Yesterday, In my post about the cost of summer homeschooling, I referenced Myra Turners blog on Summer College for Kids and compared it to a lesson I learned in a book by Paula Penn-Nabrit.
Another Lesson I learned from Morning by Morning, How We Home_Schooled Our African American Sons to the Ivy League, is the importance of having daily conversations with your child. It is great to talk about things on your children’s mind and to have conversations that will uplift your children and their self-esteem. It is also important to talk about things going on in the world around you.
I recently found CNN student news where subjects related to or interesting to kids are presented to kids on a level that is interesting to them and understandable to them. CNN Student news offers the news in an online video feed. It also offers a quick guide and transcript you can print and read. You can follow up the discussion with ten questions made available on the right side of the video player. You can find this feature at CNN’s education page.
The 10-minute video is available on a daily basis. Today’s CNN Headline News (Student News) for kids presented several interesting topics for discussion. The story on the Federal ID program could spur a conversation on State Laws vs. Federal laws as well as national security. You could discuss health issues after viewing the story on the calorie content of foods at popular restaurants. You can discuss genealogy, race relations, or even Al Sharpton and Strom Thurman after watching the story about how the two former presidential candidates can be linked through slave ownership.
If you choose, you can use this website to get your children to write daily or weekly current event essays. In days like this when the newspapers have depressing and often irrelevant news, I am hesitant to hand a newspaper to my kids and tell them to read. This quick video feed is great replacement.
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