Ben and I reviewed yesterday's introductory lesson about the Preamble to the Constitution - the document that created our nation's government. We began by discussing the Articles of Confederation and learned it was an agreement among the thirteen original states and served as its first constitution. We described the Preamble's job as one of introducing the Constitution and that it explains what it's meant to do and describes the purpose of the new government. We also learned some key phrases. Ben found it interesting to learn that the Preamble was written and added at the last moment, and that it was not voted on and has no legal meaning. We examined the language and noted that the first three words of the Constitution, "We the people," contain the most important idea of self-government and includes all citizens of the United States. An important take-away from the lesson was the knowledge that even after the US became independent from England, many of the Founding Fathers thought the states had too much power under the Articles of Confederation. During this part of the lesson, Ben learned about Shay's Rebellion, and its causes (economic policy, aggressive debt and tax collection; political corruption, and 'cronyism.' 'Cronyism' became our vocabulary word of the day and was defined as the practice of appointing friends and associates to positions of authority (i.e., jobs), without considering their qualifications. We ended the session by reviewing Article 1 of the Constitution, which creates the Legislative, or law-making, branch of our government. Ben learned how important this branch is because it represents the citizens, and that its members are responsible for turning citizens' wants and needs into laws. He learned that it's comprised of Congress and the House of Representatives, which we reviewed and compared in a chart. I introduced the term 'representative democracy' at this point in the session, which places power in the hands of representatives who are elected by the people and the three branches of government - the Legislative, Executive, and Judicial branches. As a lot of material was covered in today's lesson, these branches will be reviewed in greater detail in follow-up sessions. Ben was cordial, interested, and engaged in today's discussion.