Voting

For the beginning of the week, we are focusing on voting.  We started our day with our chit-chat message.

The students shared with a partner what they knew about the president and then they also thought and shared about what they know about voting.

We talked about the word democracy and why our country is a democracy.  I obviously don't get too deep into this topic, but I want the students to understand that we vote and choose who runs our government.

I love using this song I came up with last year to teach about voting and democracy.  We sang it together and then the students put it in their poetry journals.

Later on, we talked about the two main parties….democrat and republican.  I never have candidates' names on the ballots instead I just use the donkey and the elephant to represent the two parties.  Even last year during the presidential election I still just use the parties.  

We then had our own vote.  The students came in and had to check in like you really do when you go to vote.  Then I handed them their ballot, then went and voted and returned it to our ballot box.

When we finished, we created this graph.

 We tallied the votes to figure out who won.  We then had a little mini-lesson on greater than and less than.  I love introducing that topic with a graph.  :)

If you are planning on discussing voting or elections this week, check out these products.  Click on the images to take a closer look.