Curriculum Resource: Constitution Day

Today--Friday, September 16, 2011--is Constitution Day, which marks the 224th anniversary of the signing of the US Constitution.  The official name is actually "Constitution and Citizenship Day," and it is part of a legislative mandate that all public educational institutions have some programming on this event.  That doesn't apply to us homeschoolers, of course, but I welcome every opportunity to teach my son and his peer about the importance of this pivotal document in American history and the role they must play to keep democracy alive.

We've studied the Constitution before, so we reviewed the history of how the document came to be, particularly the compromises required to come to agreement among all the different states, some of which have worked brilliantly (such as keeping equal state representation in the Senate and proportional representation in the House), others not so well (slavery issues).  We went over the provisions briefly, discussed the branches of government, and reviewed the rights guaranteed us through the Bill of Rights (and some of the other major amendments ).  Finally, we practiced the Citizenship aspect of the day by having each student identify a legislative issue that mattered to him (I was working with an all-male group) and writing a letter expressing their support or opposition on that issue to an appropriate government official.

A good source for information was the website Constitution Facts.  Not only did they have a lot of good information, they had some fun quizzes, which always liven things up.  We took the Constitutional I.Q. Quiz as a group, and got 9 out of 10 answers right, which won us a rating of "Constitutional Whiz Kids."  There is also a What Founding Father Are You? , which was a fun personality-style test (my son got matched to Benjamin Franklin, which is definitely the one he is most like).  The "Real or Fake" Quiz asks some off-beat questions about the Founding Fathers, and once again we did well enough as a group to be deemed "Honorary Founding Fathers."

So while writing the legislators was the most important part of the lesson, the quizzes were probably the most fun!  But any activity on this day is important to remind our children that the Constitution and the government it designs are living and evolving entities that need ongoing involvement by citizens of all ages to function properly.

Curriculum Resource: Fling the Teacher

One of the fun free educational software programs that you can use to check your students' knowledge on a subject is "Fling the Teacher."  In this software, students get to change the look of the "teacher"--hair and skin color, hair style, mouth/teeth, accessories (glasses and earrings), etc.--stick him in a barrel, and fling him through the air using a trebuchet they construct by answering 15 questions correctly.  It is pretty much just a fact recall quiz, but it is kind of cute and the students enjoy building up their equipment until it is ready to toss the digital professor into the air.

We used this software this week in our 19th Century History Coop to review some of the facts about the Westward Expansion and Industrial Revolution in the US.  The link for this game is: http://www.solpass.org/7ss/Games/WestwardExpansion.html

There is another quiz about this time period as well, which you can see at: http://www.lisd.net/schools/briar/fling/Westward%20Expansion.html

What is nice about these games is that they are quick, so you can complete them in a short enough period of time that the students don't lose interest.  You can do them several times in a role to get enough right answers to complete your trebuchet and fling the teacher; the software scrambles the answers (and sometimes the questions), so the students really learn the questions they answered incorrectly at first on subsequent tries of the problem.  Best of all, the software is open to everyone to create your own quiz using your own questions for whatever subject you are studying.

Here is a website with a list of Fling the Teacher quizzes from American History.

Here is one with questions about World, but mostly European History.

Here is one with other subjects.

And if you want to make your own, here is where you download the software.

Or, even better, get your students to create one to demonstrate how much they have learned!

The History of Boxing Day

For those who are still seeking some educational aspects to sneak into the holidays...

Here is a short quiz on the English tradition of Boxing Day, which began in the Middle Ages.  After answering all the questions, there is a little bit of material on the history of this day, which is an official holiday in England and some of the British territories.

It fits in well for us, because we had a British-inspired Christmas dinner last night of Prime Rib, Yorkshire Pudding, Baked Potatoes, and Roasted Vegetables (but without the Christmas Pudding, which no one here really likes).  And just like the British upper crust had to fend for themselves as their servants took off Boxing Day to have their own family celebrations, my family is going to have to get along without my cooking services for the day.

Here in Raleigh, we actually had our first White Christmas (during the night, at least) since 1966 (according to WRAL weather).  All the more reason for taking the day off and enjoying the beauty and serenity of the snow after all the build-up to Christmas.