You and your young science students can join the search for undiscovered pulsars in deep space, right from the comfort of your own homeschool living room. (Really!) How cool is that?
🗓 Homeschool Holidays & History: Little Lessons for the Whole Year
Great homeschool teaching tips and wonderful little lessons on history, holidays, anniversaries, and notable events from the River Houses Homeschool Network. Print your own homeschool calendar for the whole year on our main River Houses calendar page and follow along with us, and add your name to our free River Houses mailing list to get posts like these delivered right to your mailbox every week! 😊
🗡 HOMESCHOOL HISTORY & LITERATURE: ”Beware the Ides of March“
Let Shakespeare help you and your students remember one of the most famous dates in ancient history: the Ides of March in 44 B.C.
🎻 HOMESCHOOL MUSIC: Introducing Barber’s Adagio and Agnus Dei
Today is the birthday of the great American classical composer Samuel Barber (1910–1981). Introduce your homeschool students to one of his most famous works this week and give them a new treasure for life.
🎉 📖 WONDERFUL WORDS: Happy Dord Day!
“Lexicógrapher. n.s. [λεξικὸν and γράφω; lexicographe, French.] A writer of dictionaries; a harmless drudge, that busies himself in tracing the original, and detailing the signification of words.” (A humorous homeschool holiday, for all lovers of words and dictionaries.)
☀️ 🌍 HOMESCHOOL SCIENCE & HISTORY: Copernicus and His Revolutions
On Copernicus’ birthday, introduce your homeschool students to one of the most important books ever published: “On the Revolutions of the Celestial Spheres” (1543).
🖋 ☄️ WONDERFUL WORDS: The Truly Great
“Born of the sun, they travelled a short while toward the sun / And left the vivid air signed with their honour.” (Our transmigrational homeschool poem-of-the-week, from Stephen Spender, for the great birthdays of February.)
🔭 HOMESCHOOL SCIENCE & HISTORY: The Starry Messenger
Remembering one of the great minds of history, the Italian scientist Galileo Galilei (1564–1642), on the anniversary of his birth.
🇺🇸 🦋 HOMESCHOOL HISTORY: Lincoln and Darwin (and Horace)
Our recommended homeschool history encyclopedia is just the thing you need on a notable anniversary like today: the birthday of both Abraham Lincoln and Charles Darwin (in the same year, 1809).
🖋 ❤️ WONDERFUL WORDS: “Unwind the solemn twine, and tie my Valentine!”
“Awake ye muses nine, sing me a strain divine!” (Our amatory homeschool poem-of-the-week, from Emily Dickinson, for Valentine Week.)
🗓 ⚗️ HAPPY BIRTHDAY, DMITRI! (Mendeleev, that is)
The father of the Periodic Table of Elements, the great Russian chemist Dmitri Mendeleev, was born on this day in 1834 near Tobolsk, Siberia. Here are some clever educational ways to remember him in your homeschool.
⏚ 🐖 HOMESCHOOL HOLIDAYS: Happy Groundhog Day!
Happy mid-point of astronomical winter to homeschoolers everywhere! In other words, Happy Groundhog Day!
🎵 HOMESCHOOL MUSIC: Happy Birthday Mozart!
Happy birthday to one of the greatest musical composers of all time, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, born on this day in 1756 in Salzburg, Austria. Here are some little Mozart lessons that you can share with your homeschool students this week.
🖋 🌊 HOMESCHOOL HISTORY & LITERATURE: Remembering Challenger
“I must go down to the seas again, to the lonely sea and the sky, / And all I ask is a tall ship and a star to steer her by.” (Our homeschool poem-of-the-week, from John Masefield, for the Challenger Seven of 1986.)
🖋 🇺🇸 WONDERFUL WORDS (and Music!): Lift Every Voice and Sing
“Let our rejoicing rise / High as the listening skies, / Let it resound loud as the rolling sea.” (Our patriotic homeschool poem-of-the-week, from James Weldon Johnson, for Martin Luther King’s birthday.)
🎵 🎭 TWELFTH NIGHT and the End of Holiday Music Month 2022–2023
“Long long ago the world begun, / With a hey, ho, the wind and the rain. / But that’s all one, our play is done, / And we’ll strive to please you every day.” (Shakespeare helps us bring the Christmas Season, and our own Homeschool Holiday Music Month, to a close.)
🎵 🎉 HOLIDAY MUSIC MONTH: The Old Year Now Away is Fled
“Let’s merry be this day, / And let us now both sport and play, / Hang grief, cast care away, / God send you a happy new year!” (An ancient new-year carol sung to the tune “Greensleeves,” by the great countertenor Alfred Deller, for Homeschool Holiday Music Month.)
🖋 🔔 WONDERFUL WORDS (and Sounds!): Ring Out, Wild Bells!
“Ring out the old, ring in the new, / Ring, happy bells, across the snow: / The year is going, let him go; / Ring out the false, ring in the true.” (Join Tennyson and some skillful bell-ringers to ring in the new year.)
🖋 🍻 WONDERFUL WORDS (and Music!): Auld Lang Syne
“We two once ran along the hills and picked the daisies fine; / But we’ve wandered many a weary foot since those days of long ago.” (Our celebratory homeschool poem-of-the-week, from Robert Burns, for auld lang syne.)
🗡♗ HOMESCHOOL HISTORY: Murder in the Cathedral
Take five minutes today to teach your students the story of Archbishop Thomas Becket, whose murder on this day in the year 1170 has loomed large in the Western imagination for nearly a thousand years.
🌊 WONDERFUL WORDS: “It was a short, cold Christmas”
Herman Melville reminds us that even on Christmas Day, somewhere in the world there are ships and sailors heading out to sea.
🖋 🎅 WONDERFUL WORDS: ’Twas the Night Before Christmas
“The children were nestled all snug in their beds; / While visions of sugar-plums danced in their heads.” (Our festive homeschool poem-of-the-week, from Clement Clarke Moore, for Christmas Eve of course!)
📡 🎅 🦌 HOMESCHOOL HOLIDAYS: NORAD’s Santa Tracker is Up!
Want to know when Santa will deliver your Christmas presents? Don’t ask Amazon, ask the North American Air Defense Command! (And maybe even learn a little world geography along the way.)
🎵 🎄 A CHRISTMAS EVE INVITATION: Carols from King’s College
The beautiful Festival of Lessons and Carols from King’s College at Cambridge University is broadcast every year on Christmas Eve to millions of people around the world. You and your homescholars can join them.
🎵 MARVELOUS MUSIC: It’s Beethoven’s Birthday!
Take a few minutes out of your homeschool schedule today to celebrate an annual international musical milestone, to wit, Beethoven’s Birthday!
🖋 📖 WONDERFUL WORDS: Happy Birthday to Emily Dickinson!
“He ate and drank the precious Words — / His Spirit grew robust.” (Our literary homeschool poem-of-the-week, from Emily Dickinson, for her birthday.)
🎵 🏡 THANKSGIVING MUSIC: “Rise up, follow me, I will lead you home”
“Through the air there’s a calling from far away, / There’s a voice I can hear that will lead me home.” (Some lovely music and words from Stephen Paulus and Michael Dennis Browne, for homeschool Thanksgiving.)
🎵 🍽 HOMESCHOOL THANKSGIVING: We Gather Together
Take just a minute this week to introduce your homeschool students to a beautiful four-hundred-year-old Dutch folk tune that has become a Thanksgiving classic.
