Leaping From The Box

This is a great year to be studying American Civics! The Republican Presidential race is wide open. The Democratic Presidential contenders are making history. However you look at it, this is one of the most interesting presidential races we have ever seen. And if your teen is like my teen, he/she is interested in the campaign and full of questions. We are seeing a ratcheting up of campaigning here in Florida as our primary is coming up next week, Tuesday, January 29.

One Homeschool Chat parent last Friday asked for some websites that she could incorporated in their studies this year. Already she and her daughter have joined one of the local presidential campaigns, which is a great way to get a first-hand look at politics in action.

Here are some sites that would be useful for a Civics Unit Study.

NationsStates was a favorite of ours several years ago and I was glad to see that it was still up and running. NationStates is a simulation game where you build a nation and run that nation according to your own political beliefs. Do you want to be a benevolent dictator? Or maybe create a totally democatratic nation. The choice is yours! The novel Jennifer Government by Max Barry inspired this game. I wanted to read this book when we played the game previously and now I have added it to my wish list on PaperbackSwap. Check out NationStates. I will bet you have as much fun as we did creating your own nation!

Congress for Kids
Interactive experience designed to help you learn about the foundation of our federal government and how its actions affect you.

Post from Jurisdynamics blog. Constitutional curiosities: a 21-question scavenger hunt. This is definitely for older students. If you or your teen likes scavenger hunts and/or research, this looks fun.

Atlas of U.S. Presidential Elections
If maps are your thing, or your child is very visually-oriented, this is a cool site!

The BBHQ Great American Civics Quiz
Even though the site is “Baby Boomers Headquarters” the quiz is great for anyone.

PBS The Democracy Project
Be President for a Day, Step inside the Voting Booth.

HistoryCentral.com’s United States Presidential Elections. Learn about every Presidential Election. They are currently the 2008 election and the site is updated daily. So a great way to keep track of whom is winning where.

Project Vote Smart
Find your local representative, learn his voting record. Be an informed voter.

If you would like links to the official parties and other government websites, visit my article Using Computers as You Homeschool. While this was written a few years ago, detailing how my children used computers and the Internet in their homeschooling (unschooling), the links are all still great links and you might even like the article!

Happy Voting!

You just never know what topics we will cover during our Friday Homeschool Chat. This past Friday we spent a good share of the morning discussing the pros and cons of a plan one member had for fostering her son’s entrepreneurial spirit. The plan involved providing snacks in an office environment, taking over an existing service that had continually lost money. We floated ideas about how to minimize the shrinkage of product and the resultant loss of income, discussed how much financial involvement the parents should have at start up, business licenses, child labor laws, sales tax licenses and much more. Since many members present Friday had experience in some of those areas, the parent in question came away from the chat with some answers and more questions to research. I am sure she will want to discuss the topic again in coming weeks.

Fostering an entrepreneurial spirit in our homeschooled children is a recurring discussion topic on Friday chats. Homeschooling often leads families (parents and children) to question the “worker” model that public schools teach their students. Many of us hope that our children will be able to avoid the “worker bee” mindset and find ways to make their interests and passions also provide their income. The question becomes, how to foster this entrepreneurial growth in our children, especially as they enter the teen years and (hopefully) begin to define their passions and focus turning them into career goals.

It seems as though we have always had a side business in addition to my husband’s main career income, businesses in which one or more of our children could participate. When they were very young, I had a two-acre garden in which I grew vegetables for sale. The children worked side-by-side with me in planting, weeding, harvesting, marketing and sales. Their favorite, by far, was the selling and collecting the money, which was fine with me, as I enjoyed the other aspects more. Unfortunately, after we moved from New York, that sort of business venture was no longer a possibility. But I believe it laid the seeds of an entrepreneurial spirit in at least two of our three children. Today, as teens and young adults, those two children have stated goals of owning their own businesses. The recent purchase and playing of Cashflow 101 (see my January 4th review) has only intensified that goal in the eldest.

I would love to hear how you have fostered entrepreneurial spirits in your children. Leave me a comment.  If I get enough ideas, I will make a future blog post listing all of them!

Even die-hard unschoolers have occasional doubts about unschooling as an educational (learning) method. I will confess I have had my share of those doubts over the years. As my children have progressed from the teen years into adulthood, it has become more difficult to see the daily workings and successes of unschooling. I am no longer the principal participant in their unschooling lives. Usually I feel more like a visitor standing on the sidelines, only vaguely cognizant of what they are learning or even what their current interests are. Every now and again, though, I am reminded that unschooling really is in action here and this past weekend was one of those times.

From youngest to oldest, our unschooling weekend activities:

Charles has taken a great interest in the current presidential campaign, possibly because he will be able to vote this year. So he watched the Presidential Debates held in New Hampshire on Saturday, occasionally emerging from his room to make comments about the different candidates. And he is obviously going through a Celtic music fest, as he wanted all of my Celtic CDs, disappearing with them to his room. I believe that they are all being loaded on to his computer.

David was preparing for the beginning of the Spring semester at Tallahassee Community College by sleeping late, doing laundry, and spending as much time online as possible. At least, that is what it looked like to me! As long as he does as well this coming semester as he did this last semester, I will have no complaints.

Me, I had three projects going over the weekend, well, actually four. First, I am crocheting a doily, trying out a new pattern. So while watching football games, I crocheted like a crazy woman. Second, I have been concerned about our electric bill, so I spent quite a bit of time comparing our current December bill with our December bill from last year at our old place. I found some great online resources that help you figure out your usage and the cost of individual appliances, etc. Look later in the week for a blog post about all that I learned, including the online links I used. Third, I have been studying ways to improve my website, both traffic and income. So I spent quite a bit of time reading and making a plan of attack for the New Year. And fourth, I have been requiring (yes, unschoolers sometimes do have requirements!) that the boys assist me more in preparing meals, so Saturday evening David helped me prepare a new recipe I found at Divine Domesticity, Pizza Pasta Casserole. Three out of four taste testers gave it a thumbs up, so I guess it’s a keeper!

And last, but not least (we WERE going from youngest to oldest), Bill spent the weekend studying for another certification test. He has just one more update certification test to take and then hopefully he can back off from the intense studying and enjoy his weeknights and weekends. Bill has many certifications, which are needed for his career choice, and all of them he has acquired through self-study. I wrote about how he has accomplished this in my article “Unschooling Adult-Style.”

So, how did your unschooling weekend go?