Ancient Greece History Co-op - Week 11 - Government

Week 11: We made the Oval Office. The other families in our group made the Capitol Building and Supreme Court.

It may seem strange that we built American Governmental offices for our history co-op on Ancient Greece, but there were many reasons we did. Much of the American Government is based on the government of the Greeks. The Greeks invented democracy and a governmental system which included a separation of power with checks and balances. In addition, we did this project during election week and couldn't resist working American politics into our history unit.

A republic is a government which is run by a group of representatives of the public. In a democracy, everybody has a vote and the majority rules. The representatives for the Greeks were chosen at random where as our representatives are voted in by the people. During our co-op, we proposed some silly laws and had a democratic vote, then selected representatives of the group, proposed more laws and voted. The children could then see the difference between a republic and a democracy.

Each of my three children were given their own responsibilities for this project.

My youngest had the job of creating the rug for the Oval office. She choose to make it by needle felting it.

My son had to create the office using cardboard, craft sticks, glue, and other recyclable building materials.

He cut out an oval shape from a cereal box and then gave it a wooden floor. He added crushed toilet paper rolls for chairs and a plastic lid for the desktop.

My daughter had to make the president.

She choose to make President Taft because he was the first to use the Oval Office.

The Oval Office

The President's Cabinet Song was created to go along with the project. The song goes through all 15 cabinet departments of the President.

The words are:

The
President
has fifteen secretaries called the Cabinet
-Energy and Labor
-State and Transportation
-Treasury, Agriculture, Veteran's Affairs

-Interior
-Education
-Homeland Security, Commerce and Defense

-Attorney
-General
-Health and Human Services, Housing and Urban Development

The Government is everywhere