Capitalizing on the Excitement of a Presidential Election

I’ve mentioned how we watch CNN Student News every morning over breakfast when I wrote about our daily schedule.  It is a routine we all enjoy and a great way to introduce my children to current events.  They’ve been asking lots of questions since the beginning of the presidential primaries, so I knew this was a great year to do a unit study on U.S. government and elections.

I took the time to put together an elementary-level unit study and lapbook.  I am ever grateful for Homeschool Share and the people who put time and effort into making resources that others can use free of charge.  I was able to find all the minibooks for our government and elections lapbook from free HSS lapbooks or their blank minibook templates.  I compiled a list of books to cover the topics–quality books are always the backbone of our studies.  Lastly, I enjoy rounding out our units with educational videos, websites and songs, so I found some fun additions to reinforce concepts.

Are any of you hoping to capitalize on this election-year excitement to teach your kids about our system of government and the election process?  If you’d like you can read the details on what we’ll be doing for a government and elections unit.

We’ll work on this lapbook in early October so the information will be fresh in their minds as the campaigns really ramp up before election day.  We’ll continue watching Student News each day, watch debates and speeches together, and take field trips to see and candidates that visit locally.  It should be an exciting, educational election season!