Post Archives: Homeschool Terms & Calendars

Here — said the Year —

—Emily Dickinson

Great homeschool teaching ideas and little lessons about the four terms that make up the River Houses year (Cygnus, Orion, Leo, and Hercules), and about our annual River Houses calendars. Download and print your own educational calendars on our main homeschool calendars page, and add your name to our River Houses homeschool mailing list to get posts like these delivered right to your mailbox every week! 😊

🍎🍁🎃 HAPPY HOMESCHOOL OCTOBER from the River Houses!

1 October 2019 by Bob O'Hara

For live links, click to: riverhouses.org/2019-october

Happy October to all our readers and friends! Here are some things to look for in the homeschool month ahead.

October with 31 days is the middle month of Cygnus Term, our fall term in the River Houses. Cygnus Term runs from from September through November. Visit our main calendar page (riverhouses.org/calendars) and print out some of our simple educational calendars — they’ll help you create a light and easy structure for your homeschool year. 🗓

The month of October is so named because it was the eighth month (Latin octo, “eight”) of the ancient Roman calendar, which considered the spring equinox in March to be the beginning of the year. (That’s why the previous month was September, “Seventh,” and the next month is November, “Ninth,” and so on.) You can learn more about different kinds of modern and historical calendars on pages 358–364 in your River Houses almanac (riverhouses.org/books). 📚

Dietary advice for the month, courtesy of Richard Saunders’ Apollo Anglicanus (1665): “In this Moneth doth the Body wax dry, and the Brain moist; therefore it behoveth to eat roasted meats often in this Moneth, and drink pleasant Wine. Goats milk is held to be excellent good for this Moneth, because it purifieth the blood, and cleanseth the Lungs; its good to eat often Appletarts prepared with comfortable Spices and Sugar, for they comfort greatly the stomack.”

Also, agricultural advice for the month:

In October dung your field
and your land its wealth shall yield.

We’ll have homeschool poems this month from John Keats (for autumn), Emily Dickinson (for late bloomers), Robert Frost (for the harvest), and Gordon Bok (for the coming cold). Print your own River Houses Poetry Calendar and join us as we visit with forty-eight of our favorite friends over the course of the year. ✒️

Our monthly Great Star for October is Alpheratz (alpha Andromedae), which we’ll be writing about next week. Print your own River Houses Star Calendar and follow along as we visit twelve high lights of the northern hemisphere night sky and make them friends for life. 🌟

Our Sunday states-of-the-week for October will be Massachusetts, Maryland, South Carolina, and New Hampshire, and our countries will run from Bolivia to China. Print your own River Houses States & Countries Calendar and tour the whole world with us from Afghanistan to Zimbabwe. 🇺🇸 🌎

We’ll also be visiting World Heritage Sites in Belgium, Bolivia, Bulgaria, Cabo Verde, and the Central African Republic this month — our River Houses World Heritage Calendar will point the way. 🗺

Our monthly Dewey Decimal class for October will be the General 000s — follow along with us (on the first Tuesday) and help your students learn the whole library over the course of the year! 📚

Also coming up this month:

⬩ 13 October (Su): Our monthly report from the Lunar Society 🌕

⬩ 14 October (M): Columbus Day 🇺🇸 / Battle of Hastings, 1066 🇬🇧

⬩ 16 October (W): National Fossil Day ⚒

⬩ 25 October (F): St. Crispin’s Day, 1415 ⚔️

⬩ 31 October (Th): Halloween 🎃

What calendrical events will you be marking in your homeschool this month? 😊

❡ Thirty days hath September: This is one of our regular Homeschool Terms & Calendars posts (riverhouses.org/topics/calendars). Print your own River Houses Calendars (riverhouses.org/calendars) and follow along with us throughout the year, and add your name to our free mailing list (riverhouses.org/newsletter) to get great homeschool teaching ideas delivered right to your mailbox every week. 🗞

🍂 FALL is Here! (And Spring for Antipodeans)

23 September 2019 by Bob O'Hara

For live links, click to: riverhouses.org/2019-september-equinox

Today is the September equinox — we call it the autumnal or fall equinox in the northern hemisphere, but in the southern hemisphere it’s the vernal or spring equinox. The autumnal equinox is (in astronomical terms) the first day of fall, just as the vernal equinox is (in astronomical terms) the first day of spring.

❡ Little lessons: “Autumnal and vernal are beautiful words. Let’s look them up in our dictionary (riverhouses.org/books).”

Whenever you’re investigating things temporal or calendrical, timeanddate.com is always a good place to start:

➢ The September Equinox: Equal Day and Night, Nearly

The seasons occur because the earth’s axis of daily rotation is not quite perpendicular to the plane of the earth’s annual orbit around the sun (it’s tilted by about 23º). The solstices occur at the points in the orbit when the axis of rotation is tilted either most directly away from the sun (in December, on the first day of northern-hemisphere winter) or most directly toward the sun (in June, on the first day of northern-hemisphere summer). The two equinoxes, in March and September, occur when the earth’s axis of rotation is “sideways” to the sun (so to speak), making the intervals of daylight and darkness equal (or very nearly so).

The two equinoxes (March and September) and the two solstices (June and December) are defined with respect to the earth’s position in its annual orbit around the sun. (Image: timeanddate.com.)

NASA has a fun educational crossword puzzle for kids that’s filled with seasonal vocabulary — solstices, equinoxes, and more.

Solstices, equinoxes, orbits, and more! A seasonal crossword puzzle for kids. (Image: NASA.)

You can print out your own copy at NASA’s “For Educators” website.

What calendrical events and astronomical transitions will you be marking in your homeschool this season? 😊

🏡 HAPPY SEPTEMBER to All Our Homeschool Readers and Friends

1 September 2019 by Bob O'Hara

For live links, click to: riverhouses.org/2019-september

Happy September to all our readers and friends! Here are some things to look for in the homeschool month ahead.

September panel from Roman mosaic at El Djem, Tunisia, ca. A.D. 225. (Image: Ad Meskens / Wikimedia Commons.)

September with 30 days is the first month of Cygnus Term, our fall term in the River Houses. Cygnus Term opens our school year and runs from from September through November. Visit our main calendar page (riverhouses.org/calendars) and print out some of our simple educational calendars — they’ll help you create a light and easy structure for your 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 on pages 358–364 in your River Houses almanac (riverhouses.org/books). 📚

September is the month of the autumnal equinox in the northern hemisphere — the astronomical beginning of autumn — which falls this year on Monday the 23rd. (In the southern hemisphere the 23rd will be the vernal equinox — the astronomical beginning of spring.) The autumnal and vernal equinoxes each year are the days of “equal night and light,” when the period of darkness and the period of daylight are very nearly the same. 🌞🌚

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

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

Our Sunday states-of-the-week for September 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 whole world with us over the course of the year. 🇺🇸 🌏

We’ll also be visiting World Heritage Sites in Afghanistan, Angola, Australia, and Bahrain this month — our River Houses World Heritage Calendar will point the way. 🗺

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 of knowledge (really!) over the course of the school year. 📚

Also coming up this month:

⬩ 1 September (Su): The River Houses Year Begins! 🎉

⬩ 2 September (M): Labor Day (Federal Holiday). 🇺🇸

⬩ 12 September (Th): Traditional date of the Battle of Marathon, 490 B.C. 🏃

⬩ 14 September (Sa): Our monthly full-moon report from the Lunar Society (real research opportunities for homeschool students). 🌕

⬩ 17 September (Tu): Constitution Day / Citizenship Day. 🇺🇸

⬩ 19 September (Th): International Talk-Like-a-Pirate Day! (Arrr!) ☠️

⬩ 23 September (M): Autumnal (September) Equinox. 🌞🌚

What calendrical events will you be marking in your homeschool this month? 😊

🦢 CYGNUS TERM 2019 and the New River Houses Year

1 September 2019 by Bob O'Hara

For live links, click to: riverhouses.org/2019-cygnus

Today marks the beginning of the River Houses year and the beginning of our Fall Term — Cygnus Term — which runs from September through November.

We put great stock in the educational value of the calendar in the River Houses. The calendar is the framework on which we human beings hang a great many of the facts we know about the world: historical events, natural phenomena, personal reminiscences, the seasons, blooming flowers, migrating birds, the sun and moon, the planets, the stars. A key part of every student’s intellectual development is the development of “calendar sense” — a sense of time and history.

Our annual River Houses calendar divides the homeschool year into four three-month terms (quarters) that roughly correspond to the seasons, and these terms are named after prominent seasonal constellations of the northern hemisphere:

✦ Fall or Cygnus Term (September–November)
✦ Winter or Orion Term (December–February)
✦ Spring or Leo Term (March–May)
✦ Summer or Hercules Term (June–August)

This calendrical division is a new and open-ended idea that we’re developing for the River Houses, and we think has a great deal of educational potential. We’re looking forward to its elaboration as time goes on.

As you think about your own homeschool year, think about how different parts of it — curricular, co-curricular, social, or recreational — might be informally arranged into these three-month terms. You could have a different decorating theme in your classroom each term, for example, or you could schedule a regular trip to a special place at the beginning of each term to see how the seasons change. You could group your curricular work by term, or set goals at the beginning of each term that you want your students to meet. You could have your students measure their height and weight at the beginning of each term, or take their penny-jar to the bank for a quarterly deposit. At the end of each term you could assemble a portfolio of student accomplishments. With a little imagination you will be able to come up with a clever and comfortable arrangement and a new way to think about the structure of your educational year.

[The constellation Cygnus] — The constellation Cygnus, the Great Swan of the Heavens, making its nightly flight to the western horizon. (Image: Wikimedia Commons.)

Today is the first day of Cygnus Term, named for the Great Swan of the Heavens that is high in the east at sunset now each evening, and that will be passing overhead to the west as the fall comes on. Your students’ vocabulary word for the day is “cygnet.” 😊 And be sure to take note of the scientific names of the earthly swans on page 22 in your homeschool bird guide.

If you want to make a special astronomical study this Cygnus Term, your River Houses reference library (riverhouses.org/books) includes an excellent little guide to the night sky that will show you the location of Cygnus and its most prominent stars:

“Cygnus lies in what for observers is a dense and fascinating part of the sky. The bird’s wings span the Milky Way at a location packed with stars and an assortment of deep-sky objects. Owing to the positions of its brightest stars it is sometimes called the Northern Cross — the northern parallel to the Southern Cross constellation in the Southern Hemisphere. You will see Cygnus highest in the sky in late summer and early fall, with its head pointing south like a bird on its migratory path toward warmer climates.

“A thick band of dust lies within Cygnus, creating a dark space in the Milky Way that is easily visible to the naked eye under good conditions. This part of the Milky Way is known as the Cygnus Rift or the Northern Coalsack, a name borrowed from a similar dark spot found in the Southern Cross.“ (National Geographic Backyard Guide to the Night Sky, page 216)

Why not spend a little time out after dark with your students over the next three months and locate the Great Swan as it makes its nightly migratory flight to the west. Once you learn to spot him, you’ll have a friend for life.

[Chart of the constellation Cygnus] — Star chart of the constellation Cygnus. (Image: Wikimedia Commons.)

What educational adventures do you and your homescholars have planned for this Cygnus Term? 🦢

❡ Quarter days and cross-quarter days: Dividing the year into quarters is an ancient and natural practice: the annual movement of the sun across the sky automatically gives us two equinoxes, two solstices, and four seasons. Our four terms are just a simple modification of that natural arrangement so that our River Houses calendar will align more conveniently with the ordinary months and with the more-or-less customary American school year. In many traditional calendrical systems, going back into the Middle Ages, the first day of each quarter is called a quarter day and the midpoint of each quarter is called a cross-quarter day. That means the quarter days of the River Houses year are 1 September, 1 December, 1 March, and 1 June, and the cross-quarter days are 15 October, 15 January, 15 April, and 15 July. (Fun fact: a vestige of the old system of quarter and cross-quarter days is Groundhog Day, also known as Candlemas on the Christian calendar: it’s the cross-quarter day between the winter solstice and the spring equinox.) Quarter days have for centuries been the traditional days on which school terms began, so homeschoolers who follow our River Houses calendar are participating in a very ancient tradition indeed. 😊

❡ Watchers of the skies: Teaching your students to recognize the constellations is one of the simplest and most enduring gifts you can give them. Your recommended River Houses astronomy guide (riverhouses.org/books) has descriptions and maps of each constellation that point out the highlights, and the astronomical section of your recommended world atlas has beautiful large charts of both celestial spheres. Find a dark-sky spot near you this term and spend some quality homeschool time beneath the starry vault. 🔭

❡ Choose something like a star: If you’d like some more easy and comfortable homeschool astronomy lessons, download and print a copy of our annual River Houses Star Calendar (riverhouses.org/calendars) and follow along with us month by month as we make twelve heavenly friends-for-life over the course of the year. 🌟

🎉 THE 2019–2020 HOMESCHOOL YEAR BEGINS: Let the River Run!

1 September 2019 by Bob O'Hara

For live links, click to: riverhouses.org/2019-2020-year

Welcome to the 2019–2020 River Houses year! Let all the dreamers wake the nation.

➢

“Let the River Run” performed by Conspirare (Simon/arr. Johnson).

The River Houses project is a big and wonderful plan to create a new type of friendly, neighborhood, homeschool network. For the past year we’ve been constructing a wide range of educational materials, and over the coming year we’re going to be developing structural and organizational ideas for the local groups — the “houses” of our name — that will be the key components of our plan.

Please add your name to our free weekly mailing list (riverhouses.org/newsletter) to get great homeschool teaching ideas all through the coming year and to follow along with us as we grow. And be sure to print out your own River Houses calendars for the upcoming year (riverhouses.org/calendars) — they will help to give a light and easy structure to your educational year.

Let The River Run

Carly Simon

We’re coming to the edge,
Running on the water.

Let the river run,
Let all the dreamers
Wake the nation.
Come, the New Jerusalem.

Silver cities rise,
The morning lights
The streets that meet them,
And sirens call them on
With a song.

It’s asking for the taking.
Trembling, shaking.
Oh, my heart is aching.

We’re coming to the edge,
Running on the water,
Coming through the fog,
Your sons and daughters.

Let the river run,
Let all the dreamers
Wake the nation.
Come, the New Jerusalem.

Silver cities rise,
The morning lights
The streets that meet them,
And sirens call them on
With a song.

We’re coming to the edge,
Running on the water.

What works of art will you be creating, what astronomical alignments will you be examining, what calendrical events will you be marking, what geographical excursions will you be taking, what historical anniversaries will you be remembering, what holidays will you be celebrating, what museums will you be visiting, what music will you be playing, what poems will you be reciting, what scientific experiments will you be conducting, what stellar spectacles will you be observing, what wonderful words will you be reading, and what worlds will you be discovering your homeschool in the year ahead? 😊

❡ Let the river run: This is one of our occasional Homeschool Terms & Calendars posts. Print your own River Houses Calendars (riverhouses.org/calendars) and follow along with us throughout the year, and add your name to our free mailing list (riverhouses.org/newsletter) to get great homeschool teaching ideas delivered right to your mailbox every week. 🗞

🗓 HAPPY AUGUST to All Our Homeschool Readers and Friends!

1 August 2019 by Bob O'Hara

For live links, click to: riverhouses.org/2019-august

Happy August to all our readers and friends! Here are some things to look for in the homeschool month ahead.

August panel from Roman mosaic at El Djem, Tunisia, ca. A.D. 225. (Image: Ad Meskens / Wikimedia Commons.)

August with 31 days is the last month of Hercules Term, our summer term in the River Houses, and it’s the last month of the River Houses year. Visit our main calendar page (riverhouses.org/calendars) and print out some of our simple homeschool calendars — they’ll help you create a light and easy structure for your homeschool year. 🗓

The month of August was originally called Sextilis (“Sixth”) back when the ancient Roman calendar considered the spring equinox in March to be the beginning of the year. (That’s why next month is September, “Seventh,” followed by October, “Eighth,” and so on.) The sixth month was renamed August in honor of the emperor Caesar Augustus in the year 8 B.C. You can learn more about different kinds of modern and historical calendars on pages 358–364 in your River Houses almanac (riverhouses.org/books).

We’ll have homeschool poems this month from Herman Melville (for his birthday), Robert Frost (for the Perseid meteor shower), Helen Hunt Jackson (for late summer), and Robert Louis Stevenson (to bring our River Houses year to a close). ✒️

Our monthly Great Star for August is Vega (alpha Lyrae), which we’ll be writing about next week. Print your own copy of our River Houses Star Calendar and follow along with us as we visit twelve Great Stars of the northern hemisphere night sky and make them friends for life. 🌟

Our Sunday states-of-the-week for August — we’ve reached the end! — will be Alaska, Hawaii, and the U.S. Territories and Possessions (and our countries will run from Vietnam to Zimbabwe and beyond). 🇺🇸 🌏

Also coming up this month:

⬩ 12–13 August (M–Tu): The annual Perseid meteor shower! 🌠

⬩ 15 August (Th): Our monthly full-moon report from the Lunar Society (real research opportunities for homeschool students). 🌕

What calendrical events will you be marking in your homeschool this month? 😊

❡ Thirty days hath September: This is one of our occasional Homeschool Terms & Calendars posts (riverhouses.org/topics/calendars). Print your own set of River Houses Calendars (riverhouses.org/calendars) and follow along with us throughout the year. Add your name to our free mailing list (riverhouses.org/newsletter) and get great homeschool teaching ideas delivered right to your mailbox every week. 🗓

🗓 NEW PRINTABLE CALENDARS for the 2019–2020 Homeschool Year

15 July 2019 by Bob O'Hara

For live links, click to: riverhouses.org/2019-2020-calendars

Today is the midpoint of Hercules Term, our summer term in the River Houses. Our four terms — Cygnus, Orion, Leo, and Hercules — divide the homeschool year into four quarters that roughly correspond to the seasons. In many old calendar systems the first day of each term would be called a quarter day, and the mid-point of each term would be called a cross-quarter day.

On this cross-quarter day of Hercules Term we’re delighted to make available a new set of printable calendars for the upcoming 2019–2020 homeschool year that will begin in September:

➢ PRINTABLE CALENDARS for the 2019–2020 Homeschool Year (riverhouses.org/calendars)

The main calendar covers an assortment of major events and historical anniversaries throughout the year, and the four specialized calendars cover our annual schedules for poetry, astronomy, states and countries, and world historic sites. All five calendars are one-page pdf files, very simple to print and post on your family bulletin board.

These educational calendars are not designed for use with a specific curriculum — they are enrichment tools that can supplement any curriculum (even an open unschooling program), and they provide a light, comfortable, easy structure for your entire homeschool year. Pick one or two or three that strike your fancy, print them out, and follow along with us throughout the coming year.

Please share these calendars widely with all your homeschool groups and friends. When you and I have a calendar in common we have a range of shared experiences in common, and that’s what builds community, week by week, month by month, all through the year.

What calendrical events will you be marking in your homeschool this season? 😊

❡ Here, said the year: This is one of our occasional Homeschool Terms & Calendars posts. Add your name to our free weekly mailing list (riverhouses.org/newsletter) and get great homeschool teaching ideas delivered right to your mailbox all through the year. 🗞

🌝 KNOW YOUR MOONS! 🌑🌒🌓🌔🌕🌖🌗🌘🌑

11 July 2019 by Bob O'Hara

For live links, click to: riverhouses.org/2019-moon-phases

There will be a lovely gibbous moon high up in the southern sky this evening. Can your homeschool students recognize the phases of the moon? Why not teach them the lunar cycle during this momentous month when we are remembering the 50th anniversary of the first moon landing.

Did you know there’s an emoji symbol for each phase of the moon? It’s true! Whenever we’re posting about the moon here at the River Houses we try to use the correct emoji, and you can do the same, illustrating the moon’s phases for your students, quizzing them with emojis, and inviting them to recite the northern-hemisphere formula, “fills in from the right, drains out to the left”:

🌑 NEW
🌒 WAXING CRESCENT
🌓 FIRST QUARTER
🌔 WAXING GIBBOUS ← tonight
🌕 FULL (second quarter)
🌖 WANING GIBBOUS
🌗 THIRD QUARTER
🌘 WANING CRESCENT
🌑 NEW (again)

A complete cycle, from new to new, is one (lunar) month — 29 days — and the word month and moon are in fact cognate words, having the same historical origin. (Compare the expression, “many moons ago,” meaning, “many months ago.”)

The time from one quarter to the next — from new to first quarter, from first quarter to full (second quarter), from full to third quarter, or from third quarter to new again — is about seven days, and that’s the basis for the week, which is a quarter of a month: four quarters in one “moon,” four weeks in one month. (This also explains why lunar terminology is sometimes confusing to beginners: the first and third “quarter” moons are half full, because “quarter” doesn’t refer to appearance but rather to a given point within the monthly lunar cycle.)

Commemorative 2019 stamp marking the 50th anniversary of the Apollo 11 moon landing. The landing site in the Sea of Tranquility, which you can locate on a clear night with binoculars, is indicated by a yellow dot. (Image: U.S. Postal Service.)

What celestial observations will you and your students be making in your homeschool this lunar month? 😊

❡ Crescent and gibbous and waxing and waning: The word crescent is common in English in many contexts, but the word gibbous — convex, bulging, humped, hunchbacked — is much less common and is rarely used today to describe anything other than the moon, which is a shame because it’s a wonderful word. Similarly, waxing (growing, increasing) and waning (shrinking, decreasing) are used most often now as paired terms in the context of the moon, but they do still survive in a few other contexts (to wax poetic; his interest waned). 🌔 🌘

❡ Watchers of the skies: This is one of our regular Homeschool Astronomy posts. Add your name to our River Houses mailing list (riverhouses.org/newsletter) and get great homeschool teaching ideas delivered right to your mailbox every week. 😊

🌞 THE JUNE SOLSTICE is Here!

21 June 2019 by Bob O'Hara

For live links, click to: riverhouses.org/2019-june-solstice

Today is the June solstice — we call it the summer solstice in the northern hemisphere, but in the southern hemisphere it’s the winter solstice. The summer solstice is (in astronomical terms) the first day of summer, just as the winter solstice is (in astronomical terms) the first day of winter.

Whenever you’re investigating things temporal or calendrical, timeanddate.com is always a good place to start:

➔ The June Solstice: The Longest and Shortest Day of the Year

The seasons occur because the earth’s axis of daily rotation is not quite perpendicular to the plane of the earth’s annual orbit around the sun (it’s tilted by about 23º). The two solstices occur at the points in the orbit when the axis of rotation is tilted most directly away from the sun (in December, on the first day of northern-hemisphere winter) and most directly toward the sun (in June, on the first day of northern-hemisphere summer). The two equinoxes, in March and September, occur when the earth’s axis of rotation is “sideways” to the sun (so to speak), making the intervals of daylight and darkness equal (or very nearly so).

NASA has a fun educational crossword puzzle for kids that’s filled with seasonal vocabulary — solstices, equinoxes, and more.

You can print out your own copy at NASA’s “For Educators” website.

What calendrical events and astronomical transitions will you be marking in your homeschool this season? 😊

❡ Watchers of the skies: Teaching your students about the seasons and the stars is one of the simplest and most enduring gifts you can give them. The planisphere on the front of your River Houses star atlas (riverhouses.org/books) will let you dial up the northern hemisphere sky for any night of the year, and the descriptions and maps of each constellation will point out the highlights. Find a dark-sky spot near you this month and spend some quality homeschool time beneath the starry vault. 🌠 🔭 🌞

🗓 HERCULES TERM 2019

1 June 2019 by Bob O'Hara

For live links, click to: riverhouses.org/2019-hercules

Today marks the beginning of our Summer Term — Hercules Term — here in the River Houses. Hercules Term runs from June through August.

✦ Fall or Cygnus Term (September–November)
✦ Winter or Orion Term (December–February)
✦ Spring or Leo Term (March–May)
✦ Summer or Hercules Term (June–August)

As you think about your own homeschool year, think about how different parts of it — curricular, co-curricular, social, or recreational — might be informally arranged into these four three-month terms. You could have a different decorating theme in your classroom each term, for example, or you could schedule a regular trip to a special place at the beginning of each term to see how the seasons change. You could group your curricular work by term, or set goals at the beginning of each term that you want your students to meet. You could have your students measure their height and weight at the beginning of each term, or take their penny-jar to the bank for a quarterly deposit. At the end of each term you could assemble a portfolio of student accomplishments. With a little imagination you will be able to come up with a clever and comfortable arrangement and a new way to think about the structure of your educational year.

[The constellation Hercules] — The constellation Hercules, the Great Hero of the Heavens, making his nightly passage to the western horizon. (Image: Wikimedia Commons.)

Today is the first day of Hercules Term, named for the Great Hero of the Heavens, the son of Zeus and Alcmene, who is up in the southeast each evening now at sunset and will be passing high overhead throughout the summer.

Hercules Term is home to Flag Day (14 June), Father’s Day (16 June), and Independence Day (4 July); to the important 50th anniversary of the first moon landing this year (20 July, which is also Gregor Mendel’s birthday); and to the annual Perseid meteor shower (12–13 August) — not to mention countless other holidays and anniversaries, local and global, public and private, that you may wish to mark each year on your own homeschool calendar.

If you want to make a special astronomical study this Hercules Term, your River Houses reference library (riverhouses.org/books) includes a handy set of sky maps and a planisphere that will show you the location of the constellation Hercules and its most prominent stars:

“The keystone-shaped figure formed by the stars π [pi], η [eta], ζ [zeta] and ε [epsilon] Herculis helps to identify this constellation; also the stars θ [theta] and ι [iota] Herculis, representing respectively the bent left knee and the left foot of the kneeling Hercules, appear to rest directly on the head of Draco, the Dragon. It is one of the most ancient of the constellations. The outstanding feature of Hercules is the great globular cluster M13, the finest visible in the northern latitudes. On dark nights it is barely visible to the naked eye but it is easily seen in fieldglasses. A small telescope begins to reveal its beauty, while at least a 4″ telescope is necessary to resolve the stars. In a large telescope, it is a never-to-be-forgotten sight. There are thought to be no less than 100,000 stars in this cluster. Ras Algethi [α Herculis, the brightest star in the constellation] is binary and also an irregular variable, varying in magnitude from 3.1 to 3.9.“ (Celestron Sky Maps, page 8)

Why not spend a little time out after dark with your students over the next three months and locate the Great Hero as he makes his nightly passage to the west. Once you learn to spot him, you’ll have a friend for life.

[Chart of the constellation Hercules] — Star chart of the constellation Hercules. (Image: Wikimedia Commons.)

What educational adventures do you and your homescholars have planned for this Hercules Term? 😊

❡ Choose something like a star: If you’d like some more simple and comfortable homeschool astronomy lessons, download and print a copy of our River Houses Star Calendar (riverhouses.org/calendars) and follow along with us month by month, making twelve heavenly friends for life over the course of the year. 🌟

🗓 LIBRARY LESSONS: What Would a Perfect Calendar Look Like?

21 May 2019 by Bob O'Hara

For live links, click to: riverhouses.org/2019-utopian-calendar 😊

We love calendars here at the River Houses, and we love books and libraries too, so what could be better than a proposal for a perfect calendar, courtesy of the Library of Congress?

People have been trying to “reform” the world’s many date-keeping systems ever since date-keeping began. Lunar calendars, solar calendars, Julian calendars, Gregorian calendars, local calendars, perpetual calendars, leap years, leap seconds, extra days — the quest seems endless.

Joseph Collins’ “Proposed Utopian Calendar,” 1939. (Image: Library of Congress.)

Here’s one person’s vision for a perfect calendar — Joseph Collins’ “Proposed Utopian Calendar” from 1939, now scanned and available from the Library of Congress, complete with notes for teachers (like you!) on how to use this primary source to get students thinking about calendars and history:

➔ Mathematics and Primary Sources: In Search of the Perfect Calendar (Teaching with the Library of Congress)

Collins was disturbed by the fact that the months didn’t all have the same number of days, and that the same date didn’t always fall on the same day of the week. So he devised a complex mathematical system to correct for these problems — and thanks to the Library’s educational programs you can read his proposal in his own words, explore his new calendar diagram, and use them to sharpen your students’ thinking skills. After your students have spent some time contemplating Collins’ calendar, challenge them to come up with one of their own. Can there ever be such a thing as a perfect calendar? If so, why don’t we use it? If not, why not?

What educational discoveries have you made at your library lately? 😊

❡ Dukedoms large enough: Have you found all the local libraries in your area? There may be more than you realize, and there’s no better homeschool field trip than a field trip to a new library! The WorldCat Library Finder will help you find all the library collections near you — public and private, large and small — and the WorldCat catalog itself will help you locate the closest copy of almost any book in the world. 😊

❡ Books in the running brooks: The sidebar on the River Houses website (riverhouses.org) has links to several important online library collections that we like to explore. Why not sit yourself down at a large screen for a while (rather than a phone), and give them a browse. 😊

❡ When in doubt, go to the library: This is one of our regular Homeschool Books & Libraries posts. Add your name to our free weekly mailing list (riverhouses.org/newsletter) and get more great homeschool teaching ideas delivered right to your mailbox all through the year. 📚

🌟 STAR BRIGHT: Regulus for April (And a New Star Calendar)

13 April 2019 by Bob O'Hara

For live links, click to: riverhouses.org/2019-regulus 😊

We started a new tradition last month — a monthly Great Star — and this month we’re continuing and extending it. Please visit our homeschool calendars page and print a copy of our brand new River Houses Star Calendar, a simple one-page introduction to twelve of the Great Stars of the northern-hemisphere night sky that we will be learning about over the course of the year, and that we hope will become your friends for life:

➔ Printable Homeschool Calendars (riverhouses.org/calendars)

April is the middle month of Leo Term, and as the new calendar will show you, our great-star-of-the-month for April is Regulus, the brightest star in constellation Leo, the Lion of the Heavens. Its formal designation is α Leonis — “alpha of Leo.” Leo and Regulus are high in the southern sky in the early evening this month, passing over to the west as the night goes on.

The constellation Leo, showing the position of its alpha star, Regulus, the “Little King” that is the heart of the lion. The dashed red line is the ecliptic, the path that the sun, moon, and planets follow across the sky. (Image: Wikimedia Commons.)

If you want to introduce your students to Regulus, you can start with some basic astronomy from your homeschool star atlas (riverhouses.org/books):

“Leo is a zodiacal constellation lying south of Ursa Major [the Great Bear, which includes the Big Dipper]. It is one of the most beautiful of the constellations and is easily recognized; the stars forming the head of the lion are arranged in the shape of a sickle, or reversed ‘?’. Regulus, its brightest star, has a magnitude of 1.3 and is 19th among the 20 brightest stars in the sky. It lies almost exactly on the plane of the ecliptic and is therefore eclipsed by the sun once a year (on about August 23).“ (Celestron Sky Maps, page 6)

The planisphere on the front of your star atlas will help you locate Regulus, and that’s plenty for beginning students — your little lesson is done. If you want to get more advanced, the Wikipedia page on Regulus is packed with additional information on everything from astrometrics to cultural history.

The Regulus we see is blue-white, but that Regulus is actually just the primary star (Regulus A) of a quadruple system that is arranged into two pairs: Regulus A and a suspected white dwarf that is detectable only spectroscopically, and Regulus B and C (a pair that is visible as a single star in small telescopes). The B-C pair orbit each other, and together they orbit the primary star Regulus A (and its own tiny companion).

Regulus A (the primary star of the system) and its Regulus B-C neighbors (actually two stars, but appearing single here). (Image: Wikimedia Commons.)

The primary star Regulus A is about three times the diameter of our sun and it is spinning so fast that it bulges out at the equator: it takes only 16 hours to complete one rotation, in contrast to about 25 days for the sun. The four-star Regulus system is estimated to be about one billion years old — quite old, but less than a quarter of the age of our own solar system. If you’d like to give Regulus an in-person inspection just bring your earth-based spaceship up to the speed of light and you’ll be able to get there in only 79 years. 🚀

Download and print your own copy of our new River Houses Star Calendar (riverhouses.org/calendars) and follow along with us as we visit a different Great Star each month. 🌟

What stellar observations have you made in your homeschool lately? 😊

❡ Watchers of the skies: Teaching your students to recognize the constellations is one of the simplest and most enduring gifts you can give them. The planisphere on the front of your River Houses star atlas (riverhouses.org/books) will let you dial up the northern hemisphere sky for any night of the year, and the descriptions and maps of each constellation will point out the highlights, including the names and characteristics of the brightest stars. Your general world atlas also has beautiful maps of the whole northern and southern hemisphere night skies on plates 121–122. Why not find a dark-sky spot near you this month and spend some quality homeschool time beneath the starry vault. 🌠 🔭 🌌 🌟

❡ Alpha and beta and gamma, oh my: Most of the principal stars within each constellation have both old vernacular names — Vega, Sirius, Arcturus, and so on — as well as more formal scientific designations. The German astronomer Johann Bayer (1572–1625) devised the formal system of star designations that is still in common use today. In Bayer’s system, the stars in each constellation, from brightest to dimmest, are assigned a lowercase letter of the Greek alphabet: α (alpha, brightest), β (beta, second brightest), γ (gamma, third brightest), δ (delta, fourth brightest), and so on. This letter designation is combined with the Latin name of the constellation in its possessive (genitive) form: Lyra becomes Lyrae (“of Lyra”), Canis Major becomes Canis Majoris (“of Canis Major”), and so on. The brightest star in the constellation Lyra (the star Vega) thus becomes α Lyrae (“alpha of Lyra”), the brightest star in Canis Major (the star Sirius) becomes α Canis Majoris (“alpha of Canis Major”), and so on, through all 24 Greek letters and all 88 constellations. How bright would you expect, say, the σ (sigma) star of Orion to be? Not very bright — it’s far down the alphabet — but σ Orionis happens to be the top star of Orion’s sword, so even though it’s not very bright it’s still notable and easy to locate on a dark night.