sIck in bed, but getting ready for fall

I have been SOOO sick with the bug that has been playing tag in our family, running its two week course with just a little overlap from one victim to the next. For the first two days I could just lay in bed, and groan, and have weird dreams, but by day three I felt well enough to resume the homeschool routine that I have been insisting on this summer with my youngest son. We do about a half hour each of social studies, math, spelling and speech, and then he reads a chapter or two in a novel related to the period in history he will be studying in the fall. This week, since I am still sitting in bed and he is raring to go and gone after the lessons, I find myself preparing for teaching in the fall.
I sometimes refer to the fourth and fifth grade core curriculum standards and look for interesting and engaging sites that support the social studies curriculum. There are plenty. And then last night when I was watching Charlie Rose, from my Robitussin stupor, he had on the editor of TIME magazine; the whole issue is devoted to the Constitution! Oh Joy Oh Rapture. An intelligent timely discussion about what was written, how was it intended to be used, how should it be used today, is it still relevant and necessary? I got so excited I ordered a copy of the constitution to frame and put in my nonexistent classroom.
This is what excites me about teaching, social studies in particular, but everything really; it is that moment when what you are teaching/learning becomes relevant to now, to each child, to their understanding of the larger world they live in, so they can explore what they think about it, how they feel about it, and whether they think or feel strongly enough to actually prompt them to take some action, whether it is to write an essay/letter to express their opinion or join a local group that is doing work on an issue. Anyway, I got on an extended stream of consciousness research web search and found some amazing sites.

http://blogs.nysut.org/sttp/The Robert F. Kennedy Center for Justice and Human Rights created Speak Truth To Power Lesson Plans and compiled educational resources, based on a book that Kerry Kennedy wrote of the same name. There was a play written and performed in NY that I am trying to get a copy of. The book is a collection of biographies of a number of human rights defenders :

• John Lewis [NEW]
• Abubacar Sultan
• Elie Wiesel
• Marina Pisklakova
• Dalai Lama
• Juliana Dogbadzi
• Harry Wu
• Vaclav Havel
• Van Jones
• Anonymous
• Loune Viaud
• Muhammad Yunus
• Desmond Tutu
• Kek Galabru
• Lucas Benitez
• Ka Hsaw Wa
• Wangari Maathai
• Kailash Satyarthi

Oh, to be able to inspire young people to be politically aware and advocates of justice.

Which led to my next tangent-the UN Universal Declaration of Human Rights. I had known, maybe, thought that somewhere, maybe, there were guidelines that laid out what the UN would stand up against/for. It struck me that I might be able to find this on line (have I mentioned how much I LOVE the web!) and lo and behold. http://www.un.org/en/documents/udhr/

and then I found myself wondering if there were any sites for kids who wanted to get politically active and found
http://www.dosomething.org/
I am not crazy about the site layout and have not had a chance to explore all the links, but what I love so far is that you can plug in your zipcode and find grassroots local efforts in your area that kids can get involved in. I started running out of steam after this, but I have a plan to compile a list of 10-15 local efforts that  a fourth or fifth grade class could adopt and make a commitment to help...starting with their "own backyard" of course.