![[Thomas Tallis historical marker]](https://riverhouses.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/12/tallis-132x150.jpg)
Why not give thanks in your homeschool this Thanksgiving week for the life of Thomas Tallis, the grand master of early polyphonic music, who died on this day in 1585.
🗓 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! 😊
🖋 🦃 WONDERFUL WORDS: Delicious “Thanksgiving Magic”
“Oh, some like magic made by wands, / And some read magic out of books, / And some like fairy spells and charms / But I like magic made by cooks!” (Our playful homeschool poem-of-the-week, from Rowena Bastin Bennett, for Thanksgiving!)
🇺🇸 HOMESCHOOL HISTORY: Seven Score and Nineteen Years Ago
“What place is this? Where are we now?” (Marking the 159th anniversary of the Gettysburg Address, with help from Ken Burns and Carl Sandburg.)
📚 🇺🇸 HOMESCHOOL OPPORTUNITIES: The Veterans History Project
You and your homeschool students can contribute to an important historical documentary project by interviewing American veterans in your family or community for the Library of Congress.
🖋 🕊 THE ELEVENTH DAY of the Eleventh Month: We Will Remember Them
“They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old: / Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn. / At the going down of the sun and in the morning / We will remember them.” (Our commemorative homeschool poem-of-the-week, from Laurence Binyon, for Veterans Day and Armistice Day.)
⚗️ HOMESCHOOL SCIENCE & HISTORY: Happy Birthday to Marie Curie!
Happy birthday to the great physicist, chemist, and two-time Nobel laureate Marie Skłodowska Curie, born on this day in 1867.
🖋 🇺🇸 WONDERFUL WORDS: America’s Choosing Day
“These stormy gusts and winds waft precious ships.” (An extra electoral homeschool poem-of-the-week, from Walt Whitman, for the first Tuesday after the first Monday in November.)
👻 HOMESCHOOL SPOOKIDAYS: Quoth the Raven, “Nevermore”
Light a candle, turn out the lights, and let Edgar Allan Poe entertain you and your homeschool students this Halloween.
👑 “FROM THIS DAY to the ending of the world”
“This day is call’d the feast of Crispian.” (Celebrate some Shakespearean history in your homeschool on this St. Crispin’s Day.)
⚔️ “THIS STORY shall the good man teach his son“
“He that shall live this day and see old age, will yearly on the vigil feast his neighbours, and say ‘To-morrow is Saint Crispin’s.'” (A homeschool toast to offer from this day to the ending of the world.)
🇺🇸 HOMESCHOOL HISTORY: Yorktown 1781
Invite your homeschool students to remember the British surrender at Yorktown, Virginia, on this day in 1781.
🏹 🧵 HOMESCHOOL HISTORY: 1066 and All That
Today is the anniversary of the Battle of Hastings in 1066: the beginning of the Norman Conquest of England. Why not use this occasion to introduce your homeschool students to one of the most famous objects that has survived from the Middle Ages: the Bayeux Tapestry.
🌐 HOMESCHOOL GEOGRAPHY: The Prime Meridian
On this day in 1884, the north-south line running through the Royal Observatory at Greenwich, England, was established as our planet’s Prime Meridian: the line of 0º longitude.
⛏ NATURE NOTES: It’s National Fossil Day!
For National Fossil Day, why not explore a big collection of rare and beautiful books on paleontology made available by the Smithsonian Institution and the Biodiversity Heritage Library.
🎵 🍎 WONDERFUL WORDS (and Music!): My Orchard in Linden Lea
“I be free to go abroad / Or take again my homeward road / To where for me the apple tree / Do lean down low in Linden Lea.” (A bonus poem-of-the-week, from William Barnes and Ralph Vaughan Williams, for apple season and Vaughan Williams’ birthday.)
🚀 HOMESCHOOL SCIENCE: Remembering Space Pioneer Robert Goddard
Robert Hutchings Goddard, the inventor of the liquid-fueled rocket and the father of modern space flight, was born on this day in 1882 in Worcester, Massachusetts. Invite your young homeschool scientists to learn about him this week.
📜 🇺🇸 THE U.S. NATIONAL ARCHIVES and Constitution Day
The National Archives in Washington has a wealth of free teaching materials available that are ideal for homeschoolers. Why not pay them a visit this week to celebrate the signing of the U.S. Constitution on 17 September 1787.
🇺🇸 HOMESCHOOL HISTORY: Remembering 9/11
On this anniversary of the September 11th terrorist attacks, why not invite your homeschool students to contemplate the Star-Spangled Banner, in Baltimore, New York, and London.
🇺🇸 HAPPY BIRTHDAY to General Nathanael Greene, “The Fighting Quaker”
Happy birthday to “The Fighting Quaker,” General Nathanael Green of Rhode Island, one of the great military strategists of the American Revolution, born this day in 1742.
💰 HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO THE LINCOLN CENT, “Born” This Day in 1909
The familiar Lincoln penny — you may have one in your pocket right now — first went into circulation on this day in 1909. It was struck to commemorate the 100th anniversary of Abraham Lincoln’s birth.
🖋 🍻 WONDERFUL WORDS: To the Meteor Rolling Home
“Of thee we think, in a ring we link; / To the shearer of ocean’s fleece we drink, / And the ‘Meteor’ rolling home.” (Our homeschool poem-of-the-week, from Herman Melville, for his birthday, and for this month’s Perseid meteor shower.)
🖋 🔔 WONDERFUL WORDS: As Kingfishers Catch Fire
“Like each tucked string tells, each hung bell’s / Bow swung finds tongue to fling out broad its name.” (Our homeschool poem-of-the-week, from Gerard Manley Hopkins, for his birthday and for the halcyon days of summer.)
🚀 🌕 HOMESCHOOL SCIENCE: Apollo 11 Moon Landing Resources
Share some great educational resources with your homeschool students this week on the anniversary of the Apollo 11 moon landing in 1969.
📖 🖋 THOREAU’S BIRTHDAY and Homeschool Journaling
“How vain it is to sit down to write when you have not stood up to live.” (Happy birthday to the great American writer Henry David Thoreau, born on this day in 1817. Check him out at your local library this week.)
📜 🇺🇸 INDEPENDENCE DAY and the Declaration
Be sure to add a visit to the National Archives and the Declaration of Independence (in person or online) to your homeschool Fourth of July calendar!
🖋 🇺🇸 WONDERFUL WORDS: William Emerson on “A Nation’s Strength”
“Not gold but only men can make / A people great and strong.” (Our patriotic homeschool poem-of-the-week, from William Ralph Emerson, for Independence Day.)
🌠 JOIN A REAL ASTEROID PROJECT for International Asteroid Day!
You and your students can help astronomers study the shapes and orbits of real asteroids in space, right from the comfort of your little home academy. How cool is that?
