Help me figure out Current Events

[BigMamaBird]

Hi all,

 

I'm hoping you can help me organize my thoughts here.  My oldest will be in Third Grade this year and I'd like to start doing a Current Events study each week.  My thought is to buy a Sunday paper and have her pick a story to read, then write about.  I'm not exactly certain how to go about doing this though.  Do any of you use newspapers for Current Events and if you do, how do you have them go about it in an organized way?  Any help or ideas you can give me would be greatly appreciated!!

[Harriet Vane]

The very best resource I have found for current events is CNN Student News. It's really, really well done! They run a ten-minute show every day. You can subscribe (free) and get reminder emails to link you to the show. The website also offers discussion questions, quizzes, and maps if you so desire.

 

http://www.cnn.com/studentnews/

 

Edited to add--The show does not run during summer, but you can watch some old shows to get an idea of what they do. The show will officially start running again on 8/12.

[PeterPan]

God's World News has newsmagazines for kids at various reading levels.  My dd enjoyed them quite a bit.  They're fabulous, because the articles and topics are picked to be age-appropriate as well.  

[ondreeuh]

We are going to use CNN Student News. I subscribed to the video podcasts, so they download to my iPad.

[austen]

Thanks for posting these ideas! I have a rising sixth grader and wanted to start current events this year.

[stoverdavid30]

God's World from World Magazine is THE best!

[UmMusa]

OP, we did what you said in the first post in 7th grade! How about you read the news and share something daily or weekly. I would think asking a 3rd grader to go through the paper might be a little early; maybe not.

 

CNN Student News was over the head of my then/ 4th and 3rd graders. I think it's more middle school geared.

[duckens]

When I was in 7th Grade, we actually had "Current Events" as a topic within Social Studies.  We were taught how to look at different parts of a newspaper to get this information, but we could also cull this information from television news.

 

The topics were:

1) International

2) National

3) State

4) Local

5) Editorials and Editorial Cartoons

6) Feature??? Weather???  Entertainment???  Science/Technology???  I can't remember!!!

7) Sports

8) Personal (What's happening in your life today?)

 

We wrote the Headlines (or cut out the Editorial Cartoon) in an example like this:

 

1) Mandela "Steadily Improving" as He Turns 95 in Hospital

2) Detroit Files for Bankruptcy

3 ) [Governor] Wants to See Economic Benefit from University Buildings

4) Convicted Arsonist to be Sentenced on Friday

5)

6) Cory Monteith Dies of Heroin and Alcohol

7) Tiger Shoots a 69

8) My timeline box arrived today!

 

 

BigMamaBird says:

 My oldest will be in Third Grade this year and I'd like to start doing a Current Events study each week.  My thought is to buy a Sunday paper and have her pick a story to read, then write about.  I'm not exactly certain how to go about doing this though.  Do any of you use newspapers for Current Events and if you do, how do you have them go about it in an organized way?

 

This is what I would do if I started Current Events in 3rd grade.  Please do not feel that you need to follow any of this outline.

 

1) I would start with purchasing a newspaper and discussing the different types of news and where they are located in the newspaper. 

 

Depending upon how web-oriented your family is, in a secondary lesson, I would discuss comparable sources online. 

 

When discussing online sources, there should also be emphasis on "news/facts" vs. "commentary" when reading about a story. For example, getting news from CNN is different from reading an essay from Slate.com or Daily Kos or watching Rachel Maddow.  We can get information from these sources, but we must be aware of their agenda in the same way that [insert right leaning  commentary source here] also has an agenda.  Also, talk about how getting information from many different sources can help to sort this out.

 

2) For 3rd Grade, how much writing/summarizing are you expecting?  Will this be her writing experience for the year, or will this be in addition to a Writing Program?  If it is in addition to other writing, you may be better off using this time to write down headlines and have deeper discussions of the articles she has read.

 

3) I have 8 topics listed above for a 7th grader.  That may be too much for a 3rd grader to process.  Perhaps do National/International, Local, and Editorial headlines.

 

4) The Editorial (#5) I have chosen above is pretty inappropriate for 3rd graders.  In our household, I would not rush out and show it to my young children, even as open as we try to be as parents.  However, if my dd brought it to me, we would discuss it.  Not all parents are ready to do this with an 8yo child.  Not all 8yo children are ready for all of the horribleness of the news.  Do you have a plan for this?

[arstephia]

We use God's World News too.  I get all the levels now.  Sometimes the topics cross over the levels, so even the 3rd grader could discuss the current news. I do wish it came more frequently than monthly though.  I tried to do the newspaper thing, but it was much more time consuming for everyone.

[BigMamaBird]

OP, we did what you said in the first post in 7th grade! How about you read the news and share something daily or weekly. I would think asking a 3rd grader to go through the paper might be a little early; maybe not.

 

CNN Student News was over the head of my then/ 4th and 3rd graders. I think it's more middle school geared.

 

Thank you.  I was wondering if maybe Third grade was too early.  I seem to remember doing something like that in upper elementary but I can't remember exactly what grade.  Does anyone remember Weekly Readers?  Is there anything like that around?

[BigMamaBird]

Duckens, thank you.  I like the idea of writing out the headlines, discussing the different sections, lots (mostly) verbal discussion.

 

You've given me plenty to mull around.  Thanks.

[Guest]

Yeah, I've looked at that CNN student news a few times, and while I think it will be great later on, I don't think it will be a good fit for our family for 3rd grade. When I read this the other night, I went and looked at it again, and the headlines that came up on the clips I watched were scenes of the plant in TX exploding, the Boston bombing, the Oklahoma tornado (my kids get nervous about natural disasters), and...I forget what else, but the footage was enough that we won't be watching it this year. I think that God's World magazine looks great, but I wish it was a bit cheaper. I'm sure it's worth it, and maybe I'll budget for it next year. I don't think we're going to tackle current events this year.

[debi21]

I just wanted to comment since a couple of previous posters had indicated that they didn't do current events until middle school. I can clearly remember doing it in elementary school, and upon further reflection, I am certain it was fifth grade. Anyway, we used categories just like duckens listed (I can remember for sure int'l, national, state, local, and sports...not sure of others). We did current events once a week and we rotated through the sections so we were responsible for one category each week. I remember some categories being hard to find good articles for in our local paper. Each week, we had to submit the cut out article of our choice along with a paper listing the category, and the title of the article, the date, page and newspaper the article was from. Then we had to list the who, what, when, where, why, and how (if applicable) of that article, and I believe write a one sentence summary of the article. Anyway, I think it was a pretty good exercise, building several different skills (reading comprehension, summarization, intro to journalism/research) as well as introducing current events, and not too complex for an elementary school student. Also, I think earlier - maybe 3rd grade - we had done some kind of unit introducing the newspaper, identifying the different basic terms used.

[K&Rs Mom]

Thank you.  I was wondering if maybe Third grade was too early.  I seem to remember doing something like that in upper elementary but I can't remember exactly what grade.  Does anyone remember Weekly Readers?  Is there anything like that around?

 

 

Weekly Readers are still around.  They're kind of expensive if you want fewer than 10 copies, but if you can share a subscription with a co-op or something it's worth it.  We did that when my older was in 1st/2nd.  Also Time For Kids (from Time Magazine) is similar, and Scholastic has one too (but they tend to use a lot of their own cartoon characters which I see as advertising).  They're just what you remember: short articles, lots of pictures, and a quiz on the back.  I did like the WR when we got that, partly because it also came with a lesson plan with more activities, discussion topics, and links to more details on the articles.

 

ETA: With a little googling today, it looks like Scholastic & WR have combined, and Time for Kids is only for elementary grades.