Product Description
Help students gain firsthand knowledge of how our government works with this easy-to-implement, weeklong simulation. After brainstorming real school issues, students form committees, write, present, and revise bills, then vote on them-following the actual steps Congress takes to enact a bill into law. Includes step-by-step directions, plus reproducible student worksheets, primary sources, and rubrics. For use with Grades 5& Up. ... Read more

Product Description
The United States Congress is the branch of the federal government with the primary and essential purpose of making laws. This program details the method by which a bill originates and travels through a complicated process of checks and balances until it finally emerges to be implemented as law. The DVD includes a printable teacher guide featuring reproducible handouts, activities, testing, vocabulary words, and more. Grades 4-10. ... Read more

Product Description
The story of how Congress works to enact new laws. ... Read more

Product Description
This is a fun and educational book for kids and aresource book for teachers. Written for elementary and middle schoolstudents, children will learn about the founding of America, the threebranches of government, U.S. Constitution, Bill of Rights, ways theycan take an active role in their local, state and federal government,and how a bill becomes a law from the local to the federal level.

Filled with fun facts, challenging activities, and child-orientedillustrations, this book is must reading for all kids and teachers,too! ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

"max"imize the fun
I just finished reading my very first Max book. The book was sooo much fun that I did not realize how much I was learning about how the goverment works. I even taught my dad about how a bill becomes alaw. I wish my school was this much fun. I really think the drawing arecool. Max is the cutest and coolest teacher I know. I would recommend thisbook to all my friends and other kids who like to learn and have fun at thesame time. I have to get some more books to read and I think I will choosea Max mystery book next. bye! ... Read more

Product Description
This digital document is an article from Reason, published by Reason Foundation on July 1, 2003. The length of the article is 316 words. The page length shown above is based on a typical 300-word page. The article is delivered in HTML format and is available in your Amazon.com Digital Locker immediately after purchase. You can view it with any web browser.

Citation Details
Title: Rave on: how a bad bill becomes a law. (Citings).
Author: Sara Rimensnyder
Publication: Reason (Magazine/Journal)
Date: July 1, 2003
Publisher: Reason Foundation
Volume: 35Issue: 3Page: 12(2)

Distributed by Thomson Gale ... Read more

Product Description
Olivia, a young school girl, purchases a green tree frog and names him Fergie. While learning about Georgia state symbols in school, Olivia decides that Fergie deserves to be the official state amphibian, and that she's going to do everything it takes to make that happen. There's only one small catch, she doesn't know how to do it. ... Read more

Product Description
In this behind-the-scenes account of a bill's inhospitable journey through the maze of government, a national correspondent for Newsweek provides in vivid detail an eye-opening portrait of how Washington really works. Essential reading for all those interested in the ways and means of government. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (5)

Wake Me When It Is Over
I do not think I have ever taken this much time to read such a short book. At least it seamed to me that it took a long time.It was like walking up a never-ending hill.The only reason I kept plodding along is that I was interested in the overall outcome.What I am trying to say is that the book is dull.It is also that the subject is a bit on the non-sexy side so coupled with the authors "mathematics textbook" style of writing, it made a little book into something close to the Battan death march.Ok, I may be overstating it a bit, after all I did work my way through the book. The one good thing I can say is that the first half of the book was far better then the second half. How the author turned his already dull prose into something that was almost life threatening I will never know.

With all this said there were some parts of the book that gave me some insight on how legislation works its way along the process.The part I thought was most interesting is all the groups that stick their hands into the bill.People with what appeared to me to have almost no or little effects from the bill got involved and tried to get their two cents in. Plus all the back handed and obstructionist activities made me wonder how anything gets done in Washington.Overall the book was dull, but did offer a tour of what it takes to get a bill passed.There has to be better books out there on the topic, I just do not know what they are.

Eh...bleh...
The story itself isn't a very interesting or informative one.The author tries to end chapters with a catchy phrase that is cynical/humorous/meaningful, but they rarely come off well.Journalistic style, if you like reading a 250 page news article, then you'll love it, but if you have a hard enough time getting through the lead of a front page article in the "New York Time," then don't bother.

pretty good
Steven Waldman does an excellent job of explaining the substantive issues surrounding the national service bill and its corollary, student aid reform, and showing how conflicting ideals were reconciled or submerged.The detail gets a bit tedious in the last chapter, but the book does liveup to its subtitle. Johnson & Broder's "The System," aboutthe 1994 health care reform campaign, is a longer but more exciting bookalong the same lines.

Great insight into all that happens in Congress and why
Great look at all the inside games that must take place for a bill to pass Congress.Who switches sides, who you can trust, who stabs whom in the back at the last moment.Any AmeriCorps member should read this to get aperspective of all that went into creating the program that you were a partof.Made me realize why things are the way they are in a program that hasstived to do so much for our country and the young people in it.

Book like politics: fun, leaves empty space in stomach
A well written book, exhaustive, sometimes boring. Lots of detail. Gives a very good look at politics, at how power, money, sinecure and ego all come together to get a bill passed. Shows that politics is 90% money and 10% intention. Lobbyists, senators and businessmen get together to divvy up the loot. Clinton is shown as a smart operator who attempts to play to the largest possible audience and still stay true to his beliefs/ethics/ideals. ... Read more