elections

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elections
By teachfla

We decided to combine the presidential election into one of our required SS units on American Government. For the voting section of our unit, we are using lots of activities from the Election teacher's book put out by Scholatic.
We read "Duck for President" (stars duck from "Click, Clack, Moo" and "Giggle, Giggle, Quack.") I bought a super kids' book called "Vote" from Scholastic, too, that goes quite in-depth about how the election process works (including recounts -- so important here in Florida!)
We are creating election time lines (showing how long an election really takes), doing a Venn Diagram about

the basic platforms each candidate is running on, and filling out voter registration forms so we can vote in our school-wide election on Nov. 2. On the school's morning news program, the 5th graders have been sharing each candidate's take on issues like the environment and education.

One of my team-mates shared a great copy-and-color book about elections from Copycat magazine that we are also using. They're online. We're also taking this time to discuss persuasive writing (Author's Purpose), and we'll be doing a writing piece encouraging people to vote.

I'd love to hear other ideas!