A good friend shared this idea at our Home School Support Group Meeting once and I thought it was such a good idea.  I'm still hoping she will write a few paragraphs about it in detail that I can share with you....  But I'll stumble through the idea now.

Basically, it is mom or dad going through new stories online at a few different sites once or twice a week.  Pick your favorite news sites and do some surfing of today's news. 

Write down a few details about each story and then have a discussion about the current events you picked out.  Sometimes they might relate back to other news stories you have discussed or it will be an ongoing story (like the Chilean miners).  I actually have a notebook with current event details over the past few months, which makes it easy to relate back to older stories.

Make sure everyone can find where the story is located on a map - do some easy geography quiz questions now and then.

Have a few discussion questions prepared.  (Was this a good news story?  Was it presented impartially?  Is it right what is going on?  And so on.....)  Please note I also try to vary the intensity of the news we discuss.  Sometimes I pick funny or odd stories that relieve the harder discussions.  Always keep the ages of your children in mind and share appropriately.

Oh, and I also pick prolife news stories or news about Christians around the world, too.  They aren't necessarily highlighted on some news websites, but there are other sites that highlight what is going on in those areas.....

And when your discussion comes to an end - make sure you take a little time to pray for the people in the news story.  Today, that would be the people of Japan.