Election Fever!
Posted by Debra Liverman on 15 Oct 2008 | Posted in: Holiday and Seasonal
When my six-year-old son was able to name the two major candidates in the presidential election, I realized the country officially had election fever! With all the excitement that this election has generated I know it must be spilling over into classrooms all over the country. What an incredible learning opportunity! Has it hit your classroom too? What are you doing with your students that is election related?
Here are a few other ideas that you might like to try.
Duck for President
Read Duck for President by Doreen Cronin with students. Suggest that the class have an election for a new boss of the barnyard. Have students recall the different types of animals in the story; then list the animals on the board to identify election candidates. Over a few days, encourage each youngster to make a poster for his favorite candidate and ask each of several students to tell the group why he thinks his chosen candidate is the best. On a designated day, have each youngster vote for his favorite candidate by secret ballet (ballot pattern). Count the votes with students and record the results on the board. (If there is a tie, determine how to resolve it with student input.) Declare the top vote-getter the boss of the barnyard.
Election Day Song
(sung to the tune of “Down by the Station”)
The day for elections
Is early in November.
It’s always on a Tuesday,
When people vote.
See the voters at the polls,
There they can cast their ballots.
Vote! Vote! Count! Count!
See who wins!
Presidential Characteristics
Aside from citizenship and age requirements, political candidates must possess certain qualities. Have students brainstorm what these must-have attributes are. Honesty? Objectivity? Global awareness? Calmness under pressure? Have the class vote to reduce the list to ten characteristics. Then have each student individually rank each item in the list in the order of its importance. Tabulate students’ opinions for each separate trait. Then divide students into groups to graph the results on posters, creating a presidential profile.
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We will be doing mock elections for our school also.
As second graders, we looked through newspapers and magazines to find pictures of the candidates. We discussed what’s the same and different about them.
In our weekly poetry books, we illustrated this poem and highlighted vocabulary words we learned in our discussions.
Election Time
I’m voting for a President.
I’ll do this every 4 years.
I read about the candidates
And listen with my ears.
This time the two men running
Are Obama and McCain.
I hope they know about our school.
I wish they knew my name!
They’re senators in the Congress.
They’ll live in Washington, D.C.
And someday when I’m all grown up,
Oh boy! It could be ME!
I teach prek and every year on Election Day I have my students taste test chocolate and vanilla icecream, then we vote on our favorite flavor. This year (2008-2009), to play it safe we will be tasting orange and green sherbert and voting between those two flavors. Also, our entire school is going to wear Red/White/and Blue. That shouldn’t offend anyone!!!
We acted out Duck for President at our RIF (Reading is Fundamental) book distribution. It was a hit with all ages.
I teach a transitional Kindergarten class. I will hold our 2nd annual “vote for your favorite ice cream flavor”. We invite the Pre-K classes into out “polling booth”.The winning flavor will be enjoyed by all! We will also walk across our parking lot to a neighborhood church to see how the “grown-ups” actually vote.
I love the idea of the pictures at the principal’s office. Super idea! Another teacher at my school had the students write about paragraph about which teacher would make the best president.
I am the Director of a center that has 3 - 5 year olds. We recently went to the pumpkin patch and got a pumpkin for each classroom. Each classroom is going to carve their pumpkin and then we are going to vote on our favorite pumpkin!
I just love election season. The country is abuzz with all the political activities and we find out about things that we normally don’t get to hear about. Right now the thing that we have let our children do is go to the internet. They have websites just for kids on the election. It teaches them about the candidates in “meet the candidate” sections. They can also do a mock vote. I know that this can be done in the classroom, however, this is an online version and the children really enjoy being able to show their support for a candidate.
We vote every Tuesday for the desired snack. I place a chart with the voting options behind the snack table, and the students must try each snack before making their vote (It’s a good way to introduce healthy foods…we voted on what color carrot tasted best one Tuesday: I don’t think I could have had a better reception for trying carrots any other way!) We chart the answers for both the AM and PM classes. Everyone’s vote counts! The students are excited to come back the next day and see the results! No hanging chads or recounts are necessary!!!
We received a hermit crab for a pet and I bought another one to keep it company. The first one was already named, so we are going to have an election to name the new crab! I let everyone that wanted to come up with a name and we made a list. We started out with 10 names. Everyday we will eliminate one name until we only have 2 left. I am going to let the kids “campaign” for their favorite name before we have an election. Should be fun!
We enjoy reading “Duck for President” and going through the election process. We also read “My Teacher For President” and “I Want To Be President” to list the many different responsibilities of the president (giving speeches, making laws, etc.). I also encourage my first graders to go with their parents to the polls so they can see the process first-hand. I also decorate a bulletin board with the candidates pictures on it, and I ask my children to look through newspapers and magazines at home and bring in the pictures they find.
A great class book! I take my kindergarten children to the office and make their digital photo at the principal’s desk. These are printed with the caption, If I were President, I would _____. The children then dictate or write what they would do to help our country. They can be put into a class book for the children to enjoy. This year I am scanning them and adding then to Photo Story and recording their voice comments for a digital story.