Citizenship Test

Today I gave my kids 50 of the 100 questions that are part of the citizenship test to become a US citizen.  These questions were from the test that was used before October 1, 2008.  There's a new test now.  We'll do the other 50 questions next week and then check out the new test.  I have to say I was pretty impressed with how many of the answers that my 8 and 9 year old knew.  Here's the test and you can test your own citizenship knowledge. I believe that they randomly select 10 questions from this list to be on the actual test for potential citizens to take.

http://usgovinfo.about.com/blinstst.htm

We've been doing Constitution Tuesday the past two weeks, I just have been too tired to blog about it because there's been illness.  We went over more of the Preamble and the started the First Article of the Constitution that talks about the Legislative Branch.

Last week we talked about how you had to be a citizen of the United States for seven years in order to be a member of the House of Representatives. That sparked my son to ask how someone becomes a citizen who wasn't born here.  I told him that they have to take a test, which led us to look it up and see what kinds of questions are on the test.

The new test is here:

http://www.uscis.gov/USCIS/Office%20of%20Citizenship/Citizenship%20Resource%20Center%20Site/Publications/100q.pdf

But that is material for another week.

Preamble

Today I had my two oldest children memorize the Preamble to the Consitutution.  Let's see if I can remember it, by typing it right now:

We the People of the United States,
In order to form a more Perfect Union,
Establish Justice,
Insure Domestic Tranquility,
Provide for the Common Defence,
Promote the General Welfare and
Secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity,
Do ordain and Establish this Constitution of the United States of America.

I'll admit, I couldn't do it and I cheated, but I'll work on it.

We also talked about the phrase, "In order to form a More Perfect Union." We discussed the definition of "more perfect" meaning that it wasn't perfect, but better than what they had before with the Articles of Confederation. We also discussed what "Union" meant and why the colonies were not united and the reasons they felt they needed something new. They weren't united because they began competing against one another, they lacked a common currency, and they lacked a central government to help regulate certain things.

I'm sorry if we are going kind of slow. I'm sure some of you are ready to get into the meat of it, but you have to bear with me, I'm teaching a 3rd and 4th grader.

If you want some nitty gritty details for today's lesson, you can read about Gouverneur Morris, who was the Founding Father that was primarily responsible for writing the text of the Preamble when he served on the Committee of Stile and Arrangement in the Summer of 1787. Just remember he wasn't actually a Governor. His name just happened to be Gouverneur.:

http://www.history.army.mil/books/revwar/ss/morrisg.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gouverneur_Morris

This is what he looked like:

Gouverneur Morris

OH! Also, I forgot about this.  Here is a video of the School House Rock song for the Preamble. It bothers me a little bit that they don't say the first line correctly.  They leave out, "of the United States." But it's good.  It will probably stick in your head for a little while, in a good way.

The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin

I know it's Tuesday and I should be teaching something constitutional.  But I have nothing.  I'm trying to get ahead on my To Do list and I'm still busy taking my Christmas decorations down.  However, I will let you know that I am reading the Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin.  I really like it.  I'm reading it because it's the first selection in the Harvard Classics.

"The Harvard Classics?" you ask.  Yes, the Harvard Classics.  About 10 years ago my husband somehow came across a volume of the Harvard Classics.  He was determined to get the whole set.  They aren't that hard to come by, but the problem was that we were newlyweds and we didn't have any money.  Every weekend we would go on a hunt for Harvard Classics at thrift stores and garage sales.  Finally, we found a used bookstore that had a whole set (an old one).  The owners of the bookstore were very nice and they let us buy two volumes per week for $2.60 per book.  So since there are about 50 volumes, it took us about six months to get the whole set.

For the past several years the set has been sitting in our garage.  On Saturday we brought it into the house. Supposedly if you read the books, it's suppose to be like getting a college education, or something like that.  You can read more about it here.  Anyway, I was recently inspired to maybe try to read these books.  By nature I'm kind of the type of person who likes to watch The Bachelor and read People magazine, and the subject of history has never really been my "thing".  But learning about the Constitution and our Founder Fathers has been an enlightening experience.  I'm am thirsty for more knowledge in this subject area.  I was excited to find that the first selection was good 'ole Ben's Autobiography.

I also came across a homeschool method called the Thomas Jefferson Education.  I am partially adopting this method for our family.  It's basically a method that uses classic books instead of textbooks to teach your children.  Of course there is more involved, but that's the jist.  Several of the selections in the Harvard Classics are also classics included on the list of recommended reading for the Thomas Jefferson Education.

So there we have it.  Today's lesson is that I'm reading the Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin.  Ben Franklin was a Founding Father.

Oh, and did you happen to see Congress read the Constitution last week?  I sat with my kids and we watched it on C-Span.  The media kind of criticized that they left out certain parts that had been altered by amendments, saying that they were overlooking part of our country's history.  I say, "whatever."  I think it's cool that it was read and I hope it helps bring Congress to a remembrance that we should have Constitutionally sound legislation.

One more thing.  This weekend we took a tour of a local attraction.  It's where our state ratified the constitution.  I got to take the kids' picture by a framed copy of the Constitution.  They were excited to see it.

Happy New Year from Constitution Tuesday!

I'm back from hiatus.  Christmas and New Years was fun.  For Christmas my husband bought me some cool American History/ Constitution study material. This is what I got:

I haven't started this book yet.  It will probably take me awhile.  It looks good.

I'm hoping to come up with a syllabus for Constitution Tuesday with this book and the book below:

I've told you about this book before.  It's a good read.

A nice easy 32 page read.

Did you hear that Congress is going to begin Opening Session by reading the Constitution on January 6th?  How cool is that?  From what I've read, it's the first time it's ever been read in a session of congress.  The goal is to "underscore the limited-government rules the Founders imposed on Congress and to try to bring some of those principles back into everyday legislating."  


For full article read this:  http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2010/dec/23/we-the-people-to-open-next-congress/

I think we should all read it this week, or at least some of it.

Sorry I don't have more lesson today.  I'm working on it.  I'm still recovering from Christmas.

The Card

Nothing says "American" like an awesome Christmas card from Shutterfly!

Merry Glee Christmas 5x7 folded card

Shop Shutterfly.com for elegant Christmas photo cards.

View the entire collection of cards.

Catechism on the Constitution

I wanted to share this cool little thing I found this week. Way back a long time ago they used to teach the Constitution to small children.  Not just teach it, but teach it well and kind of drill it.  This is a book published in 1828, written by Arthur Stansbury.  It's a question and answer guide to the Constitution.  Of course not all the material is still completely relevant because of Amendments and stuff, but it's a good course for children and adults to get introduced to the content of the Constitution.  I thought it was pretty cool.  It's called Elementary Catechism on the Constitution of the United States: For the use of schools.  Do you remember learning the Constitution in this much depth?  I don't.  I recommend reading it.  I like it.

Constitutional Convention Part 2

Correction:  Last week I wrote that the Articles of Confederation were drafted after the Revolutionary War ended in 1783.  They were actually drafted in 1776 after the signing of the Declaration of Independence.  Sorry.  My bad. I hope I haven't lost all credibility. :)

Now for Part Two:  Last week we left off at the Great Compromise.  The Great Compromise attempted to blend the Virgina Plan (representation according to population) with the New Jersey Plan (equal representation) by establishing The House of Representatives and the Senate. The quarelling persisted and they argued about how many representatives each state should have and whether slaves should be counted when determining population.  It was a total mess and it seemed as if the whole Constitution project was going to fall apart.  Finally some delegates had a change of heart (likely due to prayers) and the Great Compromise was adopted on July 16, 1787.  Yay!  So finally it was official that the House would have representatives according to population, and the Senate would have an equal number of votes.  They also determined that they would count three fifths of slaves when counting people. A lot of delegates really really really disliked (my word for "hate") slavery, especially Gouverneur Morris from Pennsylvania. (Gouverneur was actually his first name.  He was not the Governor of Pennsylvania.  He also had a peg leg.)  

Just 10 days later on July 26 they were ready to put together a committee called the Committee of Detail which, you guessed it, worked out the details of the Constitution, with John Rutledge of South Carolina in charge. Some of the other guys, such as George Washington, took off on a break and did things such as fishing while the committee was at work. Some of the details that they worked out were naming things such as:

• the "House of Representatives" and its leader the "Speaker"
• the "Supreme Court"
• the "President" as the head of the executive branch

On August 6th the Convention gathered together again and the committee said, "How does this look?"  They had a few more details to discuss such as how the president was to be elected and how the Constitution was going to be ratified.  These discussions concluded with an agreement on a system of electors to elect the president.  This meant that the people would indirectly choose the president.  They also decided that the people would be in charge of ratifying the Constitution.  Every state would have specially elected conventions to vote yay or nay on the Constitution. Nine of the thirteen states were needed to ratify the Constitution and make it the supreme law of the land.

Now that the last of the details were worked out, the document was passed onto the Committee of Style and Arrangement.  These were the guys in charge of the final draft.  Talk about stress, to know your handwriting was going to be on display for years to come!  I bet they wished they had spell check too. This committee did its thing and presented the final draft on September 17, 1787.  Ben Franklin did not agree with everything in the Constitution, but he signed it anyway because he was humble enough to admit that he was not always right.  Although he disagreed with some things, he at least knew the Constitution was very good.  Others had doubts too, but mostly because the Constitution didn't set forth rights of the individual.  This was later fixed with the addition of the Bill of Rights.

So the signatures began. Thirty-nine delegates signed the Constitution, with George Washington first. By July 4, 1788 ten states had signed the Constitution.  Here is a chronological list of when each of the 13 states ratified the Constitution.  As you can see, three states were unanimous, some had a large majority, and some were very close in votes:

	Date	State	Votes
			Yes	No
1	December 7, 1787	Delaware	30	0
2	December 11, 1787	Pennsylvania	46	23
3	December 18, 1787	New Jersey	38	0
4	January 2, 1788	Georgia	26	0
5	January 9, 1788	Connecticut	128	40
6	February 6, 1788	Massachusetts	187	168
7	April 26, 1788	Maryland	63	11
8	May 23, 1788	South Carolina	149	73
9	June 21, 1788	New Hampshire	57	47
10	June 25, 1788	Virginia	89	79
	July 4, 1788	BIG HUGE PARTY!
11	July 26, 1788	New York	30	27
12	November 21, 1789	North Carolina	194	77
13	May 29, 1790	Rhode Island	34	32

They had a big huge Fourth of July party with a big huge parade.  James Wilson, a signer from Pennsylvania, gave a speech and said, "Happy Country!" He said a lot more other important stuff, but that is material for another post....

That ends today's lesson.  I hope ya'll have a Happy Thanksgiving!  What a wonderful country we have to be grateful for.  I am grateful for our Founding Fathers and their willingness to spend a long hot summer drafting a document that produces an effective government to protect our God-given liberties.