Icivic.org

This is a neat website, Icivic.org, for grades 5-12. It teaches them how to be involved in their community and different issues that pertain to that age group. They are also doing a contest for the class that earns the most points and from what I see anyone can sign up.
It is however built for a teacher to set their class up to win a virtual cisit from Justice Sandra Day O'Connor. The contest started 2 weeks ago so if you want to join in join in quick. If not I am really impressed with the games. It does require an e-mail but from what it said you can set up a parent account then add your kids or students. I didn't try that because my kids are too little to enjoy these games. An account is required because it keeps track of your tasks and how you are doing on your civic cause.

Here is my avitar and my cause. I could pick from a few different causes but I chose bullying. This is a bigger problem in schools than we know and it is starting younger and younger.

I really love that it walks you through you tasks. There is no guess work on how to complete what you need to do. I also love that all the tasks can relate to real life. Make sure you TALK to your children about what they are doing on this site and how they can apply it to their life.

My second task was to help a Boys and Girls Club earn money to save their music program. You have a lot of choices in this game as to how to help your community. I love this because it offeres ideas to the kids of how they can get involved with in their community. All the ideas I have seen would need parent help and support but the kids could do most of it on their own.

There really is no end to this game, well no end that I see but I just started playing. There really is no end to helping your community. I really like this game and the dialog it can open up between you and you older kids. It is important to be involved in our communities.

I once asked a poliece officer if I should call the station because people were speeding up and down my street. This frightened me because of my small children and no matter how many times I remind them to stay out of the street, if a ball rolls they will most likely chase after it. He told me it was my community and if I wanted things to change I needed to do what it took and that included calling the poliece station as often as I needed to until the problem was fixed. I tell this story because thes are OUR COMMUNITIES and we make them what we want them to be. The more involved we are the better off our communities will be. They will become a safe place for our children to learn and play. We have more power than we think. Lets start teaching our kids young and have them see us make a difference. Icivic.org is a great place to start.