Home school Civics: A Walk Through the Capitol

I am having a crisis. I am out of Nutella, and so was Costco. So, I can't blog about Nutella today, but Civics is on my mind instead!

It makes it easier to study government and your state's legislative system when you live in the state capitol. We have enjoyed living here the last few years. Wisconsin in particular, has seen some history making activity with voter protesting and the Recall Election that has gotten national media attention. A good Civics program is required of every high school student for college entrance, there is no better time to study it than right now.

The view of the Wisconsin State Capitol and Lake Monona above is part of our daily walk. My husband and I walk through the Capitol while our kids are out crewing on the Lake. Today, I am going to take you along on our walk through the Wisconsin State Capitol.

Can you believe these halls were filled with protesters camping out just a few months ago?

Wisconsin became a state in 1848. Our capitol is only inches smaller than the National Capitol in Washington, D.C., and it modeled in similar style. It has incredible architectural details. I love the wrought iron doors that lead to the State Hearing Room.

The Rotunda is in the center of the building, and is open 5 stories up, with the 6th story being an Observation Deck where you can risk your life on an itty bitty set of stairs to go outside and see the view of the Lake. I don't do itty bitty stairs, so if you want to see that view you will have to make a trip here yourself.

The Capitol is decorated with 75 different marbles, gold leaf, carvings, art and tile mosaics.

They still use the lamps that were at one time filled with Kerosene.

There 4 wings that lead from the center Rotunda in different directions, each one with it's own exit to the Square outside. The ceilings are little panes of clear glass, so it gets lots of light. Beautiful!

The upper stories have glass insets in the marble floors to let the light shine down into the hallway below. How clever is that? Someone was really into solar technology in 1912, when they rebuilt the Capitol after the original building burned down in 1904.

Every room is decorated with beautiful artwork on the walls, and lots and lots of marble. This is the State Assembly Room. I was afraid we would be caught and arrested for trespassing, hence the blurry photo. Sorry! I love the big old desks and leather chairs. I can just imagine important men sitting in them with their wigs and pipes, debating over our State's Constitution.

The ceilings of these rooms are amazing works of art. If I was working in that room, I would be totally distracted and wouldn't ever get anything done.

The State Supreme Court Room is is also a sight to behold. Wisconsin has a couple of unique opportunities for high school students to learn the court system, one of them is called Court with Class, where they get to sit through an entire session and observe. We hope to be part of it this fall, it is very difficult to get into. If you are in Wisconsin and are interested in this program, click here. Perhaps your state offers a similar program? I would be interested to know what other states offer.

The Rotunda has beautiful tile mosaics such as this one of Lady Liberty, it is a very humbling sight.

So is the center of the Rotunda.

Can you believe they still use this sweet little cast iron mailbox? I love this, it's so quaint. This is what mail looked like before junk mail.

There are so many great resources available to teach Civics. First order of business is to review your state's history and visit the state capitol. Our home school group was contacted by one of our State's Senators (who was a home school supporter by the way) and we were able to visit him and meet his staff. It was great!

We loved the Standard Deviant DVD Series for learning Civics, they are very entertaining and informative. They are available from the Rainbow Resource Center, click here for more information.

Here's a sample of the Standard Deviants:

We also taught Civics as part of our Home school Co-op and used several texts, one of which was a little book called "Painless American Government" , it's also available from Rainbow Resources, click here.

Uncle Eric's Bluestocking Guide: Political Philosophies is also wonderful resource, as well as other publications from Uncle Eric.


The online Potters School specializes in home school education and has a great reputation for excellent teachers and curriculum as well if you would rather not tackle this task alone.


Perhaps you have used a different Civics curriculum that you really enjoyed, what did you use? I would be interested to know. There are so many available, nine pages alone in the Rainbow Resource Catalog website!




Designer Mom