Here are some activities to teach students about elections.
Mock Election
Posted by: Jenni #82076
Four years ago, I held a mock election with my kindergarten class. I had a picture of each canidate and some important facts about each president, such as favorite food, type of pet, family, and where they live. We talked about how voting is a private matter, and how you don't vote how your friends do. I set up a voting booth in our classroom with little ballots and each student got a chance to vote for president. We then calculated the votes with tally charts and a graph.
Recently, one of those kindergartners came to my classroom, she is now a fourth grader, and we were talking about what she remembered from kindergarten. She said she remembered voting, even who she voted for. I would highly recommed having your kids vote for the president. Then they have a buy in to the re...
A fellow teacher is doing an interesting unit on the election of 1912 and I think some of his elements will work for you. He is dividing his class into groups: group for each candidate and a CNN group. The candidate groups will have to conduct a race for election. The CNN group is to report on the election. You could easily have your students do the CNN portion. This summer I went to a workshop and we had to create a candidate to run for a public office and you could have your kids do something like that as well.
Cass
election
Posted by: Britt #86518
We had a "Candy bar election" in our class. The kids nominated 5 and then our primary election brought it to 3 candidates. The kids made posters and election ribbons/buttons to wear to campaign for their candidate. We made a voting booth in the closet with a ballot box and ballots. The kids had voter registration cards that I made. Whichever bar wins, I will bring in a snack size for everyone. The kids loved it and it helped them understand the voting process.
election theme
Posted by: cathy #81600
I am also doing an election theme that relates to symbolism, themes, critical stance. They make a flag using index cards and write what america means to them. It can be a drawing, word, quote or phrase. The index cards are the white stripes. I put red background paper up on the BB and blue paper and put their names in the stars. The index cards become the white stripes and the red paper the red stripes I also make dockeys and elephants and have them put a "platform" or position and decorate the party animal. You could write something like Welcome "party" animals! haha. You could have them make their own part or animal to as independents I also have them make windsocks using construciton paper and crepe paper. They decorate the crepe paper to look like a flag and attach crepe aper to t...
We spent about a week prior to election familiarizing students with candidates and platforms. How each teacher did this varied. On election day, every child was taken during their social studies period to voting booth (my supervising teacher's classroom). At the end of the day we announced results. Someone designed a computer program that counted and saved student choices to disk, so we were able to do it electronically. I thought it was fun and effective. Some of the kids were very passionate about their choice.
Election
Posted by: Corinne #85881
Molly, The school that I am teaching in we are having the children vote for their favorite books. The students make their own election pins that say, "Vote for Reading" or "Vote for Books." Our students made the pins on the computer, but it can easily be made as a craft. Also, we explained the election process to them.
Mock election
Posted by: Dena #85264
I am setting up a mock election for the third grade. I have two stuff animals that are going to be running for third grade president. The teachers will do the campaigning for them and the students will vote on which stuff animal will be third grade president. When I get together with the other 3rd grade teachers we are going to discuss what the issues of each stuff animal will be.
election
Posted by: Cathy #84536
I did this a couple of years ago with my six graders when I was student teaching and will do this again this year. I taught the students about political issues, platforms, political party etc. They got in groups and made a poster of their platform or issue they would like their president to have or what they would address if they were president. I then had them present these in class. Then they picked the party they wanted to belong to. I had cut out elephants and donkeys in blue, red and white. They then decorated these with sticker stars and glitter and put the presidential candidate they wanted to vote for. on another piece of white paper the same size of the elephant or donkey they wrote a small paragraph on why it is important to vote or a platform they felt was important. this ...
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, th...
When I taught fifth grade, I realized that students really didn't know much about any of our past Presidents. So for our election unit, I had students actually research a former President. Then they had to campaign as that President. I split the class in half and assigned political parties, and we had primary elections. They wrote speeches as that President, and their platform was The Bill of Rights. The winners of the political parties ran for President. It was funny because I had Jimmy Carter running against John Adams. But it was a fun project, and they learned about the election procedures and former Presidents.
