Teaching Tuesdays: Election Day

So Today is Election Day, and as in past years we have been discussing the importance of voting and in making an informed decision. Part of our homeschool philosophy has always been to use the events of our everyday lives as a jumping off point for learning. After all we are trying to raise our daughter to be a responsible adult. I know that this year isn't a major national election but that doesn't mean it isn't important.

If you are considering a study on the electoral process (whether you're a homeschooler or not) the following resources may prove helpful:

• Election Lesson Plans Page 

• Ben’s Guide to U.S. Government for Kids

• Learn about Elections and Voting (From USA.gov)

• Electoral College Map (from C-Span Classroom)

Managing Mondays: History Pockets Review

I absolutely love arts and crafts type projects to reinforce what we are learning. Throw that together with my love of history and I just could not get enough of History Pockets. Each workbook in this series comes with full instructions to create a series of pockets made out of construction paper. Each pocket is devoted to one aspect of the historical period or civilization being studied (i.e. while studying Greece there are pockets for History, Politics, Military, etc.) The workbooks contain all the reproducible sheets for all the projects as well as a list of all the additional supplies needed for those projects.

History Pockets on Evan-Moor's Website

The Workbooks themselves come in two categories based on grade level (1-3 and 4-6) and cover a wide range of historical civilizations and time periods with multiple workbooks devoted to the different stages of American History. The pages are fully reproducible and the workbooks are also available in PDF format so you can print them out as you need them.

I actually used these in conjunction with our primary history curriculum in a similar fashion to a lapbook and the results were amazing. I highly recommend them.

Managing Mondays: Beautiful Feet Books Review

When I was in school, one of my favorite things was when we would get to watch a historical movie. Movies and miniseries, like Blue and the Grey and Becket still rank among my favorites of all time. I loved historical fiction such as Killer Angels, and A Farewell to Arms, but when it came to actual history I would tune out. I hated all the momorization, I just couldn’t keep it all straight. I realize now as an adult that my problem wasn’t an inability to memorize fact but rather that the facts had no context. There was no meaning behind the places, people, and dates.

When we decided to homeschool I desperately wanted a history curriculum that told history more as the great story it was. I found that curriculum in Beautiful Feet Books. Each Study Guide gives projects, and assignments around living books. Real literature and stories that take place during the times and places that are being studied. When a people, such as Lewis and Clark are studied, children associate more than just places and dates to the names, but come to appreciate what they accomplished in spite of the hardships they endured. Ancient Egypt comes alive by reading fictional stories that highlight the daily lives of that civilization. And most of all, history is studied more as a flowing stream instead of a list of disjointed and unrelated events.

Beautiful Feet Books Study Guides are also fairly inexpensive and the majority of the books they use can be found in the public library. They do offer discounted bundles of all the materials needed if you want to go that route. Based on the Charlotte Mason Method of notebooking, the curriculum provides a flexible fairly inexpensive quality history education.