How to Give Your Student the Edge with Current Events Resources
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No matter how you handle social media, current events is a part of living in a world with the sound on. Little kids hear broadcasts across the gas station and in the car. They catch what grandma and family members are talking about after dinner. They understand something big is happening when we parents stop to listen to the details.
History is Tied to All of Us
As instructors we need to give kids the right tools. So, they can discern what they hear from the radio and other sources. Kids are hungry to hear what is happening in the world around them. Especially if you are doing your job as an educator. Connect them with helpful sources so they can discover current events for themselves. This is the next step we take to introduce them to a world much bigger than their own.
Kids Are Ready for Truth at Every Age
In raising our children I have learned to talk about big subjects much sooner than I think we need to. I’m not just talking about stranger danger and body safety. Though, those need to be approached much sooner than we think too. Right now, I am talking about historical events that are big news in the human scale. Current events that shatter our trust or make us weep for the people who are suffering. These stories are part of all of our lives. I want my children to have a solid understanding of how media works as early as possible.
World View Begins in the Book We Read
Our homeschool is nearly all literature based. Many parent are taken back when they discover that the first grade books discuss subjects like homelessness, bullying, Nazi raids. They met Dear Granny Han who broke her leg ended her mission work serving Jesus while bed-bound. It is in those stories we get to love come alive too. Granny continues to write letters for years with the same zeal she used while she was traipsing around China. In The Family Under the Bridge, they learned how the most unsuspected people can become family when need designates it. Stories teach us about being brave. We find God in adversity in books like Twenty and Ten, and the story of Corrie ten Boom. Lessons about resilience and forgiveness can be learned from a challenging books. 100 Dresses told the story of determination and kindness that read like a historical fact.
Connecting World Events Geographically
We begin from kindergarten, with a steady diet of the stories of humanity. There has been no transition need to the real world. Our kids have been lovingly immersed in it their whole lives. When the tsunami struck Fukushima, we were right in the middle of a year of studying the Eastern Hemisphere. Our students had a world map of reading to give them context. Because they were familiar with the location, they wanted to know who, where, and how the residence were affected. The kids read the news articles and learned about the science and humanity. They grow a deeper connection through news feeds and web searches. The faces and location are connected to our homeschool experience, because we are not bound to our own corner of the world. World News and current events bring the world to you.
Giving Kids Power to Learn Independently
In sixth grade we transition to more independent work. Current events becomes a regularly assigned subject. First, I began looking for ways to give my kids more flexibility to search for and discover news on their own. In the process of finding our way, we discovered great tools that give parents and students choices about where they get news. The following are a few of the places we use for our homeschoolers to get their news and current events. These are presented in a format structured for students to gain the greatest understanding.
Government & History
C-SPAN Classroom is a good source for current government and historical news. I signed up for a free classroom account which gave me access to the site. They also send a great package about the presidents and elections. They offer some great resources. You can create short lessons with their Bell Ringers. Create complete lesson plans with video clips, study questions and vocabulary words. MYC-SPAN CLASSROOM is an area within the site for you to keep lessons and articles to use with your students.
You can search the site easily to supplement your current curriculum. You can search and filter contents by CONTENT TYPE, CONTENT AUTHOR, GRADE LEVEL, and TOPICS.
With election year upon us this is a great resource to help you answer questions. Your students can follow along with the system that has set us apart as a Nation.
Current Events
We are big fans of WORLD Magazine
We have been subscribers to the magazine for a decade. I love that world is a bi-weekly digest. That means it is still current when it comes to our doorstep. It is a Christian publication. I do not feel the same structuring news events to fit a point of view like I see in the mainstream media. In reporting there is always a slant. Reporters are driving us to a conclusion, but with WORLD, the news is well reported and thorough. I feel like I am not lead to a closed minded idea. The reader is allowed to come to conclusions of their own. Digital subscribers and many of reviewers spoke of the clarity and less hyped or slanted reporting on Amazon.
You can Subscribe to Digital for Accessibility
We have subscribed to the digital format in recent years. The student versions are priced reasonably at $35 and are discounted 20% ($29) if you are already a WORLD subscriber. A WORLDteen annual membership includes six print issues, interactive online content updated every weekday. It also includes bonus materials (teaching guides, reading comprehension quizzes, additional activities) to reinforce learning. I recommend print versions if you are one who likes to strew learning materials for a more natural approach. The student versions come less frequently
WORLDteen has quite a bit of self paced material and reader interactive tools online. If you intend on digging in and making Current Events a semester long course it would be all the materials you need. WORLD magazine is an investment for the whole family. The magazine is available in app format in Gooogle Play, The App Store and in Kindle format. It features interactive pages with live linking. When all of the kids got Kindles we switched to the digital format. We read it read more often when we received the print version in our mailbox.
Do you have Alexa in your home?
You can enable “WORLD radio” which is a podcast from WORLD about everything in it. You can ask Alexa, “What’s my flash briefing?” and she will give you the daily update. This is a new interactive device at our house. I want to find all of the ways it can be relevant and useful. I don’t want to have to listen to “Daddy Shark” over and over. The Flash Briefing would be a good breakfast exercise to start the day.
World Offers Variety for Young Readers.
World offers variety for your readers. Three online offering are accessible on their website even as a guest. God’s World for the littlest readers, World Kids for those who are reading independently and World Teen. These offer current topics at appropriate context and reading levels. There is an abundance of material on their site, so go check it out. You will know what you are looking at before you subscribe.
Newsela Offers Current Events for Every Reader in the House
Are you looking for a way to present the same current event article over several reading levels? I have used Newsela to find articles in a variety of reading levels. Every article is created with five reading levels, (570 to 1210). Every readers in your house can join in the discussion.
The site is created for teachers. The ability to create classrooms, share articles and assign is limited to those with an educational account. I have a call scheduled to introduce myself. I want to talk about the needs of home educators. It is important to share about the increasing market we represent. In the meanwhile, you can access all of the articles and reading levels in the main site online. You can also share the articles to a Google Classroom if you have created one.
Making Mobile Devices Work for You
You can read articles on the Newsela app as well. The articles are kids friendly, relevant and geared for students. I like the GOOD NEWS section and the FOR KIDS sections. Do you feel like current events is a dark and depressing topic? Newsela can help with balancing the positive with the negative. I am always looking for ways to help my kids make their phones a tool that assists them in their goals, less of a distraction. By adding learning apps and creating school time to use them, I hope that we are modeling skills they will continue. I do nearly all of my work; outside of writing copy, on my mobil device. We can create an attitude that views tech as creative and useful tools, but it takes being intentional.
Plenty of Information for Easy Searching
Each article is immediately identified by author, source and who did the adaptation. The date published, and word count are visible too. These can help you sort quickly through articles to find relevant or appropriate lengthen for your reader. There is also a general recommendation for reading level and age of audience.
The site is searchable and you can also choose to hide an article. Your discretion is still the deciding factor in what you want to use for discussion topics. Each article has corresponding activities which include reading comprehension writing assignments and quizzes.
I hope this gives you some easy places to start. Let me know if you have a favorite place to gather articles for Current Events reading in your homeschool. I will add them to my list of resources.
