Election Study

So, it's an election year. I bet none of you realized it. It's not been constantly hyped in the media at all- nope. I just have to say that it has been so bad that in the weeks leading up to this past November I was afraid I was not prepared to vote. There had been so much in the media that I actually had to stop and realize that it was NOT an election year. Sad but true.

In keeping with all the media hype we are embarking on a study of the presidential election process. I will attempt to keep things real time although we are obviously entering the game late into the primary season. We've been discussing it on occasion with the kids. They are anxious to hear our vote and let's just say for "educational purposes" Dan and I are affiliated with different parties. That way we can play along on both sides. Mostly this will be for E9 although I think we'll do some components with everyone just for fun and some introduction to the democratic process. I'll try to come up with some fun activities though I will likely stop short of working a campaign. If you want to hear some interesting stories some time, let me tell you about how I worked on the Carter campaign and marched on the Mall in around 1980 with my parents when I was about 10. Good times...

We'll be using the following resources for our election study.

• Amanda Bennett Election Unit Study

• Five in a Row Election 2008 Fold and Learn
• Presidents Unit Study, Election Unit from the Oklahoma Homeschool Web Site

The Amanda Bennett study calls for researching presidents as part of the study and some of you may know that E9 has been reading and writing about them in chronological order for about a year now. This will be a nice boost. By the way, the newest presidential dollar coin has been released and it is handsome as are the others. We can't wait until the next release in May! Here is a link to E9's Reading through the Presidents project.

In the Basket for this unit:

• The Presidency by Patricia Murphy
• Encyclopedia of Presidents Harry Truman (part of E9's Neil Armstrong study)
• America Votes How Our President is Elected by Linda Granfield
• So You Want to be President? by Judith St. George (fun picture book)
  
• A Kid's Guide to the White House by Betty Debnam (very cool book with fun facts about kids in the White House and other interesting tidbits)
• The Presidency edited by Michael Nelson
  

You know you can count on updates!