Founder's Academy: Vote 2012

Usually I talk about my little ones, but today my 13yr. old and 11yr. old are in the spotlight! With this being an election year, I was feeling a little guilty about not doing a unit study or something on the subject (we did one 4 years ago, does that count?) Well I remembered how much fun my 9yr. old had in her Meatballs & Marinara class and my then 4yr. old had in her online Smoothie Cooking Class over at Currclick. I thought I'd go look around again and see what they had to offer. I was thrilled to see that Founder's Academy was offering a Live!2012 class. So I signed my oldest two up.

13yr. old dd in class :)

This class was a speciality class and only lasted 2 sessions. This class covered:

• How are candidates for president selected
• What is a primary / What is a caucus
• How does the party system work
• What is the electoral college
• Is voting a right, or a privilege

CurrClick has an online classroom. When you sign up for the class you will receive information on how to access the classroom. Once I figured out how to set up student profiles, it was pretty easy to access the class. It really is a nice set-up. You can configure student profiles for each of your children under your account settings tab. Then once that is completed, each child can have their own "homepage". Whatever classes they are signed up for will show up under their courses. They can also receive homework assignments and messages from their teacher here.

Mrs. Schott, a 14-year homeschool veteran, was their teacher. She was the only one who appeared on video and was heard. The students typed questions and answers in the chat box, which is on the bottom left of the screen in the picture above. My kids liked that part. They enjoyed interacting online with other homeschoolers from around the world.

This is the "mom-do-you-have-to-take-a-picture?" pose.

One of their assignments in this class was to create their own campaign poster for CurrClick class president. They were told to use what they learned in class about campaigning for their poster. The students emailed their designs to Mrs. Schott, and the next class period they had to give a short slogan or campaign speech, and then show their poster. They held their own class election and voted for a class president.

I was very surprised at how much my kids enjoyed this class. I think they were too. Mrs. Schott did a great job presenting the information. She had visuals, websites, and kept the kids engaged during class. I felt the material covered was age-appropriate and challenged the kids to think about what was going on in the elections around them. After the live sessions were over, recordings of the sessions were available to view again. Both kids asked me to sign them up for another one of her classes. That says a lot right there! Since my daughter will be in high-school next year, I have my eye on several of Founder Academy's High School level classes. I'm thinking her Live! Economics might be next. :)

Right now Lynn Schott has several fun summer classes lined up. She even has a repeat of the class we took coming up in July. If you haven't thought about online classes, these shorter summer classes are a great way to test the waters.

Disclosure: This class was on my wishlist and someone gave it to me for free. I was not required to do a review. I thought the class was a great opportunity for homeschoolers and wanted to share. I did add affiliate links though. Thank you for supporting this site! :)