I am about three class periods into my President unit, and thought it about time to sit down and give my recap on what good works we have been doin'. In order to do this unit justice, I really want to think at the beginning and again at the end... what makes a great President? "I do not believe," said Wilson, "that any man can lead who does not act . . . under the impulse of a profound sympathy with those whom he leads -- a sympathy which is insight -- an insight which is of the heart rather than of the intellect.
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While ole man winter wages a war outside, it's that time of year where we can all retire to our couches, grab a mug of cocoa while a fire rages in the fire place... and snuggle up to the POTUS. So, this is my next unit. Pretty nice, huh? Fortuitous timing? Well, my poor kiddies have to finish their semester exams first. THEN we tackle the big man. So, in the WEEK they have off coming up, maybe I will give them some things to think about. 1: Al Jazeera America is asking folks to tweet pics of themselves with their wishes for the POTUS in his next year. #DearPOTUS. 2: The White House is inviting folks to watch the enhanced live stream on FB, YouTube, or Google+. There will be a SOTU chat afterwards with some members of Obama's Executive Office of the President. Follow with #SOTUChat. 3. The White House offers us an inside glimpse of prepping for the SOTU. You can either go #InsideSOTU on Tumblr or follow their progress on Storify or their devoted SOTU page on Whitehouse.gov. So, what do we do with this? Maybe...
What will you do? I couldn't decide on just one, so I made an assignment with all six.. In a rush? Have $2 to spare? You can get a copy, too!!! It's been a while... and I've been up to much. We're smack dab in the middle of Constitution land. Do you have a minute? Do you wanna chat Supreme law of the land?
I tackle the Constitution in three parts. Here is the first of them. Instead of telling kids about the Constitution through History's eyes, I try to focus on telling history through the eyes of the Constitution. And to truly understand the I gots to start at the beginning. So, we go back.... way back. To the civilizations, historical moments, philosophers, and documents that gave us our Constitution. I start by assigning my kids a timeline assignment, of which they spend (or will spend in the future) *one* hour and a half researching an assigned topic. The topics can be grouped:
This is important, and I will come back to it later. And, my kids don't know these categories exist. The kids take their topic from the assignment and are tasked with researching and reporting back to the class:
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Jen's bookshelf: nerdcation
I want to start by thanking Mr. Snowden and Mr. Greenwald for their uncompromising dedication to giving the NSA violations air time and transparency.
I wanted to share some of the most important things I have learned from this book bef...
tagged:
nerdcation
tagged:
nerdcation and to-read
tagged:
nerdcation and to-read
tagged:
nerdcation and to-read
AuthorI lovgov. LOVE IT! I love teaching government, learning about it, debating, discussing, asking questions about government. And not the standard boiler plate questions, but the hard ones that are NOT in the books. Archives
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