Homeschool Prep: Little Patriots Presidential Election Study

This year’s Presidential Election may have your children curious about the voting process and upcoming Election Day. Their curiosity might lead to questions, and those questions might lead to impactful conversations and discussions about our country as a whole. I created Little Patriots: The Presidential Election for children captivated by the job title of President and all it entails to secure it, just like mine. This family-style study will teach the history of our country’s leadership level and why certain practices were put into place, offering the opportunity to explore our voting and Presidential systems in greater depth.

In this entry, I will break down the course structure for you, share schedule ideas, and outline ways you can prepare the study in your own home.

Note: This unit study does not teach on the current Presidential Nominees. There is, however, the opportunity to explore that on your own. This course does not take bias in political parties, but it does teach about the general beliefs of each party in a gentle, age-appropriate

What is Little Patriots: The Presidential Election?

Little Patriots: The Presidential Election is a 40 lesson, or ten week family unit study. By the end of this course, your child will have learned the basic vocabulary, concepts, and the history of our country’s voting systems. They will learn about campaigning, voting, applicable suffrage history, and will be able to apply their knowledge to this year’s Presidential Election through creative projects and personal connections while exploring a diverse stack of books and primary resources.

Each of the ten unit themes are broken down into four lessons. Lessons can be conducted 4x a week (a unit a week), or stretched over the course of two weeks (2 lessons from unit a week). There is much flexibility in the pacing of the course. Within the four unit lessons, your child will read two books, watch at least one video, conduct web research to view primary resources, such as specific Amendments, and create an open-ended project. Each day, they will have the opportunity to answer connection questions in their notebook and discuss their thoughts to those questions with you, leading to dynamic conversations.

This guide is written for children ages 6-10 in mind. Younger children can certainly join in on the readings, and you can adapt lessons for your specific learners. Using this pack as a family study will deepen connections and enlighten your whole home during the election season. An additional suggested booklist is provided for ages 10+.

Preparing for Study

1. PRINTING YOUR ELECTION STUDY  
This course is offered in two formats: digital or printed. If you have a home printer, the digital pdf might be the better option to choose. Please save your files to your computer or phone before printing. This guide has 42 pages with some colored photos. You can bring double-sided in color or black and white. The instructional photos are already in black and white, but the project examples are in color. It will not affect the study if you do not print in color. You can store your printed document in a binder, staple together, or have coil bound at an office supply store for a few dollars. If you do not have a printer and do not wish to use the files digitally, I also have printed copies that will be restocked through August. The printed copies are high quality, laser ink on premium 32# smooth paper. They are coil bound with a plastic protector cover and black backing. Printed copies also include access to the digital files, so you can begin looking through your guide and planning before your mailed booklet arrives. If using in a group setting, please follow guidelines and purchase the co-op license. 

2. READING THROUGH THE PARENT GUIDE    
The booklet for this course is a non consumable Parent Guide, which means children will not need to use it like a workbook. The Parent Guide begins with important information about using the course and will be a vital tool to read through prior to beginning the Election study. It will outline the lesson format, list all supplies and books needed for the course, as well as offer the additional reading suggestions mentioned before. By pre-reading the guide, you will get a good feel for the scope and sequence prior to beginning the study with your children. It might also benefit your family to show your children the guide and some of the books ahead of time to lay an expectation of what they will be learning. Pre-reading prompts and additional historical context are provided in the guide to serve as an optional script for you in two-fold: to provide the parent cues and to offer your child additional explanation. Familiarizing yourself with this content will be useful before the lessons, but is not necessary. 

3. DECIDING ON A SCHEDULE  
You can view two different scheduling examples here, but feel free to adjust for your own family’s calendar. Some families might decide to use this study in place of a history course for the length of the course, conducting lessons about 4x a week (keep in mine there are 3 lessons days and 1 project day). You could also run through 3 days of lessons and include the project on the third day. Alternatively, there is enough time between now and the Election to split each unit in half and run lessons 2x a week over 2 weeks each. No matter the scheduling option you decide on, please note that week 9 of the study should align as best it can with the week of the US Election on November 5th. View the sample calendars to choose a start day that you’re most comfortable with while keeping in mind the scope of other curriculum you plan to use. If you are uncertain about a rhythm, I suggest beginning in the summer at a slower pace to gain comfortability.

4. SOURCING READING MATERIAL 
Half of the lessons in this course will require you to read to your child (or they may read alone if they’re at that level), and this is where most of the intructional content will come from. There is a reading list within the guide where you can keep track of your book sources via checklist. Additional suggested readings are provided, but they are not required. You can view the required readings on this Amazon booklist to budget books by unit/week and by price. I also suggest bringing the list to your local library and comparing the book prices on used book sites, such as ThriftBooks.com to source the books in the most affordable format for your family’s budget. Rather than purchasing all of the books at once, I highly suggest checking book-borrowing avenues, or purchasing a unit or month at a time. Spacing these purchases out will also provide you the time to scout for the best pricing. 

5. GATHERING SUPPLIES FOR PROJECTS  
Each unit closes with an open-ended project. These
projects are intended to be child-directed to allow their creativity to shine, though there are simple
prompts. Rather than gather supplies each week, I suggest creating a basket of the general art supplies
and additional suggested materials outlined in the Supplies section of this guide ahead of time. This will alleviate searching for items each week and give your child an invitation to use their creativity from within the basket. During the project lessons, you may read the project script to your child. There are some example photos provided, but please encourage your child to create with their own vision. There are no detailed tutorials because of this. Your family will also need some notebooking supplies for prompts throughout the Election study. Project supples will range from poster board to patriotic ribbon and other basic art supplies that you likely already own. You can find the speciality items listed in the guide inexpensively at your local craft store, specifically Hobby Lobby or Joann’s.

Frequently Asked Questions

Q: Does this study discuss 2024 candidates or show bias toward one party or another? 
A: The election course takes an unbiased look at the history of our presidential process and voting systems. The guide teaches about each political party in an age-appropriate way, but does not discuss specific candidates at all, only mentioning that xyz president of the past belonged to xyz political party as an example. I leave that research up to each family. It was my heart to teach the history of these systems without causing division.

Q: Is this study secular? 
A: I would consider this a secular guide; however language in lesson 4 describes George Washington’s character as “God-given gifts” and lesson 37 regarding the Oath of Office mentions Presidents laying their hand on the book of the Bible. Note that the author is a Christian and other courses may reflect that.

Q: Does this course include any history (or current events) that include details of violence? 
A: This study does not discuss specific events that may have taken place during the lifetime of our children. There is no mention of violence or cruelty on a harsh scale. Week 3 outlines suffrage in an over-arching way. It discusses the Voting Rights Act of 1965, but with no mention of physical violence.

Thank you for the potential of welcoming Little Patriots: The Presidential Election into your home. If you have any further questions regarding the course, prep/printing, or finding certain books, please feel free to contact me at hello@alivinglearningco.com.