Post Archives: Quick Freshes for Homeschool Families

For live links, click to: riverhouses.org/2019-10-13

Quick Freshes are our regular Sunday notes on the homeschool week ahead. Pick one or two (or more) of the items below each week and use them to enrich your homeschooling schedule! Visit our River Houses calendar page (riverhouses.org/calendars) and print your own homeschool calendars for the entire year.

🇺🇸 OUR STATE-OF-THE-WEEK is Maryland, and our COUNTRIES are Brunei 🇧🇳, Bulgaria 🇧🇬, Burkina Faso 🇧🇫, and Burundi 🇧🇮. (Our separate Sunday States & Countries post for the week went up just a few minutes ago.)

🌕 THE MOON at the beginning of this week is full — a good time to be out and about in the well-lit night! You can explore the night sky and the features of the moon in your recommended backyard astronomy guide and your homeschool world atlas, and you can learn a host of stellar and lunar facts on pages 342–357 in your almanac (riverhouses.org/books).

🗓 TODAY, Sunday (13 October 2019) — Today is the 286th day of 2019; there are 79 days remaining in the year. Learn more about different kinds of modern and historical calendars on pages 358–364 in your River Houses almanac (riverhouses.org/books). 📚 One of the most beautiful objects in the night sky, the Whirlpool Galaxy, was discovered on this day in 1773 by French astronomer Charles Messier. 🔭 The United States Navy was established on this day in 1775 by the Continental Congress, before there was even a United States! ⚓️ The cornerstone of the White House in Washington, D.C., was laid on this day in 1792. 🇺🇸 And, there’s a full moon tonight, so that means we’ll have a report on student research opportunities from the River Houses Lunar Society (riverhouses.org/lunar). 🌕

Monday (14 October 2019) — Today is Columbus Day in the United States, a federal holiday commemorating the arrival of Christopher Columbus in the Americas on the 12th of October in 1492. Spain, Italy, and almost all the countries in Latin America have an equivalent holiday. 🌎 On this day in 1066, French forces commanded by William of Normandy defeated the English army of King Harold II in the Battle of Hastings. ⚔️ And on this day in 1926, the much-loved children’s book Winnie-the-Pooh by A.A. Milne was published. 🐻

Tuesday (15 October 2019) — On this day in 1783 at Faubourg Saint-Antoine near Paris, Étienne Montgolfier (1745–1799) became the first human being to ascend from the surface of the earth in a hot-air balloon. 🎈 Our homeschool poem-of-the-week for the third week of October is Robert Frost’s “After Apple-Picking,” for the fall harvest. 🍎 Print your own River Houses Poetry Calendar (riverhouses.org/calendars) and follow along with us throughout the year. 🖋

Wednesday (16 October 2019) — Today is the midpoint of Cygnus Term and so one of the four cross-quarter days of the River Houses year. 🦢 Today is also the birthday of American lexicographer and education pioneer Noah Webster (1758–1843), of dictionary fame. 📖 And it’s also the birthday of the Irish playwright and novelist Oscar Wilde (1854–1900). 🎭 On this day in 1859, in one of the precipitating events of the Civil War, the abolitionist John Brown (1800–1859) led an armed raid on the United States arsenal at Harpers Ferry, Virginia. ⚔️ And … it’s National Fossil Day! ⛏

Thursday (17 October 2019) — On this day in 1604, German astronomer Johannes Kepler began making observations of a “new star” that had appeared in the constellation Ophiuchus. That new star is now called Kepler’s Supernova, the last naked-eye supernova known to have occurred in the Milky Way. 🌟

Friday (18 October 2019) — The great American novel Moby-Dick by Herman Melville was first published on this day in 1851 in London (sic). 🐳 Today is also the birthday of the great rock-and-roll pioneer Chuck Berry (1926–2017). 🎸 And our Friday Bird Families post this week will introduce you to a bunch of birds with funny names: the Cuckoos, Roadrunners, Anis, and Goatsuckers. Print your own River Houses Calendar of American Birds (riverhouses.org/calendars) and follow along with us throughout the year. 🐦

Saturday (19 October 2019) — Today is the birthday of Sir Thomas Browne (1605–1682), author of some of the most luminous prose in the English language. ⚱️ And on this day in 1781 at Yorktown, Virginia, British forces under the command of Lord Cornwallis surrendered to George Washington and Comte de Rochambeau, effectively ending the American Revolution. 🕊

Sunday (20 October 2019) — Today is the birthday of the architect Sir Christopher Wren (1632–1732), who rebuilt much of central London after the Great Fire of 1666. 🏛 And on this day in the year 1803, the United States Senate ratified the Louisiana Purchase. 🇺🇸

🥂 OUR WEEKLY TOAST is one of our traditional offerings, for the birthday of the United States Navy: “To the wind that blows, and the ship that goes, and the lass that loves a sailor.”

❡ Toasts can be a fun educational tradition for your family table. We offer one each week — 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 (“To variety in toasting!”). What will you toast this week? 🥂

🌏 EVERYTHING FLOWS: Brunei is one of our countries-of-the-week, so our Weekly World River is, appropriately enough, the Brunei River. You can chart its course in your recommended homeschool atlas (riverhouses.org/books), and you can read more about it in the Brunei River entry in Wikipedia or perhaps on your next visit to your local library.

❡ Let the river run: Why not do a homeschool study of world rivers over the course of the year? Take the one we select each week (above), or start with the river lists in your almanac (pages 691–693), 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. A whole world of geographical learning awaits you. 🌏

What do you have planned for your homeschool this week? 😊

❡ 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 (riverhouses.org/newsletter) and get these weekly messages delivered right to your mailbox all through the year. You can also print your own River Houses calendars of educational events (riverhouses.org/calendars) and follow along with us. 🗓

For live links, click to: riverhouses.org/2019-10-06

Quick Freshes are our regular Sunday notes on the homeschool week ahead. Pick one or two (or more) of the items below each week and use them to enrich your homeschooling schedule! Visit our River Houses calendar page (riverhouses.org/calendars) and print your own homeschool calendars for the entire year.

🇺🇸 OUR STATE-OF-THE-WEEK is Massachusetts, and our COUNTRIES are Bolivia 🇧🇴, Bosnia and Herzegovina 🇧🇦, Botswana 🇧🇼, and Brazil 🇧🇷. (Our separate Sunday States & Countries post for the week went up just a few minutes ago.)

🌔 THE MOON at the beginning of this week is gibbous and waxing, heading toward full on the 13th. You can explore the night sky and the features of the moon in your recommended backyard astronomy guide and your homeschool world atlas, and you can learn many more stellar and lunar facts on pages 342–357 in your almanac (riverhouses.org/books).

🗓 TODAY (Sunday, 6 October 2019) — Today is the 279th day of 2019; there are 86 days remaining in the year. Learn more about different kinds of modern and historical calendars on pages 358–364 in your River Houses almanac (riverhouses.org/books). 📚 Today is also the birthday of the Norwegian explorer and ethnographer Thor Heyerdahl (1914–2002). 🌊

Monday (7 October 2019) — Today is the birthday of the early American choral composer William Billings (1746–1800). 🎶 And the great Danish physicist and Nobel laureate Niels Bohr was born on this day in 1885. ⚛️

Tuesday (8 October 2019) — On this day in 1956, New York Yankees pitcher Don Larsen threw the only perfect game in World Series history. ⚾️ Our homeschool poem-of-the-week for the second week of October is Emily Dickinson’s “God made a little Gentian,” for all late-bloomers. 🥀 Print your own River Houses Poetry Calendar (riverhouses.org/calendars) and follow along with us throughout the year. 🖋

Wednesday (9 October 2019) — “Kepler’s Supernova” was first seen on this day in 1604. The brightest Milky Way supernova in modern times, it was visible during daylight hours for three weeks. 🌟 Today is also the birthday of American businessman Charles Rudolph Walgreen (1873–1939), founder of the nationwide Walgreens pharmacy chain. 🛒

Thursday (10 October 2019) — Today is the birthday of the great Italian composer Giuseppe Verdi (1813–1901). 🎼 And on this day in 1845 in Annapolis, Maryland, the United States Naval Academy opened with 50 students and seven professors. ⚓️

Friday (11 October 2019) — And speaking of the navy, on this day in 1776, American naval forces on Lake Champlain under the command of Benedict Arnold were defeated by the British in the Battle of Valcour Island. ⚔️ Although it was an American loss, the Battle of Valcour Island successfully delayed the British advance down the Hudson–Champlain corridor for nearly a year and may have saved the cause of the Revolution. 🇺🇸 Our Friday Bird Families post this week will introduce you to a familiar worldwide group, the Pigeons and Doves. Print your own River Houses Calendar of American Birds (riverhouses.org/calendars) and follow along with us throughout the year. 🕊

Saturday (12 October 2019) — The great Athenian orator Demosthenes died on this day in 322 B.C. 🏛 Today is the birthday of the great English composer Ralph Vaughan Williams (1872–1958). 🎵 And since this is the second Saturday of the month, we’ll introduce you to another one of the Great Stars of the northern hemisphere night sky. This month: Alpheratz, the brightest star in the constellation Andromeda. 🌟

Sunday (13 October 2019) — One of the most beautiful objects in the universe, the Whirlpool Galaxy, was discovered on this day in 1773 by French astronomer Charles Messier. 🔭 The cornerstone of the White House in Washington, D.C., was laid on this day in 1792. 🇺🇸 And, there’s a full moon tonight, so that means we’ll have a report on student research opportunities from the River Houses Lunar Society (riverhouses.org/lunar). 🌕

🥂 OUR WEEKLY TOAST: “To a full belly, a heavy purse, and a light heart.”

❡ Toasts can be a fun educational tradition for your family table. We offer one each week — 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 (“To variety in toasting!”). Our current set of toasts are mostly taken from an old anthology called The Perfect Gentleman; or, Etiquette and Eloquence (New York, 1860). What will you toast this week? 🥂

🌎 EVERYTHING FLOWS: Bolivia is one of our countries-of-the-week, so our Weekly World River is the Yata River (Río Yata), which known for its flesh-eating piranhas. 🐟🐟🐟 You can chart its course in your recommended homeschool atlas (riverhouses.org/books), and you can read more about it in the Yata River entry in Wikipedia or perhaps on your next visit to your local library.

❡ Let the river run: Why not do a homeschool study of world rivers over the course of the year? Take the one we select each week (above), or start with the river lists in your almanac (pages 691–693), 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. A whole world of geographical learning awaits you. 🌎

AND DON’T FORGET: Friday the 13th comes on a Sunday this month! 🙀

What do you have planned for your homeschool this week? 😊

❡ 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 (riverhouses.org/newsletter) and get these weekly messages delivered right to your mailbox all through the year. You can also print your own River Houses calendars of educational events (riverhouses.org/calendars) and follow along with us. 🗓

For live links, click to: riverhouses.org/2019-09-29

Quick Freshes are our regular Sunday notes on the homeschool week ahead. Pick one or two (or more) of the items below each week and use them to enrich your homeschooling schedule! Visit our River Houses calendar page (riverhouses.org/calendars) and print your own homeschool calendars for the entire year.

🇺🇸 OUR STATE-OF-THE-WEEK is Connecticut, and our COUNTRIES are Belgium 🇧🇪, Belize 🇧🇿, Benin 🇧🇯, and Bhutan 🇧🇹. (Our separate Sunday States & Countries post for the week went up just a few minutes ago.)

🌒 THE MOON at the beginning of this week is a waxing crescent, just past new (yesterday) — an excellent time for stargazing! You can explore the night sky and the features of the moon in your recommended backyard astronomy guide and your homeschool world atlas, and you can learn many more stellar and lunar facts on pages 342–357 in your almanac (riverhouses.org/books).

🗓 TODAY (Sunday, 29 September 2019) — Today is the 272nd day of 2019; there are 93 days remaining in the year. Learn more about different kinds of modern and historical calendars on pages 358–364 in your River Houses almanac (riverhouses.org/books). 📚 Today is the birthday of the great Spanish writer Miguel de Cervantes (1547–1616). 🇪🇸 It’s also the birthday of the pioneering Austrian–American economic philosopher Ludwig von Mises (1881–1973). 💵 And not only that, it’s also the birthday of the great Italian–American physicist and Nobel laureate Enrico Fermi (1901–1954). ⚛️

Monday (30 September 2019) — Today is the birthday of William Wrigley, Jr. (1861–1932), founder of the Wrigley chewing gum company. 👦🏻👧🏼 And the Hoover Dam on the Arizona–Nevada border was dedicated on this day in 1935. 🍾

Tuesday (1 October 2019) — The first Ford Model T automobile was put on sale on this day in 1908. The price was $825. 🚗 Since this is the first Tuesday of the month, today we’ll invite you to browse a new Dewey Decimal class with your students on your next visit to your local library. This month: Class 000 (General Works). 📚 And our homeschool poem-of-the-week for the first week of October is “To Autumn” by John Keats, perhaps the most famous fall poem in the English language and a work every student of literature should know. 🍂 Print your own River Houses Poetry Calendar (riverhouses.org/calendars) and follow along with us throughout the year. 🖋

Wednesday (2 October 2019) — Today is the birthday of Indian lawyer, philosopher, and political leader Mohandas Gandhi (1869–1948). 🇮🇳 And the comic strip Peanuts premiered on this day in 1950. 📰

Thursday (3 October 2019) — Today is the birthday of English veterinarian James Herriot (1916–1995), author of All Creatures Great and Small and other popular books on animals. 🐑🐂🐓🐖🐐

Friday (4 October 2019) — On this day in 1582, the Gregorian calendar was adopted on the European continent by decree of Pope Gregory (of course) XIII. Today was the 4th of the month, and tomorrow was declared to be the 15th. (The English-speaking world didn’t make the change for almost two more centuries.) 🗓 Our Friday Bird Families this week are two very different groups of aquatic birds, the Grebes and Flamingos. Print your own River Houses Calendar of American Birds and follow along with us throughout the year. 🐦

Saturday (5 October 2019) — Today is the birthday of the American engineer Robert Goddard (1882–1945), inventor of the liquid-fueled rocket. 🚀 And since Goddard’s birthday also happens to be the first Saturday of the month, we’ll appropriately enough post our regular monthly preview today of some of the astronomical events you and your students can watch for over the next few weeks. 🔭

Sunday (6 October 2019) — Today is the birthday of the Norwegian explorer and ethnographer Thor Heyerdahl (1914–2002). 🌊

🥂 OUR WEEKLY TOAST: “May truth and liberty prevail throughout the world.”

❡ Toasts can be a fun educational tradition for your family table. We offer one each week — 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 (“To variety in toasting!”). Our current set of toasts are mostly taken from an old anthology called The Perfect Gentleman; or, Etiquette and Eloquence (New York, 1860). What will you toast this week? 🥂

🌍 EVERYTHING FLOWS: Belgium is one of our countries-of-the-week, so our Weekly World River is the Yser River, which flows through Belgium and part of France and empties into the North Sea at Nieuwpoort, Belgium. You can chart its course in your recommended homeschool atlas (riverhouses.org/books), and you can read more about it in the Yser River entry in Wikipedia or perhaps on your next visit to your local library.

❡ Let the river run: Why not do a homeschool study of world rivers over the course of the year? Take the one we select each week (above), or start with the river lists in your almanac (pages 691–693), 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. A whole world of geographical learning awaits you. 🌍

What do you have planned for your homeschool this week? 😊

❡ 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 (riverhouses.org/newsletter) and get these weekly messages delivered right to your mailbox all through the year. You can also print your own River Houses calendars of educational events (riverhouses.org/calendars) and follow along with us. 🗓

For live links, click to: riverhouses.org/2019-09-22

Quick Freshes are our regular Sunday notes on the homeschool week ahead. Pick one or two (or more) of the items below each week and use them to enrich your homeschooling schedule! Visit our River Houses calendar page (riverhouses.org/calendars) and print your own homeschool calendars for the entire year.

🇺🇸 OUR STATE-OF-THE-WEEK is Georgia, and our COUNTRIES are Bahrain 🇧🇭, Bangladesh 🇧🇩, Barbados 🇧🇧, and Belarus 🇧🇾. (Our separate Sunday States & Countries post for the week went up just a few minutes ago.)

🌘 THE MOON at the beginning of this week is a waning crescent — an increasingly good time for stargazing! You can explore the night sky and the features of the moon in your recommended backyard astronomy guide and your homeschool world atlas, and you can learn many more stellar and lunar facts on pages 342–357 in your almanac (riverhouses.org/books).

🗓 TODAY (Sunday, 22 September 2019) — Today is the 265th day of 2019; there are 100 days remaining in the year. Learn more about different kinds of modern and historical calendars on pages 358–364 in your River Houses almanac (riverhouses.org/books). 📚 On this day in 1776, American spy Nathan Hale, age 21, was executed by the British in New York City. His final words were said to be, “I only regret, that I have but one life to lose for my country.” 🇺🇸 Today is also Hobbit Day! 🌋 And our homeschool poem-of-the-week for the last week of September, as astronomical summer becomes fall, is Emily Dickinson’s equinoctial lyric “As imperceptibly as Grief.” 🍃 Print your own River Houses Poetry Calendar (riverhouses.org/calendars) and follow along with us throughout the year. 🖋

Monday (23 September 2019) — Happy First Day of Fall! 🍂 Today is the September Equinox, also known as the Autumnal or Fall Equinox in the northern hemisphere and the Vernal or Spring Equinox in the southern hemisphere (where today is the first day of spring). 🗓 Today is also the birthday of Gaius Octavius Thurinus, better known as Augustus Caesar, the first emperor of the Roman Empire (63 B.C. – A.D. 14). 🏛

Tuesday (24 September 2019) — On this day in 1789, the U.S. Congress, acting under the new Constitution, established the federal judiciary system and specified a structure for the Supreme Court (with six, not the current nine, justices). ⚖️ And … it’s National·Punctuation·Day!@*&(#)&*@!

Wednesday (25 September 2019) — Today is the birthday of the great American geneticist and Nobel Prize laureate Thomas Hunt Morgan (1866–1945), who established the role of chromosomes in the process of inheritance. 🔬 It’s also the birthday of American poet and children’s author Shel Silverstein (1930–1999). 📚 And the great Canadian classical pianist Glenn Gould was born on this day in 1932. 🎹

Thursday (26 September 2019) — On this day in 1687, during the Venetian siege of Athens, a bomb fell on the Parthenon, which was being used by the Ottoman Turks for munitions storage. The roof, parts of the frieze, and many of the columns, which had stood for more than two thousand years, were destroyed. 🏛 Today is the birthday of American nurseryman and folk hero John Chapman (1774–1845), better known as Johnny Appleseed. 🍎 It’s also the birthday of American poet and Nobel Prize laureate T.S. Eliot (1888–1965), author of (among other things) Old Possum’s Book of Practical Cats, a wonderful read-aloud book for children. 🐈

Friday (27 September 2019) — On this day in 1941, the S.S. Patrick Henry, the first of a fleet of nearly 3000 “Liberty Ships” that transported supplies and troops during World War II, was launched in Baltimore, Maryland. ⚓️ And our Friday Bird Families this week will be the New World Quail, the Curassows & Guans, and the Partridges, Grouse, Turkeys, & Old World Quail. 🦃

Saturday (28 September 2019) — On this day in 1066, William II, Duke of Normandy, landed at Pevensey in Sussex and commenced the Norman conquest of England. ⚔️ On this day in 1928, Scottish microbiologist Alexander Fleming noticed that mold growing on some of his laboratory samples was killing colonies of bacteria. The result of this chance observation was the discovery of the first antibiotic, penicillin. 🔬

Sunday (29 September 2019) — Today is the birthday of the great Spanish writer Miguel de Cervantes (1547–1616). 🇪🇸 It’s also the birthday of the pioneering Austrian–American economic philosopher Ludwig von Mises (1881–1973). 💵

🥂 OUR WEEKLY TOAST: “May freedom’s fire never go out.”

❡ Toasts can be a fun educational tradition for your family table. We offer one each week — 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 (“To variety in toasting!”). Our current set of toasts are mostly taken from an old anthology called The Perfect Gentleman; or, Etiquette and Eloquence (New York, 1860). What will you toast this week? 🥂

🌎 EVERYTHING FLOWS: The small island nation of Barbados is one of our countries-of-the-week, so our Weekly World River is the Constitution River, a small waterway that passes through the capital city of Bridgetown. You can explore Barbados in your recommended homeschool atlas (riverhouses.org/books), and you can read more about the Constitution River in the Constitution River entry in Wikipedia or perhaps on your next visit to your local library.

❡ Let the river run: Why not do a homeschool study of world rivers over the course of the year? Take the one we select each week (above), or start with the river lists in your almanac (pages 691–693), 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. A whole world of geographical learning awaits you. 🌎

What do you have planned for your homeschool this week? 😊

❡ 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 (riverhouses.org/newsletter) and get these weekly messages delivered right to your mailbox all through the year. You can also print your own River Houses calendars of educational events (riverhouses.org/calendars) and follow along with us. 🗓

For live links, click to: riverhouses.org/2019-09-15

Quick Freshes are our regular Sunday notes on the homeschool week ahead. Pick one or two (or more) of the items below each week and use them to enrich your homeschooling schedule! Visit our River Houses calendar page (riverhouses.org/calendars) and print your own homeschool calendars for the entire year.

🇺🇸 OUR STATE-OF-THE-WEEK is New Jersey, and our COUNTRIES are Australia 🇦🇺, Austria 🇦🇹, Azerbaijan 🇦🇿, and the Bahamas 🇧🇸. (Our separate Sunday States & Countries post for the week went up just a few minutes ago.)

🌖 THE MOON at the beginning of this week is gibbous and waning, just passing full (yesterday). You can explore the night sky and the features of the moon in your recommended backyard astronomy guide and your homeschool world atlas, and you can learn many more stellar and lunar facts on pages 342–357 in your almanac (riverhouses.org/books).

🗓 TODAY (Sunday, 15 September 2019) — Today is the 258th day of 2019; there are 107 days remaining in the year. Learn more about different kinds of modern and historical calendars on pages 358–364 in your River Houses almanac (riverhouses.org/books). 📚 Today is also the birthday of writer and illustrator Robert McCloskey (1914–2003), author of Make Way for Ducklings (1941) and other children’s classics. 🦆 Our homeschool poem-of-the-week for the third week of September is Elizabeth Jennings’ “Song at the Beginning of Autumn,” for the autumn about to arrive. 🍂 Print your own River Houses Poetry Calendar (riverhouses.org/calendars) and follow along with us throughout the year. 🖋

Monday (16 September 2019) — On this day in 1776, with George Washington in direct command, the Continental Army in New York successfully defended several key positions on Manhattan Island in the Battle of Harlem Heights. ⚔️

Tuesday (17 September 2019) — Today is Constitution Day! On this day in 1787, the U.S. Constitution was signed in Philadelphia by the members of the Constitutional Convention. Why not pay a homeschool visit to the original Constitution today at its current home in the National Archives. 🇺🇸 Today is also the anniversary of the Battle of Antietam in 1862, one of the bloodiest days in American history, with more than 22,000 Union and Confederate casualties. ⚔️

Wednesday (18 September 2019) — Today is the birthday of the great English writer and lexicographer Samuel Johnson (1709–1784). 📖 And on this day in 1793, President George Washington, dressed in his masonic regalia, laid the cornerstone of the U.S. Capitol Building. 🏛

Thursday (19 September 2019) — Arrrr! It’s International Talk-Like-a-Pirate Day, me hearties! ☠ On this day in 1991, “Ötzi the Iceman,” a 5000-year-old naturally preserved mummy, was discovered frozen in the ice along the Alpine border between Italy and Austria. 🏔

Friday (20 September 2019) — On this day in 1519, Ferdinand Magellan set sail from the coast of southern Spain with five ships and 270 men in the first expedition to successfully circumnavigate the globe. 🌍🌎🌏🌍

Saturday (21 September 2019) — Today is the birthday of the great English composer Gustav Holst (1874–1934). 🎵 And on this day in 1981, Sandra Day O’Connor (b. 1930) was unanimously approved by the U.S. Senate as the first female Supreme Court justice. 👩‍⚖️

Sunday (22 September 2019) — On this day in 1776, American spy Nathan Hale, age 21, was executed by the British in New York City. His final words were said to be, “I only regret that I have but one life to lose for my country.” 🇺🇸 Today is also the birthday of the great physicist Michael Faraday (1791–1867). ⚡️ And … today is Hobbit Day! 🌋

🥂 OUR WEEKLY TOAST, for Nathan Hale: “To our native land — may it ever continue the abode of freedom and the birthplace of heroes.”

❡ Toasts can be a fun educational tradition for your family table. We offer one each week — 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 (“To variety in toasting!”). Our current set of toasts are mostly taken from an old anthology called The Perfect Gentleman; or, Etiquette and Eloquence (New York, 1860). What will you toast this week? 🥂

🌍 EVERYTHING FLOWS: Austria is one of our countries-of-the-week, so our Weekly World River is the Traun River, one of the principal tributaries of the Danube. You can chart its course in your recommended homeschool atlas (riverhouses.org/books), and you can read more about it in the Traun River entry in Wikipedia or perhaps on your next visit to your local library.

❡ Let the river run: Why not do a homeschool study of world rivers over the course of the year? Take the one we select each week (above), or start with the river lists in your almanac (pages 691–693), 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. A whole world of geographical learning awaits you. 🌍

What do you have planned for your homeschool this week? 😊

❡ 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 (riverhouses.org/newsletter) and get these weekly messages delivered right to your mailbox all through the year. You can also print your own River Houses calendars of educational events (riverhouses.org/calendars) and follow along with us. 🗓

For live links, click to: riverhouses.org/2019-09-08

Quick Freshes are our regular Sunday notes on the homeschool week ahead. Pick one or two (or more) of the items below each week and use them to enrich your homeschooling schedule! Visit our River Houses calendar page (riverhouses.org/calendars) and print your own homeschool calendars for the entire year.

🇺🇸 OUR STATE-OF-THE-WEEK is Pennsylvania, and our COUNTRIES are Angola 🇦🇴, Antigua and Barbuda 🇦🇬, Argentina 🇦🇷, and Armenia 🇦🇲. (Our separate Sunday States & Countries post for the week went up just a few minutes ago.)

🌔 THE MOON at the beginning of this week is gibbous and waxing, heading toward full on the 14th. You can explore the constellations and the features of the moon in your recommended backyard star guide and your homeschool world atlas, and you can learn many more stellar and lunar facts on pages 342–357 in your almanac (riverhouses.org/books).

🗓 TODAY (Sunday, 8 September 2019) — Today is the 251st day of 2019; there are 114 days remaining in the year. Learn more about different kinds of modern and historical calendars on pages 358–364 in your River Houses almanac (riverhouses.org/books). 📚 Today is one of the most important anniversaries in American cultural history. On this day in 1966, the first episode of Star Trek, “The Man Trap,” was broadcast on NBC television. 😊 🚀 🖖 Our homeschool poem-of-the-week for the second week of September is Robert Frost’s “The Tuft of Flowers,” for the fall harvest, our common labor, and the Monarch butterfly migration. 🦋 Print your own River Houses Poetry Calendar (riverhouses.org/calendars) and follow along with us throughout the year. 🖋

Monday (9 September 2019) — Today is the birthday of the great Russian novelist Leo Tolstoy (1828–1910). 📚 It’s also the birthday of Harland David Sanders (1890–1980), better known as Colonel Sanders, the founder of the Kentucky Fried Chicken chain of restaurants. 🍗

Tuesday (10 September 2019) — Today is the birthday of the great English composer Henry Purcell (1659–1695). 🎵 It’s also the birthday of the American physicist Arthur Compton (1892–1962), winner of the 1927 Nobel Prize for his studies of electromagnetism. ⚡

Wednesday (11 September 2019) — Today is the anniversary of the 2001 terrorist attacks that killed nearly 3000 people in New York, Virginia, and Pennsylvania. 🇺🇸 It’s also the birthday of the Scottish explorer Mungo Park (1771–1806), one of the first Europeans to travel to the interior of Africa. 🌍

Thursday (12 September 2019) — This is the traditional date of the Battle of Marathon in 490 B.C., one of the most consequential battles in the history of the Western world, in which the Athenians and their allies defeated the armies of Darius the Great of Persia in his attempt to conquer mainland Greece. ⚔️ On this day in 1962, President John F. Kennedy declared that the United States would land a man on the moon “before this decade is out.” 🚀 🌕

Friday (13 September 2019) — Today is the birthday of the German composer and pianist Clara Schumann (1819–1896). 🎵 It’s also the birthday of the British novelist, fighter pilot, and children’s author Roald Dahl (1916–1990). 🖋

Saturday (14 September 2019) — On this day in 1814 during the British bombardment of Baltimore, Francis Scott Key wrote a poem that he called “Defence of Fort M’Henry.” We know it today as “The Star-Spangled Banner,” the national anthem of the United States. 🇺🇸 The moon is full tonight, which means we’ll have a report on student research opportunities from the River Houses Lunar Society (riverhouses.org/lunar). 🌕 And since this is the second Saturday of the month, we’ll introduce you to one of the Great Stars of the northern hemisphere night sky. This month: Deneb, the brightest star in the constellation Cygnus (the namesake of our current Cygnus Term, of course). 🌟

Sunday (15 September 2019) — Today is the birthday of novelist James Fenimore Cooper (1789–1851), one of the most popular writers of nineteenth-century America. 🖋 It’s also the birthday of writer and illustrator Robert McCloskey (1914–2003), author of Make Way for Ducklings (1941) and other children’s classics. 🦆

🥂 OUR WEEKLY TOAST, for the work of the new school year: “Not the laurel, but the race; / Not the quarry, but the chase.”

❡ Toasts can be a fun educational tradition for your family table. We offer one each week — 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 (“To variety in toasting!”). What will you toast this week? 🥂

🌍 EVERYTHING FLOWS: Angola is one of our countries-of-the-week, so our Weekly World River is the Cunene or Kunene River, which forms part of the border between Angola and Namibia. You can chart its course in your recommended homeschool atlas (riverhouses.org/books), and you can read more about it in the Cunene River entry in Wikipedia or perhaps on your next visit to your local library.

❡ Let the river run: Why not do a homeschool study of world rivers over the course of the year? Take the one we select each week (above), or start with the river lists in your almanac (pages 691–693), 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. A whole world of geographical learning awaits you. 🌍

What do you have planned for your homeschool this week? 😊

❡ 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 (riverhouses.org/newsletter) and get these weekly messages delivered right to your mailbox all through the year. You can also print your own River Houses calendars of educational events (riverhouses.org/calendars) and follow along with us. 🗓

For live links, click to: riverhouses.org/2019-09-01

Quick Freshes are our regular Sunday notes on the homeschool week ahead. Pick one or two (or more) of the items below each week and use them to enrich your homeschooling schedule! Visit our River Houses calendar page (riverhouses.org/calendars) and print your own homeschool calendars for the entire year.

The 2019–2020 River Houses Year Begins. Let the river run!

✦ This is the first week of CYGNUS TERM, our fall term in the River Houses (riverhouses.org/2019-cygnus).

🇺🇸 OUR STATE-OF-THE-WEEK is Delaware, and our COUNTRIES are Afghanistan 🇦🇫, Albania 🇦🇱, Algeria 🇩🇿, and Andorra 🇦🇩. (Our separate Sunday States & Countries post for the week went up just a few minutes ago.)

🌒 THE MOON at the beginning of this week is a waxing crescent — a good time for stargazing! You can explore the constellations and the features of the moon in your recommended backyard star guide and your homeschool world atlas, and you can learn many more stellar and lunar facts on pages 342–357 in your almanac (riverhouses.org/books).

🗓 TODAY (Sunday, 1 September 2019) — Welcome to a New River Houses Year! 🎉 Today is the 244th day of 2019; there are 121 days remaining in the year. Learn more about different kinds of modern and historical calendars on pages 358–364 in your River Houses almanac (riverhouses.org/books). 📚 For this first week of September, this first week of Cygnus Term, and this first week of the 2019–2020 River Houses year, our homeschool poem-of-the-week will be our traditional extract from Jonathan Swift’s adaptation of the Roman poet Horace (65–8 B.C.): “A handsome house to lodge a friend, / A river at my garden’s end.” 📜 Print your own River Houses Poetry Calendar (riverhouses.org/calendars) and follow along with us throughout the 2019–2020 homeschool year as we visit forty-eight of our favorite literary friends. 😊

Monday (2 September 2019) — On this day in 1752, nearly two centuries after the countries of Continental Europe, Great Britain and her American colonies adopted the Gregorian Calendar: Wednesday, September 2nd, 1752, was followed by Thursday, September 14th, 1752. 🗓

Tuesday (3 September 2019) — The American Revolution came to a formal end on this day in 1783 with the signing of the Treaty of Paris between Great Britain and the new United States of America. 🇬🇧🕊🇺🇸 And since this is the first Tuesday of the month and of the new school year, we’ll invite you today to join our annual library exploration of the whole of knowledge (really!) with an introduction to the Dewey Decimal Classification. 📚

Wednesday (4 September 2019) — On this day in the year 476, Emperor Romulus Augustulus was deposed by the provincial warlord Odoacer who declared himself King of Italy, bringing to an end the Western Roman Empire, which had lasted for nearly 500 years. 🏛 Today is also the birthday of the great Austrian composer Anton Bruckner (1824–1896). 🎵

Thursday (5 September 2019) — In response to the Intolerable Acts, the First Continental Congress assembled on this day in Philadelphia in 1774. 🇺🇸 On this day in 1836, Sam Houston was elected the first President of the Republic of Texas. 🌵 (That’s 🌵 what I get when I request an emoji for Texas.) 😊

Friday (6 September 2019) — On this day in 1522, the ship Victoria, the only survivor of the Magellan expedition, arrived back in Spain having completed history’s first circumnavigation of the world. 🌍 Today is also the birthday of the great English scientist John Dalton (1766–1844), one of the founders of modern chemistry. ⚗️

Saturday (7 September 2019) — Today is the birthday of Queen Elizabeth I of England (1533–1603), who gave her name to the Elizabethan Era. 👑 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. 🔭

Sunday (8 September 2019) — Today is one of the most important anniversaries in world cultural history: on this day in 1966, the first episode of Star Trek, “The Man Trap,” was broadcast on NBC television. 🚀🖖😊

🥂 OUR TRADITIONAL TOAST for the first week of every River Houses year is this ancient offering, which we invite you to share around your family dinner table: “A little health, a little wealth, a little house, and freedom.”

❡ Toasts can be a fun educational tradition for your family table. We offer one each week — 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 (“To variety in toasting!”). What will you toast this week? 🥂

🌍 EVERYTHING FLOWS: Albania is one of our countries-of-the-week, so our Weekly World River is the Drin River, the longest river in Albania. You can chart its course in your recommended homeschool atlas (riverhouses.org/books), and you can read more about it in the Drin River entry in Wikipedia or perhaps on your next visit to your local library.

❡ Let the river run: Why not do a homeschool study of world rivers over the course of the year? Take the one we select each week (above), or start with the river lists in your almanac (pages 691–693), 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. A whole world of geographical learning awaits you. 🌍

What do you have planned for your homeschool this week? 😊

❡ 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 (riverhouses.org/newsletter) and get these weekly messages delivered right to your mailbox all through the year. You can also print your own River Houses calendars of educational events (riverhouses.org/calendars) and follow along with us. 🗓

For live links, click to: riverhouses.org/2019-08-25

Quick Freshes are our regular Sunday notes on the homeschool week ahead. Pick one or two (or more) of the items below each week and use them to enrich your homeschooling schedule! Visit our River Houses calendar page (riverhouses.org/calendars) and print your own homeschool calendars for the entire year.

✦ This is the last week of HERCULES TERM, our Summer Term in the River Houses, and the last week of the 2018–2019 River Houses year. CYGNUS TERM and the new 2019–2020 academic year begin on Sunday, the 1st of September!

🌎 OUR “STATE” OF THE WEEK, wrapping up our year-long tour, is the planet Earth itself, and our “COUNTRIES” are the Solar System and the Universe beyond! (Our separate Sunday States & Countries post for the week went up just a few minutes ago.)

🌘 THE MOON at the beginning of this week is waning crescent — a good time for stargazing! You can dial up this week’s constellations and explore the moon’s features with your homeschool star atlas and world atlas, and you can learn many more stellar and lunar facts on pages 342–357 in your almanac (riverhouses.org/books).

🗓 TODAY (Sunday, 25 August) — Today is the 237th day of 2019; there are 127 days remaining in the year. Learn more about different kinds of modern and historical calendars on pages 358–364 in your River Houses almanac (riverhouses.org/books). 📚 On this second day of the burning of Washington in 1814, the U.S. Treasury, the Library of Congress, and other public buildings were destroyed by British Troops. 🇬🇧⚔️🇺🇸 Today is also the birthday of American illustrator Walt Kelly (1913–1973), the creator of the comic strip Pogo. 🎨 And it’s also the birthday of the great American conductor and composer Leonard Bernstein (1918–1990). 🎵

Monday (26 August) — Today is the birthday of one of the founders of modern chemistry, the great French scientist Antoine Lavoisier (1743–1794), who coined the names “oxygen” and “hydrogen.” ⚗️

Tuesday (27 August) — One of the largest volcanic eruptions in recorded history took place on this day in 1883 in the Krakatoa archipelago in Indonesia. Over the course of the previous day an ash cloud seventeen miles high had developed over the islands, and on the 27th four massive explosions occurred, the largest of which was heard 3000 miles away in the Indian Ocean. The ash injected into the atmosphere by the Krakatoa eruption produced vivid sunsets all around the world for many months. 🌋

Wednesday (28 August) — Today is the birthday of the American naturalist and artist Roger Tory Peterson (1908–1996), whose series of compact field guides helped to make amateur bird study popular around the world. 🦆 And on this day in 1963, Martin Luther King, Jr., delivered his famous “I Have a Dream” speech on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C. 🕊

Thursday (29 August) — Today is the birthday of the great philosopher of liberty John Locke (1632–1704), whose works influenced the framing of the American system of government. 📖

Friday (30 August) — Today is the birthday of English novelist Mary Shelley (1797–1851), the author of Frankenstein: or, The Modern Prometheus (1818). 🌭🍺 It’s also the birthday of baseball great Ted Williams (1918–2002), the last major league player to bat over .400 in a season (1941). ⚾️

Saturday (31 August) — Italian educator and physician Maria Montessori was born on this day in 1870. Her approach to early childhood education remains popular in homeschools as well as in public and private schools around the world today. 👩🏼‍🏫

The 2019–2020 River Houses Year Begins. Let the river run!

Sunday (1 September) — Welcome to a New River Houses Year! 🎉 For this first week of September, this first week of Cygnus Term, and this first week of the 2019–2020 River Houses year, our homeschool poem-of-the-week will be our traditional extract from Jonathan Swift’s adaptation of the Roman poet Horace (65–8 B.C.): “A handsome house to lodge a friend, / A river at my garden’s end.” 📜 Print your own River Houses Poetry Calendar (riverhouses.org/calendars) and follow along with us throughout the 2019–2020 homeschool year. 😊

🥂 OUR WEEKLY TOAST, for the old school year just ending and the new school year about to begin, is a new-year wish that is probably modern but is often attributed (like many other wise sayings) to Benjamin Franklin: “Be always at war with your vices, at peace with your neighbors, and let each new year find you a better man.”

❡ Toasts can be a fun educational tradition for your family table. We offer one each week — 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 (“To variety in toasting!”). Our current set of toasts are mostly taken from an old anthology called Pocock’s Everlasting Songster (Gravesend, 1804). What will you toast this week?

🌌 EVERYTHING FLOWS: The Universe is our “country” of the week for this last week of the River Houses year, so our Weekly World River is the constellation Eridanus, the Great River of the Heavens. You can chart its course in the astronomical section of your recommended homeschool atlas (riverhouses.org/books), and you can read more about it in the comprehensive Eridanus entry in Wikipedia or perhaps on your next visit to your local library.

❡ Let the river run: 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 almanac (pages 691–693), 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. A whole world of geographical learning awaits you!

What do you have planned for your homeschool this week? 😊

❡ 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 (riverhouses.org/newsletter) and get these weekly messages delivered right to your mailbox all through the year. You can also print your own River Houses calendars of educational events (riverhouses.org/calendars) and follow along with us. 🗓

For live links, click to: riverhouses.org/2019-08-18

Quick Freshes are our regular Sunday notes on the homeschool week ahead. Pick one or two (or more) of the items below each week and use them to enrich your homeschooling schedule! Visit our River Houses calendar page (riverhouses.org/calendars) and print your own homeschool calendars for the entire year.

🇺🇸 OUR “STATES” OF THE WEEK are the special U.S. Territories of American Samoa 🇦🇸, Guam 🇬🇺, the Northern Mariana Islands 🇲🇵, Puerto Rico 🇵🇷, the U.S. Virgin Islands 🇻🇮, and the District of Columbia, and our “COUNTRIES” are the five oceans of the world. (Our separate Sunday States & Countries post for the week went up just a few minutes ago.)

🌖 THE MOON at the beginning of this week is gibbous and waning — an increasingly good time for moon watching! You can dial up this week’s constellations and explore the moon’s features with your homeschool star atlas and world atlas, and you can learn many more stellar and lunar facts on pages 342–357 in your almanac (riverhouses.org/books).

🗓 TODAY (Sunday, 18 August) — Today is the 230th day of 2019; there are 135 days remaining in the year. Learn more about different kinds of modern and historical calendars on pages 358–364 in your River Houses almanac (riverhouses.org/books). 📚 On this day in 1920, the Nineteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, guaranteeing women the right to vote, was ratified. ☑️

Monday (19 August) — On this day in 1812, during the War of 1812, the American frigate U.S.S. Constitution defeated Great Britain’s H.M.S. Guerriere off the coast of Nova Scotia and earned the nickname “Old Ironsides.” Old Ironsides is today the oldest commissioned warship in the U.S. Navy and you can pay her a visit any day you like in the Charlestown Navy Yard in Boston. ⚓️ And speaking of ships, today is also the birthday of Gene Roddenberry (1921–1991), the creator of Star Trek! 🖖

Tuesday (20 August) — On this day in 1975, NASA launched the Viking 1 Mars probe. Viking 1 became the first successful Mars lander and remained in operation for more than six years. (An earlier probe, the Soviet Union’s Mars 3, did successfully land on Mars in 1971, but it transmitted for only 14 seconds.) 🚀 Today is also the birthday of the American writer H.P. Lovecraft (1890–1937), author of many creepy (but popular) horror stories. 🙀

Wednesday (21 August) — On this day in 1959, Hawaii became the 50th state of the Union. 🇺🇸 The Great American Solar Eclipse of 2017 took place on this day just two years ago — perhaps you saw it! 🌏 🌑 🌞

Thursday (22 August) — The English Civil War between the King and Parliament began on this day in 1642 when Charles I raised the royal standard at Nottingham. 👑 Today is also the birthday of famed French pianist and composer Claude Debussy (1862–1918). 🎹 And our homeschool poem-of-the-week for the final week of August, the last week of the 2018–2019 River Houses year, is “Envoy,” a cheerful farewell wish for happy houses and living waters from Robert Louis Stevenson. 🏡 Print your own River Houses Poetry Calendar (riverhouses.org/calendars) and follow along with us throughout the year.

Friday (23 August) — On this day in 1775, four months after Lexington and Concord, and two months after Bunker Hill, King George III formally proclaimed the American colonies to be in a state of “open and avowed rebellion.” ⚔️

Saturday (24 August) — Although there is some debate among scholars, this is generally believed to be the day on which Mount Vesuvius erupted in A.D. 79, burying the ancient Roman cities of Pompeii and Herculaneum. 🌋 And on this day in 1814, during the War of 1812, British troops captured the city of Washington and burned the White House and the U.S. Capitol. 🇬🇧⚔️🇺🇸

Sunday (25 August) — On the second day of the burning of Washington in 1814, the U.S. Treasury, the Library of Congress, and other public buildings were destroyed by British Troops. 🇬🇧⚔️🇺🇸 Today is also the birthday of American illustrator Walt Kelly (1913–1973), the creator of the comic strip Pogo. 🎨 And it’s also the birthday of the great American conductor and composer Leonard Bernstein (1918–1990). 🎵

🥂 OUR WEEKLY TOAST: “May we choose virtue and avoid vice.”

❡ Toasts can be a fun educational tradition for your family table. We offer one each week — 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 (“To variety in toasting!”). Our current set of toasts are mostly taken from an old anthology called Pocock’s Everlasting Songster (Gravesend, 1804). What will you toast this week?

🌊 EVERYTHING FLOWS: Last week we completed our annual tour of the countries of the world (from which we had been selecting our Weekly World Rivers), so it is only fitting this week that we look to the source of them all. The ancient Greeks believed that the whole world (as they knew it) was encircled by a great flowing river, and they personified this universal river as the god Okeanos (Oceanus, Ocean). Okeanos was one of the Titans, a child of Ouranos (Uranus, Heaven) and Gaia (Terra, Earth), and with his sister-wife Tethys, Okeanos fathered all the rivers of the world. You can read much more about this father of the waters in the comprehensive Okeanos/Oceanus entry in Wikipedia, or perhaps on your next visit to your local library. Our Weekly World River for this next-to-last week of the River Houses year is therefore the World River, Okeanos.

❡ Let the river run: 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 almanac (pages 691–693), 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. A whole world of geographical learning awaits you!

What do you have planned for your homeschool this week? 😊

❡ 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 (riverhouses.org/newsletter) and get these weekly messages delivered right to your mailbox all through the year. You can also print your own River Houses calendars of educational events (riverhouses.org/calendars) and follow along with us. 🗓

For live links, click to: riverhouses.org/2019-08-11

Quick Freshes are our regular Sunday notes on the homeschool week ahead. Pick one or two (or more) of the items below each week and use them to enrich your homeschooling schedule! Visit our River Houses calendar page (riverhouses.org/calendars) and print your own homeschool calendars for the entire year.

🇺🇸 OUR STATE-OF-THE-WEEK is Hawaii, and our “country” is Antarctica 🇦🇶. (Our separate Sunday States & Countries post for the week went up just a few minutes ago — and our annual tour of the U.S. states and the countries of the world is coming to an end!)

🌔 THE MOON at the beginning of this week is gibbous and waxing — a good time for moon watching, but alas it will wash out some of this weekend’s Perseid meteors. 🌠 You can dial up this week’s constellations and explore the moon’s features with your homeschool star atlas and world atlas, and you can learn many more stellar and lunar facts on pages 342–357 in your almanac (riverhouses.org/books).

🗓 TODAY (Sunday, 11 August) — Today is the 223rd day of 2019; there are 142 days remaining in the year. Learn more about different kinds of modern and historical calendars on pages 358–364 in your River Houses almanac (riverhouses.org/books). 📚 The annual PERSEID METEOR SHOWER will peak (probably) on the nights of 11–12 and 12–13 August this year. 🌠 The Perseids are debris from Comet Swift–Tuttle. ☄️

Monday (12 August) — Today is the birthday of poet and educator Katharine Lee Bates (1859–1929), the author of the great anthem “America the Beautiful.” 🇺🇸 It’s also the birthday of Austrian physicist and Nobel laureate Erwin Schrödinger (1887–1961), one of the founders of quantum mechanics. ⚛

Tuesday (13 August) — Today is the birthday of American abolitionist and women’s rights advocate Lucy Stone (1818–1893). 👩‍👧‍👧 It’s also the birthday of spooky British-American film director Alfred Hitchcock (1899–1980). 🎬 And, it’s International Lefthanders Day! 🎉

Wednesday (14 August) — On this day in the year 1040, Scotland’s King Duncan I was killed by his rival Macbeth — probably in battle, and not in his sleep as depicted in Shakespeare’s play. 🗡

Thursday (15 August) — Today is the birthday of the French general and emperor Napoleon Bonaparte (1769–1821). 👑 It’s also the birthday of the great British pianist and composer Samuel Coleridge-Taylor (1875–1912). 🎵 Our homeschool poem-of-the-week, by Helen Hunt Jackson (1830–1885), for the third week of August is “August” for, um, August! Print your own River Houses Poetry Calendar (riverhouses.org/calendars) and follow along with us throughout the year. 🖋 And, there’s a full moon tonight, so that means we’ll have a report on student research opportunities from the River Houses Lunar Society (riverhouses.org/lunar). 🌕

Friday (16 August) — On this day in 1858, the first transatlantic telegraph cable was put into service with an exchange of messages between U.S. President James Buchanan and Britain’s Queen Victoria. 🇺🇸⌁🇬🇧

Saturday (17 August) — On this day in 1807, the world’s first commercial steamboat service was inaugurated when Robert Fulton’s North River Steamboat departed New York City for Albany, 130 miles up the Hudson River. 🚢

Sunday (18 August) — On this day in 1920, the Nineteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, guaranteeing women the right to vote, was ratified. ☑️

🥂 OUR WEEKLY TOAST: “Here’s wishing us all more friends — and less need of them.”

❡ Toasts can be a fun educational tradition for your family table. We offer one each week — 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 (“To variety in toasting!”). Our current set of toasts are mostly taken from an old anthology called Pocock’s Everlasting Songster (Gravesend, 1804). What will you toast this week?

🌏 EVERYTHING FLOWS: Antarctica is our “country” of the week, so our Weekly World River is the Beardmore Glacier, one of the world’s largest glaciers and a famous river of ice that guided many early polar explorers. You can chart its course in your recommended homeschool atlas (riverhouses.org/books), and you can read more about it in the Beardmore Glacier entry in Wikipedia or perhaps on your next visit to your local library.

❡ Let the river run: Why not do a homeschool study of world rivers over the course of the year? Take the one we select each week (above), or start with the river lists in your almanac (pages 691–693), 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. A whole world of geographical learning awaits you!

AND DON’T FORGET: Friday the 13th comes on a Tuesday this month! 🙀

What do you have planned for your homeschool this week? 😊

❡ 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 (riverhouses.org/newsletter) and get these weekly messages delivered right to your mailbox all through the year. You can also print your own River Houses calendars of educational events (riverhouses.org/calendars) and follow along with us. 🗓

For live links, click to: riverhouses.org/2019-08-04

Quick Freshes are our regular Sunday notes on the homeschool week ahead. Pick one or two (or more) of the items below each week and use them to enrich your homeschooling schedule! Visit our River Houses calendar page (riverhouses.org/calendars) and print your own homeschool calendars for the entire year.

🇺🇸 OUR STATE-OF-THE-WEEK is Alaska, and our COUNTRIES are Vietnam 🇻🇳, Yemen 🇾🇪, Zambia 🇿🇲, and Zimbabwe 🇿🇼. (Our separate Sunday States & Countries post for the week went up just a few minutes ago.)

🌒 THE MOON at the beginning of this week is a waxing crescent — a good time for stargazing! You can dial up this week’s constellations and explore the moon’s features with your homeschool star atlas and world atlas, and you can learn many more stellar and lunar facts on pages 342–357 in your almanac (riverhouses.org/books).

🗓 TODAY (Sunday, 4 August) — Today is the 216th day of 2019; there are 149 days remaining in the year. Learn more about different kinds of modern and historical calendars on pages 358–364 in your River Houses almanac (riverhouses.org/books). 📚 The great English poet Percy Bysshe Shelley was born on this day in 1792. ✒️ It’s also the birthday of the great American trumpeter and singer Louis Armstrong (1901–1971). 🎺

Monday (5 August) — Today is an important day in the history of press freedom! On this day in 1735, a jury acquitted John Peter Zenger and his newspaper, the New York Weekly Journal, of seditious libel against the governor of New York on the grounds that what they had published was true. 📰 Today is also the birthday of American astronaut Neil Armstrong (1930–2012), the first man to walk on the moon. 🚀 🌕

Tuesday (6 August) — Today is the birthday of the great Victorian poet Alfred Tennyson (1809–1892). ✒️ It’s also the birthday of the legendary American comedian Lucille Ball (1911–1989). 📺

Wednesday (7 August) — On this day in 1782, George Washington established the first American military decoration, the Badge of Military Merit, for soldiers wounded during the American Revolution. The award is today called the Purple Heart and it bears Washington’s profile. 🎖 Today is also the birthday of famed paleoanthropologist Louis Leakey (1903–1972). 💀

Thursday (8 August) — The wreckage of the Civil War submarine H.L. Hunley, which sank in Charleston Harbor, South Carolina, in 1864, was raised on this day in the year 2000. It contained the remains of eight Confederate sailors who went down with the vessel. ⚓️ Our homeschool poem-of-the-week for the second week of August is Robert Frost’s “A Star in a Stoneboat,” for this month’s Perseid meteor shower. 🌠 Print your own River Houses Poetry Calendar (riverhouses.org/calendars) and follow along with us throughout the year.

Friday (9 August) — On this day in the year 1173, construction began on a new bell tower next to the cathedral in Pisa, Italy. Still standing (more or less), we know it now as the Leaning Tower of Pisa. 🔔 And speaking of Italy, today is also the birthday of the Italian scientist Amedeo Avogadro (1776–1856), beloved (or despised) by chemistry students the world over. ⚗️

Saturday (10 August) — On this day in 1519, five ships under the command of Ferdinand Magellan (1480–1521) set sail from Seville, Spain. Although Magellan himself died en route, one of the ships, the Victoria, traveling from east to west, successfully completed the first circumnavigation of the globe. 🌍🌎🌏 And on this day in 1990, NASA’s Magellan spacecraft entered orbit around the planet Venus. 🛰 And since this is the second Saturday of the month we’ll introduce you to another one of the Great Stars of the northern hemisphere night sky. This month: Vega, the brightest star in the constellation Lyra the Lyre. 🌟

Sunday (11 August) — The annual PERSEID METEOR SHOWER will peak (probably) on the nights of 11–12 and 12–13 August this year. 🌠 The Perseids are debris from Comet Swift–Tuttle. ☄️

🥂 OUR WEEKLY TOAST: “Love in every breast, liberty in every heart, and learning in every head.”

❡ Toasts can be a fun educational tradition for your family table. We offer one each week — 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 (“To variety in toasting!”). Our current set of toasts are mostly taken from an old anthology called Pocock’s Everlasting Songster (Gravesend, 1804). What will you toast this week?

🌏 EVERYTHING FLOWS: Vietnam is one of our countries-of-the-week, so our Weekly World River is the Red River, which flows past the Vietnamese capital of Hanoi. You can chart its course in your recommended homeschool atlas (riverhouses.org/books), and you can read more about it in the Red River entry in Wikipedia or perhaps on your next visit to your local library.

❡ Let the river run: Why not do a homeschool study of world rivers over the course of the year? Take the one we select each week (above), or start with the river lists in your almanac (pages 691–693), 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. A whole world of geographical learning awaits you!

What do you have planned for your homeschool this week? 😊

❡ 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 (riverhouses.org/newsletter) and get these weekly messages delivered right to your mailbox all through the year. You can also print your own River Houses calendars of educational events (riverhouses.org/calendars) and follow along with us. 🗓

For live links, click to: riverhouses.org/2019-07-28

Quick Freshes are our regular Sunday notes on the homeschool week ahead. Pick one or two (or more) of the items below each week and use them to enrich your homeschooling schedule! Visit our River Houses calendar page (riverhouses.org/calendars) and print your own homeschool calendars for the entire year.

🗓 NEW CALENDARS! As we announced last week, our new calendars of educational events for the coming 2019–2020 school year are now available on our main calendar page! They are all one-page printable (pdf) documents, easy to use and post on your homeschool bulletin board. Print them out today, share them with your homeschool friends, and follow along with us throughout the coming year. 😊

🇺🇸 OUR STATE-OF-THE-WEEK is Arizona, and our COUNTRIES are Uzbekistan 🇺🇿, Vanuatu 🇻🇺, Vatican City 🇻🇦, and Venezuela 🇻🇪. (Our separate Sunday States & Countries post for the week went up just a few minutes ago.)

🌘 THE MOON at the beginning of this week is a waning crescent, heading toward new on the 31st — a good time for stargazing! You can dial up this week’s constellations and explore the moon’s features with your homeschool star atlas and world atlas, and you can learn many more stellar and lunar facts on pages 342–357 in your almanac (riverhouses.org/books).

🗓 TODAY (Sunday, 28 July) — Today is the 209th day of 2019; there are 156 days remaining in the year. Learn more about different kinds of modern and historical calendars on pages 358–364 in your River Houses almanac (riverhouses.org/books). ⬩ Today is the birthday of the great English polymath Robert Hooke (1635–1703). Hooke was one of the pioneers of microscopy and was the first person to apply the world “cell” to the basic structural units of living things. 🔬 And one of the most innovative poets of the nineteenth century, Gerard Manley Hopkins, was born on this day in 1844. ✒️

Monday (29 July) — The seven-mile-long Cape Cod Canal first opened on this day in 1914, significantly reducing sailing time between Boston and New York (and markedly increasing safety). 🚢

Tuesday (30 July) — Today is the birthday of the great (and largely homeschooled) English writer Emily Bronte (1818–1848), author of Wuthering Heights. ✒️ It’s also the birthday of the American engineer and industrialist Henry Ford (1863–1947). 🚗

Wednesday (31 July) — On this day in 1964 the Ranger 7 probe transmitted the first close-up images of the moon taken by an American spacecraft, just minutes before it was intentionally crash-landed on the lunar surface. 🚀

Thursday (1 August) — Today is the 200th anniversary of the birth of the great American writer Herman Melville (1819–1891), author of Moby-Dick, Bartleby the Scrivener, and many other works. In his honor, our homeschool poem-of-the-week for this first week of August, and also our weekly toast, is the perfect little toast-poem “To the Master of the Meteor,” appearing below. 🐳 Print your own River Houses Poetry Calendar (riverhouses.org/calendars) and follow along with us throughout the year.

Friday (2 August) — The first United States census, conducted under Article I, Section 2 of the Constitution, commenced on this day in 1790. The total count was 3,929,214. 🇺🇸

Saturday (3 August) — The famous opera house “La Scala” opened on this day in 1778 in Milan, Italy. 🎵 Today is also the birthday of the Pulitzer Prize–winning World War II journalist Ernie Pyle (1900–1945). 🗞 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 be on the lookout for over the next few weeks. 🔭

Sunday (4 August) — The great English poet Percy Bysshe Shelley was born on this day in 1792. ✒️ It’s also the birthday of the great American trumpeter and singer Louis Armstrong (1901–1971). 🎺

🥂 OUR WEEKLY TOAST: In honor of the bicentennial of the great American writer Herman Melville (1819–1891), our weekly toast and weekly poem are one and the same: Melville’s ringing toast-poem “To the Master of the Meteor.” The Meteor was a sailing ship, and the master (captain) of the Meteor was Herman’s brother Thomas Melville:

Lonesome on earth’s loneliest deep,
Sailor! who dost thy vigil keep —
Off the Cape of Storms dost musing sweep
Over monstrous waves that curl and comb;
Of thee we think when here from brink
We blow the mead in bubbling foam.

Of thee we think, in a ring we link;
To the shearer of ocean’s fleece we drink,
And the Meteor rolling home.

❡ Toasts can be a fun educational tradition for your family table. We offer one each week — 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 (“To variety in toasting!”). Our current set of toasts are mostly taken from an old anthology called Pocock’s Everlasting Songster (Gravesend, 1804). What will you toast this week?

🌏 EVERYTHING FLOWS: Uzbekistan is one of our countries-of-the-week, so our Weekly World River is the Chirchiq River, a tributary of the Syr Darya River in Uzbekistan. You can chart its course in your recommended homeschool atlas (riverhouses.org/books), and you can read more about it in the Chirchiq River entry in Wikipedia or perhaps on your next visit to your local library.

❡ Let the river run: Why not do a homeschool study of world rivers over the course of the year? Take the one we select each week (above), or start with the river lists in your almanac (pages 691–693), 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. A whole world of geographical learning awaits you!

What do you have planned for your homeschool this week? 😊

❡ 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 (riverhouses.org/newsletter) and get these weekly messages delivered right to your mailbox all through the year. You can also print your own River Houses calendars of educational events (riverhouses.org/calendars) and follow along with us. 🗓