Presidential Inauguration Learning Links

Despite the excitement of the day, I just have to share a few interesting learning links related to Presidents, Barack Obama and today's inauguration. Enjoy!

• How do you shape up on Presidential Trivia? Try the quiz. What about inauguration trivia - take a look.
• Who's your favorite President? Visit a website by the 5th Graders at Pocantico Hills School.
• A funny list with little dancing Presidents to help you learn.
  
• Barack Obama, 50 facts you might not know.
• Presidential campaign slogans make some interesting reading.
• Let's not forget the previous Presidents. If you have a chance to visit a Presidential Library, they are great places to learn more about our country.
• Last, but not least, political cartoons from Presidential campaigns.

Are you celebrating today? Did you prepare some special food, spend time with family, are you watching from somewhere other than your home? What do your kids think of it all? What is your biggest hope and your greatest fear on this Inauguration Day?

Flag photo reproduced here under a creative commons license. The copyright belongs to the original owner.

It's Our Country

I have now voted and can no longer say I have no voice and no involvement. I think it’s time to think about what to do next. This time it’s not a case of “the election is over, let’s all go back to business as usual”. I don't think any of us have missed the reality that there are major issues to be handled. A charismatic leader is a vital part of a country's success, but it is OUR country and I think we are responsible for a lot more than watching TV and deciding who to vote for. Still, most of the problems we face are very complex. I can't say I have a grasp of something I should be doing on a daily basis. I do hope not only that there are experts out there who can determine what will work, but that the experts can be listened to and evaluated and actions taken. Is this a case of not knowing the answers, or of not being able to implement the answers? What roadblocks are there? Are you apathetic, just distracted by your own daily challenges, or can you simply not figure out what it is you can do to help? Or are you already doing something but you think others need to too?

Lisa over at BlogHer wonders what we are going to do to change our community. Whether you live in America or not, what are you doing, or what do you plan to do?

Do you think it's enough to just care for your family and let the government take care of the rest, or do we all need to be doing something? If we need to be doing something, who will tell us what that should be? Are you getting a clear message on changes you should make, or is this just someone else's problem? Where should we look for anwers?

Maybe you are a homeschooler. As homeschoolers I think we already are engaged in a way that some other people are not. Perhaps we see problems with an emphasis on learning facts at the expense of learning to do something useful and be part of a community. Maybe we wanted to remove our kids from the materialism and peer pressure that goes along with being part of a group at school. But, if our economy is built on spending, what happens if we all become frugal? I've been thinking about this a lot lately and I'd like to explore the topic further in the weeks ahead.

What would a better America, Canada, United Kingdom, Japan, Australia, Germany, Poland, Brazil, Guatemala, Philippines, South Korea, Sweden, Netherlands, Belgium or India look like to you? In the last two weeks I've had visitors from all of these countries. I'd love to hear what you think. Where should we be focusing our energies?

What do you have to say :-)

A Voting Story

Being a new American citizen, this is my first election to vote in. What an election to choose (well it wasn't that much of a choice for me as becoming a citizen is a lengthy process)! Nonetheless I did have the choice to apply for citizenship and I am excited that I am now part of the American political process, for better or worse. As far as I remember the last time I voted in something equivalent was when Margaret Thatcher's Conservative Party won the UK general elections and Margaret became Prime Minister. That was more than a few years ago! I have been impatient for this whole election to be over and so I voted last Friday at an advance voting location. I have to say that despite the one hour wait it turned out to be a very pleasant experience.

When I arrived at the advance voting location and joined the line I had no clue what the wait time would be. However, the couple who stepped up to join the line after me, and others in front, who all joined in the conversation, soon let me know that the wait would be about an hour. OK, that was a little longer than I'd expected - I'd been thinking more about 30 minutes would be a reasonable wait. Since I was already there and had no clue what the lines would be like today, on election day, it seemed easier to wait it out. I'm glad I did because I was able to take part in my good deed for the day.

Soon after I began waiting I noticed an elderly couple - the lady was in a wheelchair and the gentleman who was pushing her wheelchair was looking at the line with a perplexed expression on his face. Their voting cards were sticking out of the gentleman's front shirt pocket. They looked at the line for a few minutes then moved off to stop at some benches for a rest. The lady behind me, who was obviously a very friendly kind of person, and I began to talk about this couple. "Surely someone nearer the front would let them into the line!", I exclaimed. My line neighbor said she'd go off and talk with them. She relayed to them that they were welcome to go in front of us and to just sit on the benches until we were close to the front. Thus began a very pleasant chance to converse with some American neighbors.

At this point I'd be hard-pushed to say exactly what we talked of, but for that 40 or so minutes, while we waited to cast our votes and exercise what is arguably our most important right as citizens, it didn't matter who the candidates were, or how we were going to vote, we simply enjoyed the camaraderie of some fellow human beings.

As the results come in tonight I hope that each of us will be able to think of the fact that we are all imperfect human beings on a quest to do our best for ourselves, our families, our friends and neighbors, and our country. May all of the next President's mistakes be small ones!

Somethin Fishy

When it comes to the election, this year you might be excused for thinking that somethin fishy is going on, at least if you read the news report about the dead goldfish who was offered the vote in Illinois. Of course I'm not sure why someone would use the name of their goldfish to register a telephone line - that seems a little fishy to me!

Let's hope we won't hear any fishy stories of voting and counting on Tuesday. The only fishy stories I want to hear are to do with cute, little, goldfish.

Bits and Bobs

Those firefox windows and tabs are multiplying on me again! Here are some bits and bobs - some homeschool, some just life.

• Living with Bugs - a nice looking site that outlines common bugs and the least toxic methods of controlling. It even talks about the different methods of flea control. Sarah, I'm not sure that it will tell you anything you don't already know, but I thought it did a nice job of explaining the options and their effectiveness.
• Got a bug enthusiast or budding entomologist? Learn about insect orders and families.
• Usborne have brought out some great new reading sets - these are nice collections of hardback books (the size of your usual paperback) and perfect for every level from very early reading to age 10-12yrs. I'm not sure why they put the ugly red savings stars over the pictures of the books, but these are definately nice book sets.
• Even our very own US government is blogging these days. The government blog looks pretty nice and it might be a much more friendly way to find your way around the tons of information out there which I'm sure we're funding through our taxes!
• Just in case you're not done with the election: Time for Kids; America.gov on the candidates and potential first ladies; and Melissa over at Sweet Serendipity has a few more links, including one on Duck for President and old campaign ads. I want to take a look at the old ads - Artist Girl and Game Boy love ads!
• Various lesson plans related to Japan.

Good, I'm down to just 46 windows now, so I only have about 300 tabs open. I'm working on it...

Bits and Bobs

Another attempt to share the hundreds of Firefox tabs I have open for your perusal and enjoyment! Hopefully you'll find something of interest and I might one day get few enough tabs open that Handyman Hubby can persuade me to shut down my computer for the installation of a bigger disk drive.

Here goes:

• Sierra Permaculture Guild Listserv - when I was seeking a place to ask permaculture questions this seemed to be one group that was actually active.
• Complete solar cooking campers kit - includes the solar reflector panels and dark colored cookpot you'll need, plus a cookbook and a solar water heating pack.
• Usborne Quicklinks for Reading - lots of information related to using Usborne books for reading. A site I refer to frequently when writing about how to teach reading with Usborne books.
• Appleseeds Magazine - recommended to me by a reader of this blog.
• LiveMocha.com - a very intriguing concept. A way to study a foreign language and find native speakers who'd like to mentor you while you mentor others. It seems like this would be great for adult and teen learners.
• Some homeschool ideas from Successful Homeschooling - I like that these ideas are based on inexpensive family activities that are not at all school like. Did I say life-long learning?
• The Simple Dollar blog - it looks like they have lots of sensible, down to earth advice for family financial management, something that is on my list for my kids to understand for sure!
• First 100 Items to Disappear During a National Emergency - from The Bacon Report blog. I'm pretty sure this list could raise some interesting discussion with your pre-teens and teens.
• Michael Palin for President which I discovered at ZenMommasGarden - rated teen/14? Monty Python humor is not for the faint-hearted!
  

Bits and Bobs

Find out about your morals and ethics and help with research at YourMorals.org - an interesting adjunct to social studies at high school level.

Protect your computer from unwanted and invasive scripts when you're out web surfing by loading free software from NoScript - I use this and it works really well. You do have to specifically allow scripts so it can become a bit of a nuisance if you browse a lot of script-rich websites because you'll have to specifically allow everything you want the first time you come across it. It's rather an eye-opener though to see how many different scripts some sites are trying to load!

A good scientific point to raise for discussion with your kids. Why is only 3% of research funding for cancer aimed at finding the causes and preventing it rather than detecting and treating? Here's an article that prompts the question at The International Herald Tribune.

Is your family disaster ready? You can download a 204 page FEMA guide for citizen preparedness which acts as a unit study into natural disasters. Information covered includes: the type of disasters; which communities are likely to be affected; and information on preparing a family plan. Find more information at Ready.gov and learn how to store water and make it safe in an emergency.

The Homeschool Mom has provided 4 screens worth of links on the election. If you've not had enough yet you're bound to find something suitable there. Whew! That much is a bit overwhelming!

Bits and Bobs

Election resources for teaching at nationalmockelection.org. Their website contains a variety of teaching resources and you can register to set up your own mock election. I'm probably being "thick" here, but I'm not quite sure how we register as homeschoolers. It does look as though we have the option to register a homeschool group, or just as a parent. If you've figured it out already do let me know.

Apparently children learn from praise while adults learn from mistakes. You can check this out at the Eide Neurolearning blog. Kind of explains a lot!

I keep reading about FreeRice.com and I thought I should check it out. What a great way to contribute while testing and growing your general knowledge. They currently have quizzes on Art History, Geography, Chemistry, English, French, German, Italian, Spanish and Math on there - see the list of subjects. Since the questions come from Harvard I'm guessing it's worth working on a few. Watch out though, I can see how this could get addictive, at least for me (my two favorite things to do - learn and help others)!

How engineers fold t-shirts at YouTube. I love it!

Fantastic Contraption - a physics game. The music is a bit irritating though so you might click the speaker symbol to put it off.

Seven days left to register for my CutePiXelArt giveaway. Currently there are only 4 entrants and the prize is a really cute piece of customized graphic art. Check it out and leave a comment to enter.

United States Election, Republicrats and more!

1. While wandering today I discovered the Republicrats party. My kids had heard of the Monster Raving Loony Party in the UK (now in the USA too apparently), so I think they're going to like this. Be warned, the Vice Presidential Candidate for the party is seen with bikini clad women hanging on his shoulders. Republicrats, rated Teen?
2. Melissa at Sweet Serendipity shares a way for kids to get involved in voting - read about it here.

Got any funny stuff related to the election? Artist Girl and Game Boy love humor in homeschooling. Share and I'll give you a link.

Tonia thinks it's important to keep a sense of humor about the elections. I agree!

Children's Books on the Presidency and Election

Books on the Presidency and Election from Amazon.com
Try searching for children's books related to the election and presidency and you'll find that most books for elementary aged kids are textbook style and designed for school needs on the history of our government. For reading at home you probably want something more fun!
I was alerted to this by a friend of mine who wanted books to share with her 10 year old. It took a bit of searching, but she was delighted with what I found. She has now been recommending the books I found to her friends.

See the full list of books I found, find out more about this specific book and take a look inside at Amazon.com, or see Getting the Inside Scoop on Elections (a 2008 book with facts and activities).

For some fun and informative links related to the election head over to Sweet Serendipity. Haben at My5LittleMonkies is also studying the election and recommends the curriculum she is using.

Free Resource for Presidential Election

While watching C-SPAN on TV yesterday I heard about their free resources on civics, government and the election. You can sign up to access them at http://www.c-spanclassroom.org

The materials were developed by 4 interns who worked with C-SPAN over the summer and they provide full lesson plan structure, or you can pick out items to supplement other approaches.