And the Winner is....

It is over! Can you believe it?  You have now officially campaigned managed and ran for President. Now we get to find out who the winner is... and the Winner is....

WE WILL ANNOUNCE ON THURSDAY!!! :)

Again I am so proud of all of you and your hard work. Talking to people and answering their questions can be tough for anyone, but you all did it and it has paid off.

Don't forget that we have to do our last task at hand and that is singing. Practice your presidents song. :) Lunch on Thursday it is GAME TIME! ;)

Now this week we do what any awesome Campaign would do and we CELEBRATE...

Breakfast POTLUCK Presidents' Party!

***I forgot to say we will be meeting in the Kitchen*** then we will see what is open in the Lunch room for eating! :)

Please bring something to share, list your contribution below so we do not have any doubles. (I will also be sending out an email since most kids said their mom does not read the blog during the school year.)

I will bring Milk and Donuts! :)

Thank you all again,
Teacher Amber

ELECTION WEEK!!!

Just a friendly reminder, this week is HUGE! We have our Election! I am excited for each of the teams and hope you all do put in that last minute push of effort to make your campaign a successful one. Regardless of win or lose, I am impressed at how you all have handled each task that I have presented to you.

This week I am still putting together the first hour "Campaign Trail". So far I have 2 classes that are open to letting us come in. They will have questions for you. Remember the practice we prepared you for in class last week.

During lunch, you might want to do some political schmoozing (as I like to call it) before your peers and mentors cast their vote. I will be manning the table! DON'T FORGET YOU ARE MEMBER OF FILA ALSO SO YOU GET TO MAKE YOUR VOTE AS WELL!!!

I will post more as I get more involvement in the class participation. So please check back to the blog! :)

Prepare, but remember I know you have this under control.

Use your slogan, support your clause, and make the people fall in love with you!

Stay tuned...
Teacher Amber

Campaign Speeches

Congratulations to each of you! Your group campaign announcements were wonderful! You each pulled on my heart strings and I was so proud of you all up there. Each of your groups had your own added touch to your speech and posters. You each have a different direction you see fitting for becoming the FILA President... and I was blown away at how AMAZING you all did! Again, GREAT WORK! So Proud! (On a side note, many people came up to me to let me know how proud of you they were also, so keep you the motivation and the excitement you have caught their attention!)

We announced our Presidential runnings, now what?!

If you and your family has been following the 2016 Campaign Race for United States President, you will see that they are currently our promoting themselves and their views. They are meeting and greeting, shaking hands, kissing babies, thanking Vets, smiling and waving, and passing out campaign flare (stickers, shirts, signs, posters, pencils, pens, etc). The goal in this portion of the campaign is to make people LIKE you, BELIEVE in you, and RESPECT you to hold a good job in office. In the end you are seeking out their SUPPORT to help you become the next President. If you can see if you can watch a few more interviews from the current candidates. I recommend not just going for someone you like, but also opening your eyes to some things you may not want to say or do from the individuals you do not support.

This week, how can you help your FILA peers want to follow you. Remember having them follow you and respect you will help you earn that vote.

In class this week, Teacher Carrie and I will help your teams come up with ways you can campaign during the day, or even during the week leading to Co-op.

Continue working on Posters and prepare yourself for a couple busy weeks of campaigning to gain that VOTE! :)

Again, I am so very proud of you all and your speeches. The campaign managers did a wonderful job promoting ideas and helping their President prepare and each President did a wonderful job pushing their speech out to their audience. Again, Congratulations!

See you Thursday,
Amber Keener

2015 Campaign underway!

Our Future Leaders and now working towards their FILA Presidential Campaigns. We were able to listen to some previous Presidents' Campaign Speeches, as well as some recent runners for the 2016 Presidential Run. We pulled out key words each Presidential Candidate stated and what tools they used to get the countries attention. Big differences in these past few years verse even a century ago! We have to love Technology.

The kids were paired up into groups of two, where one will be running as President and the other will be their biggest supporter, the Campaign Manager. The kids made their own decision about who was running based on their group discussion and I am looking forward to hearing what each has to present for their running.

This is a group effort, meaning each child has someone to be accountable! Parents, please help give a little reminder that they need to make sure they are doing their part not going to let their friend down. I do not see any problems but to play it safe I thought I would send a little reminder!

The groups are as followed:

Evangeline and Daniel
Ethan and Gwen
Molly and Hannah
Issac and Kaela

The groups finished class working on their campaign strategy and then their campaign announcement speech, which will be given at lunch on April 16th!!! Remember we are not looking for 30 minute speeches, but we want to see what you can do for FILA and who you are and what you stand for! :)

In class next week we, Teacher Carrie and myself, will help look over the speeches and give some helpful pointers if needed, while the kids work on their Campaign Posters. Each group will get 2- WHITE Poster Boards and then some construction paper. They can make as many signs as they wish however they will be responsible to PUT UP and TAKE DOWN their posters. I will pull them out in the Mornings and will be at coop until 3:30pm to help put away. Parents this is another spot where I ask you for your help! :)

As for a timeline of events:
April 16th- Lunch- CAMPAIGN ANNOUNCEMENT SPEECHES
April 23rd- Posters start to be hung/ Children can do their own "soliciting" of votes!
April 30th- Race Continues. (Could mean a team decides to Greet at the door early or after Classes, have a Personal Connection Table at Lunch, Passes out fliers, makes another speech, etc...)
May 7th- Lunch- ELECTION DAY!!! Each Group along with their Peers in FILA will cast their votes for our President. We also as a class will be doing a Performance for FILA at Lunch! :)
May 14- Celebrating a Good Run: Announcing our President and celebrating with all campaign runners.

Thank you all and I look forward to seeing this project play out! :)
Teacher Amber

REMEMBER TO RESEARCH...

Hello Future Leaders,
We crammed a lot of information in this past Thursday regarding the Great Depression. This brought us to discuss the 3 Presidents around this time period. 30th President: Calvin Coolidge (pre Great Depression), 31st President: Hebert Hoover (During) and 32nd President: Franklin D. Roosevelt (after). Ask your families about any stories they have from this time period. You might learn some interesting facts, just like the ones I told you of my Great Grandmother.

Remember we are going into our Campaign part of the lesson and if you can research the different Political Parties that run for Presidency it will allow for our Thursday to run with more discussion and debate!

As you research the many options, start making notes of which one you think you would classify yourself as during our campaign for FILA KID President or better yet, if you were running the real job of President of the United States of America.

I will give you the TWO major Political Parties we hear about regularly, but REMEMBER there are more. DIG DIG DIG! :)

Republican

Democratic

Looking forward to the discussion on Thursday. See you then!

Teacher Amber

$$ Money $$

Hello everyone,
Last week flew by me. I for some strange reason thought I already posted what we did last week, but I forgot! So here is the update for last week and this week! My apologies....

Last week we celebrated Honest Ab's Birthday! We found out he was a simple man who not only was a tall farming man, but he also EDUCATED himself! He took hold of his own education, knew he could do it, became a Lawyer, then eventually became our 16th President. His roll was heavy in his time. The Civil War could have broke America in Half, or worse crumbled us as any NATION! It is sad that he was not able to carry out more actions during his short life span. I wonder what more he could have done, but with any note, he did do great things while in the office. Here is the Gettysburg Address in case you want to listen to it again.

Did you all enjoy his simple "man" meal? Who doesn't like Bacon, corn cakes and some honey! Apples topped off our celebration. What a great day to celebrate him.

*******

Today, we talked about MONEY! The green stuff that "makes our world go round". Currency of the United States has changed and continues to change. From paper notes to our current dollars and cents! We got to see the similarities and differences of each paper bill. We discussed the words listed, the numbers for each and then the photos. We ended our over all discussion with the topic of Nation Debt. Finding out that we have officially hit over 18 TRILLION dollars as a Nation! It is now more than ever we need to focus on living below our means and allowing this to carry on as our legacy. This debt of our nation, IS and WILL be put on not only your generation but also your children and children's children. Something has to change. I know each one of you will be a great start to that.

Please do not forget to look up how much money our President's make annually while in the Oval Office, but also when they "retire". Is this something you think should be changed? What could our President do to help show his Nation that he too cares about getting America out of Debt? Or Do you believe he deserves more? His job is not stop while in the office (or so we hope) and his responsibility is large, should his wallet/bank account not reflect the same?

This next week we are going to discuss those Presidents who have not only Lead our country as The Commander in Chief but also those who SERVED their nation in Uniform. My question to you all will be Do you believe it is necessary for the President of the United States, who is the Commander in Chief to all our Military Services, to have served in any branch of the Military?

Thank you all for being great Leaders... :)

And the song is starting to sound GREAT! :)

See you Thursday.
Teacher Amber

Ab's Party

Thank you to our scholars for helping out with class. Did you all enjoy the trivia game? Let's be real there wasn't a new boat, car or vacation attached to it, so it probably was not the greatest game of Jeopardy around however with that being said....

Who is ready to party with our 16th President?

Well how about just party for him! We will be celebrating his birthday this Thursday. His actual birthday was February 12th, but we can throw this guy a party whenever we choose.

For your help, I could really use some interesting items you know of him? Or better yet ones you have found out. Bring those thoughts in so we can discuss as a whole.

Until then, lets get ready to party like it's 1861! :)

Remember to listen to your presidents song! I am getting pretty good at it! ;)

See you Thursday,
Teacher Amber

Lincoln's Party is being Postponed

Hello President Class-
I wanted to say thank you all for participating in our discussion yesterday. You all helped bring some great information out.

I am also very pleased with how GREAT you all are doing with the Presidents Song! Keep up the good work! I know you all will earn your Flag Lapel! :)

I was told yesterday that we will be having a training for most parents and teachers this coming Thursday. It will be first hour! DANG! This means we are pushing Lincoln's Birthday Party one more week out. This does allow me a little more time to make sure his celebration is AWESOME!

I will be coming up with a presidential game that you all can play and do while with the Scholar Sub that will be joining you. Maybe you could even pick their brains on what information they know about some of the Presidents.

Thank you all again!

Teacher Amber

Week 4

Hello Future Leaders,
Your letters to the President are on their way to the White House.

While writing our letters we got to study more on the Two Presidents that signed the Declaration of Independence, John Adams (2nd) and Thomas Jefferson (3rd). How interesting of the lives these two men led, not only in their daily lives but also in Congressional Office. Can you tell your parents or mentors anything exciting you learned about either one of them?

I think of the most interesting facts I learned about John Adams is that

And as for my most highlighted fact about Thomas Jefferson was his amazing purchase of the French. Do you recall what that was? The Louisiana Purchase! 828,000 square miles of land!

As for both of them, I thought it was completely fascinating to know they both died on the 50th Birthday of America's Independence (July 4, 1826) within hours of each other.

My plan for tomorrow is to match up the Presidents who have led our great country during a time of War.  We might do a time line match and see where it takes us.

While I have a guided class schedule to discuss the Presidents, are there any that you want to discuss? Any thing interesting you know about any Presidents? Please feel free to come ready to discuss during the first few minutes. I am curious at what you will all be teaching me!

Please don't forget to listen to the song! I really can not wait for us all (yep including myself) to stand up there and sing that Presidents Song!

Also Remember in a few short weeks we will be celebrating Lincoln's Birthday. (We might toss in a Happy Birthday for George Washington also.)

I am looking forward to see you all tomorrow.

Teacher Amber

George Washington Mosiac

Hello Presidents Class,
I am sorry I have been out and away from Class. Special thank you to Teacher Carrie and Teacher Rachelle for holding down the classes for me.

Last week you guys did an outstanding job creating a George Washington mosaic. While I will show you the product put together again tomorrow, here is the final product YOU ALL CREATED! :)

I Love it and we definitely will have to post it for all of FILA to see! Great Job!

Teacher Carrie told me you all were going over as many presidents as possible learning a few fun facts. This is GREAT! It is definitely helpful. This week we will be doing the writing to the president. I will have all the supplies including stamps. And will discuss a couple Presidents who signed the Constitution.

I also will hopefully have the song we can try to learn in more detail as well.

Thank you all again for being patient with me.

Thank you,
Teacher Amber

Week 1: Welcome Future Leaders

Hello Future Leaders:

Thank you for having patience with us while we figured out our classroom situation. It looks like we will be meeting in Chapel. Please remember to be ready right at 10:00am, so we have enough time to get through our class activities for the day and also have time to practice our song as a group.

I am really excited to be discussing our Presidents. While I am searching out information to inform all you, I am learning so much as well! Which makes me extremely excited to teach you all also. So thank you for this opportunity.

Here is the Link for the Presidents Song.

Remember, by learning the Presidents song not only will you be learning an interactive way to remember all 44 of our Presidents along with your fellow love of learners, but you also will also earn your very own American Flag Lapel Pin (just like the one our previous Presidents have worn.) but you will also have your very own "Presidential" Photo be taken at our Campaign Party (in May).  We will be using the last few minutes of every class to practice, but I am sure this tone will stick in your head and you will find yourself checking it out regularly at home.

This class we discussed what was President was. And what his "job" was.

We discussed the roles in our Government from our 3 headed Eagle Model (thank you volunteers)

And how to avoid Tyranny our President has to work along side of the Legislative and Judicial Branch. That these three "heads" have to work together to keep things equal and just.

We also discussed how one could become the POTUS and what some good qualities needed to perform the job.

This Thursday, we are going to Address The President himself via MAIL! :)

That is correct, we are mailing Mr. Obama a personal letter. I will have the envelopes, stamps, paper, pencils, and crayons ready all we will need is your thoughts you want to put on paper. You can either write him, send him a photo, or both. So start thinking about some things you would like to address with him, or maybe some questions you want to answered? Maybe you just want to thank him for doing his job or maybe you want to ask him is favorite part of his job. Maybe you want to draw him a photo of what America means to you or where you like to see our flag flying the most. The options are endless.

{Parents please discuss some topics your child could address in their personal mailing.}

My hope is that before our semester ends this year, some of us (better yet all of us) will get a letter back addressed from the White House.

We will see you Thursday! Have those topics ready! I can not wait to drop these mailings off at the Post Office.

Teacher Amber

PS Special thank you to Teacher Carrie for being our Assistant.