Taxing Situation

BOOK 'EM: CJ was itching to get at the computer today. More specifically, itching to get at YouTube. Instead, I directed him toward PBS Island, a great site for learning. (One of the neat features is you can track your child's progress toward meeting certain literacy goals.)

Naturally, once he got to the "island" he was quite happy there. He decided to use a book-creating feature there. By following prompts, "You got to change the words," he explained, which crafted the story's outcome.

In some cases, "They were action words, also known as verbs," Annabelle clarified for me.

CJ's book is titled "The Three Blue Pigs." It reads, "There once were three blue pigs. They built a brick bed. The Big Bad Spider tried to blow it down. He cried but it never fell down."

I guess bricks don't have much sympathy for crying spiders. :)

CJ carefully cut out his 6-page book and then (for the first time ever, I believe) used a paper punch to make holes for binding it.

GETTING TO KNOW GOVERNMENT: This morning I was working on our 2009 federal income taxes. The kids were curious what all the forms and Web pages and swearing were about ; ) so I explained to them that paying taxes is a civic duty and that we do it on order to maintain the "common good" stuff, like roads and parks and fire and police protection.

I was looking for a Web site to help demonstrate/explain taxes to the kids and came across DirectgovKids. It's a beautiful, bountiful virtual world to explore, and has lots of interactive activities and games that help users understand more about how government works. The Web site is U.K. based, but a lot of the concepts are similar as here in the U.S.

There is a community on the Web site, complete with a hospital, a city hall, a fire station, and Internet cafe (of course!) and school. The kids chose to explore the primary school first. There were several exercises to choose from, but they opted for one where they got to vote in a student council election. Before voting, CeeJ and Bee read each of the three candidates' "manifestos" and then decided whom to vote for. After their votes, the school was fast-forwarded one year and the result of the elected candidate's actions were revealed. Some changes were positives, others weren't. I thought it did a good job of demonstrating that outcomes aren't just black and white. It also helped the kids realize how important it is to know something about whom you're voting for - where they stand on the issues - and that there are long term ramifications resulting from the outcome of a vote.

Next, CJ chose to play "Petition Mission," where he had to collect signatures and then go through the steps to properly deliver a petition to a member of Parliament (it's Great Britain, remember?) so that it could be considered for enacting into law. He was pretty proud when he accomplished his mission. Annabelle played a rather complicated budget balancing game. She had X amount of tax dollars to apportion between different services. If you look at the screenshot closely, you'll see yellow happy faces - those represent the programs that feel they're adequately funded. The reddish orange orbs are not-so-happy faces, crying for more tax dollars.

Annabelle was getting frustrated, trying to keep everyone happy. I'm guessing politicians would tell her it was an accurate representation of the way things really operate.

Later, Annabelle used the DirectgovKids' site to write a fairy tale about a dragon, a prince and a princess.

OFFLINE: This reads like we spent all day on the computers 'round here. That's not entirely true. While today was more PC focused than usual, we did read a couple of books, talked a little math and did manage to go to ballet, the library and do the Magnolia Village stroll, too. And tonight after dinner there was a protracted period of charade shenanigans.