🗓 📓 ✏️ HAPPY HOMESCHOOL SEPTEMBER from the River Houses!

Happy September and Happy New Homeschool Year to all our readers and friends! Here are some wonderful educational opportunities and teaching traditions that you and your students can watch for in the homeschool month ahead. 🔍

September with 30 days is the first month of Cygnus Term, our fall term in the River Houses. Cygnus Term opens our homeschool year and runs from September through November. 🦢 Visit our homeschool calendar page and print out some of our simple educational calendars and planners — they’ll help you create a light and easy structure for your own homeschool year. 🗓

The month of September is so named because it was the seventh month (Latin septem, “seven”) of the ancient Roman calendar, which considered the spring equinox in March to be the beginning of the year. (That’s why next month is October, “Eighth,” followed by November, “Ninth,” and so on.) You can learn more about different kinds of modern and historical calendars in the Calendar section of your River Houses almanac. 📚

September signs and wonders:

When the goldenrod is yellow,
 And the leaves are turning brown —
Reluctantly the summer goes
 In a cloud of thistledown.
When squirrels all are harvesting
 And birds in flight appear —
By these autumn signs we know
 September days are here.

September is the month of the autumnal (fall) equinox in the northern hemisphere — the astronomical beginning of autumn — which falls this year on Sunday the 22nd. (In the southern hemisphere the 22nd will be the vernal equinox — the astronomical beginning of spring.) The autumnal and vernal equinoxes each year are the days of “equal light and night,” when the number of minutes of darkness and the number of minutes of daylight are very nearly the same. 🌞 🌚

Our Sunday states-of-the-week for September, to begin the new school year, will be Delaware, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Georgia, and Connecticut, and our countries will run from Afghanistan to Bhutan. Print your own River Houses States & Countries Calendar and tour the United States and the whole world with us from Delaware to Hawaii and Afghanistan to Zimbabwe. 🇺🇸 🌎

We’ll have homeschool poems this month from Horace (the Roman, not the otter, for the new homeschool year), Elizabeth Jennings (for approaching fall), Robert Frost (for migrating Monarchs), and Emily Dickinson (for departing summer). Print your own River Houses Poetry Calendar and join us as we visit with fifty of our favorite friends over the course of the year. ✒️

Our Friday Bird Families posts this month will feature an introduction to you bird guide; the Ducks, Geese, and Swans (twice over); and the many “Gallinaceous” birds (Grouse, Partridges, Quails, Turkeys, and more). Print your own copy of our River Houses Calendar of American Birds, get out your recommended homeschool bird guide, and follow the flyways with us. 🦅

Our monthly Great Star for September is Deneb (alpha Cygni), which we’ll be writing about next week. Print your own River Houses Stars & Constellations Calendar and join us as we visit twelve high lights of the northern hemisphere night sky and make them friends for life. 🌟

Our monthly Learning the Library post for September will introduce our annual tour of the Dewey Decimal system — follow along with us (on the first Tuesday of each month) and invite your students to explore the whole universe of knowledge (really!) over the course of the homeschool year. 📚

And watch for our monthly Wikimedia Commons Photo Challenge post, coming up in the next few days — it’s a great opportunity for homeschool photographers. 📸

Also coming up this month:

 ⬩ 1 September (Su): The River Houses Year Begins! 🎉
 ⬩ 2 September (M): Labor Day 🇺🇸
 ⬩ 12 September (Th): Traditional date of the Battle of Marathon, 490 B.C. 🏃
 ⬩ 17 September (Tu): Constitution Day & Citizenship Day 🇺🇸
 ⬩ 17 September (Tu): Lunar Society Report 🌕
 ⬩ 19 September (Th): International Talk-Like-a-Pirate Day! ☠️
 ⬩ 22 September (Su): Autumnal (September) Equinox 🍂

And finally, look, and see the world a-right:

For man, autumn is a time of harvest, of gathering together. For nature, it is a time of sowing, of scattering abroad.

What calendrical events and annual apparitions will you and your students be marking in your homeschool this September? 😊

❡ Thirty days hath September: This is one of our regular posts about the seasons, months, and terms that make up the River Houses Homeschool Year. Add your name to our free mailing list to get more great homeschool teaching ideas delivered right to your mailbox every week. 📫

❡ 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! 🗓

❡ Support our work: If you enjoy our educational materials, please support us by starting your regular Amazon shopping from our very own homeschool teaching supplies page. When you click through from our page, any purchase you make earns us a small commission at no extra cost to you. Thank you for helping us to keep going and growing! 🛒

❡ 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. 🏡