-Treader,” for the falling leaves.ย Print your own River Houses Poetry Calendar and follow along with us throughout the year.ย ๐ And our Wednesday tour of World Heritage Sites this week will take you to ManovoโGounda St. Floris National Park in the Central African Republic.ย ๐จ๐ซ
Thursday (2 November 2023) โ Today is the birthday of the American frontiersman and folk-hero Daniel Boone (1734โ1820).ย ๐ป
Friday (3 November 2023) โ Today is the birthday of the great Italian artist and sculptor Benvenuto Cellini (1500โ1571).ย ๐จ And on this day in 1534, the English Parliament passed the Act of Supremacy, declaring King Henry VIII (rather than the Pope) to be the head of the English church.ย ๐ Our Friday Bird Families post this week will introduce you to the Stilts, Avocets, and Oystercatchers. Print your own River Houses Calendar of American Birds and follow the flyways with us throughout the year.ย ๐ฆ
Saturday (4 November 2023) โ Today is the birthday of “Oklahoma’s favorite son,” the American actor and humorist Will Rogers (1879โ1935).ย ๐ 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 (5 November 2023) โ Daylight Saving Time ends this morning in most U.S. jurisdictions (the first Sunday in November) at 2:00 a.m., when you should set your clocks back to 1:00 a.m.ย ๐ย โบย ๐ On this day in 1605, the Gunpowder Plot to bomb the opening session of the English Parliament and assassinate King James I was foiled and the plotter Guy Fawkes and his co-conspirators were arrested. (“Remember, remember, the Fifth of November.”)ย ๐ฃ Today is also the birthday of British poet and playwright James Elroy Flecker (1884โ1915).ย ๐ And our Sunday Statesย & Countries for next week will be Virginiaย ๐บ๐ธ, Colombiaย ๐จ๐ด, Comorosย ๐ฐ๐ฒ, Congo (Kinshasa)ย ๐จ๐ฉ, and Congo Republic (Brazzaville)ย ๐จ๐ฌ.
๐ฅ ๐ OUR WEEKLY TOAST is an old Halloween wish, for all the cheerful young trick-or-treaters who will be out on the town this week:
May witches, fays, and grinning cats,
Owls and sprites and sable bats,
Have good cheer on Hallowe’en,
And add enchantment to the scene,
With revels wild and free.
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 ๐จ๐ซ EVERYTHING FLOWS: The landlocked Central African Republic is one of our countries-of-the-week, so our Weekly World River is the Mbomou River, which flows along the border between the Central African Republic and Democratic Republic of the Congo. You can find its location in your recommended homeschool atlas, and you can read more about it in the Mbomou 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