Teaching Current Events and Critical Thinking in Your Homeschool
Are you teaching current events and critical thinking in your homeschool? Do you find it difficult to find unbiased sources while wading through all the junk out there? You’ll want to learn more about a resource we’re using now to solve this problem.
Teaching Current Events and Critical Thinking
Journalistic integrity matters to me. I’ve spent my life as a freelance writer who began on the high school newspaper, followed by the local city newspaper and national magazines. I’ve always taken my work seriously and cared about getting the facts straight. I was taught that opinions are for editorials, not hard news stories. Because of that training and experience, I have been appalled to see what the “news” has morphed into over the past few years.
The Juice Learning Company has come up with a solution to help parents who want to find an unbiased, straight news source that can help you teach current events and critical thinking in your homeschool. The Juice is an online resource for children in grades 5-12 to read news stories about today’s events without the usual bias found in many media outlets. It’s just the facts, ma’am, as the saying goes.
From the website:
The Juice is a multi-faceted educational tool. Homeschoolers gain access to a vast archive of unbiased news articles, custom quiz questions, engaging book reviews, STEAM videos, uplifting “bright side” stories, student activity tracking, and more.
I love resources that encourage individual thinking and spark great discussions, so we’ve been enjoying using this in our homeschool. My daughters are ages 11 and 13 so they receive different versions of the same stories based on reading ability and vocabulary.
The Juice delivers an email daily to both of my daughters and to me with the day’s headlines. This is just a brief rundown of the stories, then we click through to read them on the website. The Juice is accessible on any browser, tablet, or phone. Each student and the parent account have separate log-ins. That makes it very convenient for everyone to access anytime, anywhere, at their own ability level.
We have spent time most days going over the headlines together, then they each read their own daily version of The Juice on their own. After that, we discuss what each has read and they share their thoughts on it and ask any questions they might have.
The Juice: Current Events for Grades 5-12
So what exactly does The Juice cover? I was surprised to see that it covers exactly the same daily headlines I’ve been reading in my usual preferred news source.
Topics include:
- World News
- U.S. News
- Health
- Arts & Entertainment
- Economics
- Sports
- Humanities
- U.S. Politics
What makes it different? The Juice covers the headlines in a short articles (about 200 words) that are completely fact-based without any editorializing or sensationalism in terms that children can easily understand.
It also includes a daily vocabulary word, a short science video, and what they call Extra Juice. Extra Juice covers a topic with more in-depth information to help kids gain a better understanding of factors in the news stories. For instance, when a headline story referred to gun control laws, there was an Extra Juice article that explained the meaning of gun control laws and our Constitution along with the implications of changing gun control laws. This was done from a factual standpoint rather than politically-motivated.
On the Bright Side is the positive story of the day, which is great for inspiration and encouragement. We all know how negative the news can be, so this is something to look forward to and my daughters really enjoy that section of The Juice.
Another advantage is the audio format of each story. If your child struggles with reading in general or just wants the pronunciation of names in the news or foreign words, the computer-generated audio version of each article is available to help them.
Infographics are included as visual aids. They’re clickable/tappable so kids can read more relevant information on the topic, such as data and statistics.
Build Critical Thinking Skills
After reading the articles, the kids are able to take a quiz to check their reading comprehension and understanding of the major point of each story. This also helps check any biases and gives you a jumping off point for discussions with them.
If you miss any daily issues of The Juice, you can go back and read the archives. The quizzes are still available, too, and The Juice keeps track of your child’s scores.
It’s sad that we need to make the distinction about fact-based news, but that seems to be where we are in our society today. The Juice can help distill the facts so you and your children can discuss current events topics while building critical thinking skills.
Get The Juice Now
If you’re teaching current events and want something that encourages critical thinking skills and avoids bias, take a look at The Juice in your homeschool. It’s not only affordable, it’s a great tool for homeschool families to include in their daily plans.
You can get a free trial of The Juice to try it out or subscribe right now at less than $1 a week. You can save 25% off your subscription with coupon code JuiceHSHS.
You can find The Juice on Facebook or visit their blog to learn more.
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