If you’ve ever wanted to teach Voting and Elections in a fun and engaging way, check this out! Election Day is coming up on November 2nd! You can incorporate voting with fun mentor texts and a ballot box!
How do I teach Voting and Elections cross-curricular? It’s so easy!
1.) Reading: Read Grace, Duck and Teacher for President
2.) Writing: Voting Registration Card
3.) Math: Counting the Votes and Making a Graph
4.) Social Studies: Voting and Being a Good Citizen
First of all, you want to create a voting booth for your students; you can make it super easy! I made a ballot box out of a tissue box or shoebox. I covered it with red butcher paper and white stripes. I printed out some red, white, and blue stars, laminated them, cut them out, and glued them onto the box. I cut a slit in the middle for the kids to put their votes.
I put a red and blue marker for the kids to vote on their voting ballot. I used a giant privacy folder and put a sign that says: “Vote here”. During the week, I read Grace for President, Teacher for President, and Duck for President. If you’re interested in my resource for Voting and Elections, click HERE. All the activities that I’m sharing with you in this post are in this resource.
1.) Reading:
Grace for President:
During reading time, you can read 3 mentor texts about elections. This first one is Grace for President. This is a story about Grace, who is running for president against a boy in her grade. She campaigns and makes speeches and wins the election at the end! It’s a beautiful story about persevering and not giving up when things get hard or challenging. And, no matter who you are and what ethnicity you are, anyone can be President!
After we read the story, I give my students the characterization template, and we think of adjectives about Grace in the story and write them inside the boxes. Some examples could be: happy, frustrated, nervous, afraid, excited or scared. They color, cut it out, and glue it into their schema notebook. My schema notebook is what I call my Reader’s Notebook.
Duck for President
The second mentor text is Duck for President. This is a super cute story about a duck who wants to leave the farm and run for president, but is discouraged when things don’t go his way, and he ends up back at the farm where he started. He learns that grass isn’t always greener on the other side and that you never know how good you have it until you experience something else.
After we read the story, I give my students the characterization template, and we think of adjectives about the duck in the story and write them inside the boxes. Some examples could be: happy, lonely, sad, muddy, frustrated, and dirty. They color, cut it out, and glue it into their schema notebook.
Teacher for President
The third mentor text is Teacher for President. This is a great story about how the students want their teacher to run for president and their perspective on how talented she is at multitasking! This really lets the students know about all the different jobs and responsibilities that teachers have, just like the president!
After we read the story, I give my students the characterization template and we think of adjectives about the teacher in the story and write them inside the boxes. Some examples could be helpful, safe, excited, responsible, happy, or nice. They color, cut it out, and glue it into their schema notebook.
2.) Writing: Voting Registration Card
During writing time, your students can fill out their voter’s registration card. It has their name, birthday, address, city, state, zip code, and their age. They also illustrate their picture to go with it. Then, they can color it, cut it out, and glue it into their social studies notebook.
3.) Math:
During your math block, you can have your students vote in different ways. You can make an anchor chart that says “Let’s Vote” and divide it with Duck, Grace, and Teacher. You can give your students Post-it notes and have them write their names on them and come up to post their name under their candidate.
You can also teach voting and elections cross-curricular because Grace for President talks about the number of votes that she and her candidate had during the election. You can count the votes for Duck, Grace, and Teacher and discuss who had more, who had less, and turn it into a graphing lesson as well!
Another way to let your students vote is by giving them their candidate on a card and having them place it on your pocket chart. You can also turn this into a graphing math lesson and compare who had more and less.
4.) Social Studies:
My favorite part of all of these activities is during Social Studies. It’s time for my students to vote using an actual ballot. I set up a voting booth where my students get to experience the real thing. All you need is a privacy folder with a VOTE HERE sign, your ballot box, red and blue markers, and a voting ballot.
I call on the students one at a time to come up to the voting booth and vote. They mark their candidate, fold the ballot, and place it into the box. I will have them vote during our social studies time, and then I will count the votes during math time and see who wins!
After the election and voting is over, I will hand out this template that says I Got to Vote”. They will write who they voted for and if their candidate won or lost. Then, they draw a picture of who won the election. It’s important for students to know, just because they voted on a certain candidate, that doesn’t mean they will win. This is a very good lesson for them to learn for real-life situations. We don’t always get what we want. This also goes along with being a good citizen and being respectful to all the candidates no matter who they are!
If you would like to see a video of my Voting and Elections activities, click below!
I hope you got some great ideas about Voting and Elections for your classroom! Your students will learn so much about voting and they will remember these activities forever!
Until next time, let’s take your classroom to the next level!
