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Donna
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| Posted: Jan 28 2006 at 7:37am | IP Logged
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I'm looking for ideas and suggestions for following current events with my 13yo son, Jackson. Do you have a particular website that you use? Do your children narrate after reading an article? Other suggestions?
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Donna
DH, Keven
Jason, Stevie, Marie, Jackson, Clara, and Aaron
Jacob, Sam, and Regina with God
Grandbabies Leigha and Elsie
Moments Like These
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Kelly
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| Posted: Jan 29 2006 at 11:02pm | IP Logged
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We have subscriptions to "God's World", which is a sort-of Christian bi-weekly-reader. Aside from the occasional praise-a-thon for Martin Luther, on the whole, it's fairly balanced. They certainly wrote a lot of nice things about Pope John Paul II! They tend to stick to issues, rather than trying to get the latest-greatest news, and I think their discussion is generally good. My high-school ds gets "World" magazine, that they publish, and it has been the springboard for many fruitful discussions.
All the bi-weekly readers come with a comprehension quiz, as well as a teacher's list of suggestions for "branching out". We do the quizes, and that's about it, though we do end up talking about the articles quite often.
They also have a website, I believe, though I've never checked it. 
On the whole, good value...and good valueS! Always tricky when it comes to current events!
Kelly in FL
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alicegunther
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I used to keep a current events board in the kitchen. Rather than let the children look through the newspapers themselves, I would keep an eye out for articles of interest in all the local papers and post them each day. It was time consuming to maintain, but extremely effective.
I really ought to go back to doing that!
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Love, Alice
mother of seven!
     
Cottage Blessings
Brew yourself a cup of tea, and come for a visit!
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Dawn
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Hi Donna,
I have a similar system to Alice's ~ I'm a bit of a news junkie, so I cut out articles from the papers and news-magazines and put them aside for my 10 yo to read. He then will pick one story to tell Daddy about at supper.
I would love to find a good magazine for kids, because some days/weeks there are no "child-appropriate" stories to share with him  .
I really like Alice's idea of a current events board; this might make it more of a family project!
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Dawn, mum to 3 boys 
By Sun and Candlelight
The Nature Corner
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Kelly
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Good idea, Alice and Dawn. The papers are SO full of garbage, and so slanted, they definitely bear parental, er, interpretation, shall we say? Or editing?
My big boy used to read to our blind, 92 year old neigbor, a very nice, but VERY liberal Harvard and Columbia-trained New York lawyer. Fortunately, ds was already somewhat exposed to the themes and issues of today's current events when he started reading for Sy. Good thing, because Sy would always request that ds read the most bogus articles, always out of the New York Times (so you can imagine the thrust): articles on gay "marriage", Monica Lewinsky-kinda articles, conservative-bashing articles, and so on. Sigh. Or should I say "Sy"! Still, I was so glad that we had addressed these topics AND were au courante with the issues, so ds was armed, and dangerous Even at 92, maybe ESPECIALLY at 92, our friend loved a good discussion, and as we allknow, teenagers love to argue, so Su and ds had lots of interesting exchanges!
So important that our children be atuned to what's going on, but carefully so, as you never know when those Hot Topics will intrude into our lives!
BTW one of the glaring holes our Brain Bowl team coach here has pointed out on many teams is...you guessed it, lack of awareness of current events. That, and ignorance about "sayings", like "raining cats and dogs" or "mad as a wet hen"... Interesting, huh?
Kelly in FL
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TracyQ
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Donna,
We have a *current events board* (on the back of our door), and we put a map in the middle, so we can look up the places where things are happening, and mark them.
We watch a LOT of news here, so we talk a lot about current events, and often ask the kids their thoughts, etc. on certain subjects.
When I get our map back up (took it down for Christmas) and put our current events board back up, which I'll be sure to do now that you've reminded me (thank you ), I am thinking I'd like to use MyCatholic.com My Catholic
I have this as our homepage, and read the readings, reflection, and saint of the day, quotes, catechism, etc. from it. You can customize it (at the top), and only get what you want. But we can find news online, that is world news, and Catholic world news, so I'd like to incorporate that. I'd also like for our kids to look up other resources on the same topic/news piece and see the different points of view of how they're written, etc. as well.
But we cut out and post certain articles and information from online mostly, both world news, and local news. We don't get our paper except on Sunday, so we'll sometimes use that, and the diocese paper too. Our local news is extremely liberal, and so we only get Sunday for the ads and coupons.
We got God's World News papers for a long time, and the kids really enjoyed them, but last year, my son became annoyed with something that was anti-Catholic and untrue, so we decided not to support it anymore. Over all, they were pretty good, but I just felt it wasn't worth paying for anymore. I surely wish there was a kid's Catholic version of this!
Hope this helps!
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Blessings and Peace,
Tracy Q.
wife of Marty for 20 years, mom of 3 wonderful children (1 homeschool graduate, 1 12th grader, and a 9th grader),
homeschooling in 15th year in Buffalo, NY
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Bookswithtea
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I don't know that all the articles would be appropriate, but I like Our Sunday Visitor. Its a newspaper format, but its a "weekly" like Newsweek or USAToday. Very Catholic, and the articles cover a few world and national stories and then articles of interest to Catholics. It won't give the child the full scope of what's happening in the world, but its a start. They have some rousing debates in the editorials at times. Amy Welborn used to be a regular columnist.
I love the idea of a current events board! Dh and I were just talking last night about the best way to introduce current events to him, without watching the nightly news.
~Books
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Donna
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| Posted: Jan 31 2006 at 7:07pm | IP Logged
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Thanks for all the great ideas !!!
I've subscribed to "God's World" after looking at their website. We are also going to start a "current events board". We've spent some time this week looking at The Kids Newsroom and Jackson enjoyed telling the family at dinner tonight that Afghan women are now allowed to learn how to drive. Made him feel good. 
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Donna
DH, Keven
Jason, Stevie, Marie, Jackson, Clara, and Aaron
Jacob, Sam, and Regina with God
Grandbabies Leigha and Elsie
Moments Like These
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teachingmom
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| Posted: Jan 31 2006 at 11:08pm | IP Logged
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Kelly wrote:
| The papers are SO full of garbage, and so slanted, they definitely bear parental, er, interpretation, shall we say? Or editing? |
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We get both the Washington Post and Washington Times. I often have to hide the front page or other section's cover page by tossing it in the recycled newspaper bin or simply slipping it inside another section (like Sports, which doesn't get read by the females in this house!) in order to avoid scandalizing my girls with innappropriate headlines or photos.
Somehow my older girls became aware of the Kid's Post page, which offers short age-appropriate news stories. Often they are not even really nationally important current event stories, but stories about kid's literature, the National Zoo's baby panda, etc. I haven't found anything really objectionable yet.
Since our two newspapers are so radically different in their political biases, they can be very instructive in that area. Recently, when Alito was confirmed in committee, the Times had very large headlines trumpeting the good news. The photos on the front page were actually very funny. Three very liberal members of the committee were shown grimacing and looking like they were in physical pain over the news. The Post, in contrast, had a small headline about 2/3 of the way down the front page on the right hand side. I can't remember now what the "bigger news" was that day that was given greater prominence, but it was a few dumb articles that made it rather incredible that the Alito news was relegated to its final position. I pointed that out to the girls and we all had a good laugh at the Times photos of Ted Kennedy, et al., looking so unhappy.
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~Irene (Mom to 6 girls, ages 7-19)
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Molly Smith
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teachingmom wrote:
| Somehow my older girls became aware of the Kid's Post page, which offers short age-appropriate news stories. |
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We don't get the paper, but my parents save this for us every weekend. My dd10 loves it. She often takes away some little nugget that relates to something we've studied or are studying.
I would love to see an appropriate newspaper for kids. Is God's World News set up in a newspaper format? Is it mostly fluff, or real news?
We don't have any method of keeping up with Current Events. Usually we just discuss big things as they happen--like the comfiration of Judge Alito yesterday and the State of the Union. We should do something more...
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Molly Smith in VA
Mom to seven beautiful children, ages 1-14
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Kelly
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God's World is set up like the old Weekly Readers. They have different versions for different ages, though the articles are roughly on the same topics (which makes it nice for family discussion). As someone pointed out earlier, they do, occasionally, make sly comments about the Catholic Church, but we've subscribed for years, and it seems that such incidences are getting less and less frequent. I first heard of the magazine from Kimberly Hahn's book, "Catholic Education: Homeward Bound" and I believe her assessment was something along the lines that the periodical has so much positive Christian content, that you can overlook the occasonal dumb anti-Catholic statement.
That being said, we all got a good laugh over their October 31st issue, which was all about how Martin Luther posted his theses on Oct 31...whoopee! On Halloween, how appropriate! In general, though, I think the content is quite good, not fluff. Definitely Christian evangelical in tone, but what a positive alternative to Weekly Reader. Aaaagh. I used to love WR as a child, now it has turned into a sort of combination San Francisco Chronicle/Greenpeace rag sheet for children. Yuck.
Kelly in FL
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Topic: Current Events for Kids
