The year is quickly coming to an end and I can't believe it.
Where has the school year gone?!? Here in Tennessee we only have 5 weeks left, which is so crazy to me. It really feels like just yesterday it was the first day of school.
But anyways... I am blogging with the Primary Punchbowl today to share with you about our Election Week in 2nd Grade. My students this year have been all about the presidential candidates and talking about who they want to win the election. So with all their talk going on my co-worker and I thought, why don't we bring that into our classroom and teach them about how the election process works. And with that Election Week began.
We started off the week by breaking up the class into four groups. Each group was assigned a presidential candidate that they would research. We chose four candidates (Trump, Sanders, Clinton, Cruz) for times sake. For the first two days the students read about their candidate and took notes on them. After taking notes on their candidate the students then had to decide how they wanted to present their information. Technology has been something I have really been trying to integrate into my classroom this year and with having 2 I-pads in our room, it made it a little easier to do. Earlier in the year I introduced some AWESOME presentation apps & the best part is they are FREE! If you have not checked them out or downloaded them yet, you have to as soon as you are done reading my post... The apps are Popplet lite, ChatterPix, and PicKids Collage. The groups chose to either create a Popplet or a Chatter Pix since those were the two newest apps I've introduced. This is what they look like...
Below is a Popplet. With the Popplet students are able to create a web like presentation which they are able to include both text and images.
While the students were working on their presentations they were also campaigning for the class to vote for their candidate. Or for some, they were campaigning against their own candidate. Here are some of the student's campaign posters that they created throughout the week.
These posters were hung around our classroom all throughout the week. Finally at the end of the week it was time to bring our Election Week to an end. So on the last day it was ELECTION DAY!!! My students arrived to our classroom that morning to find this on our classroom door.
They were so excited! They just couldn't wait till Social Studies time so we could actually vote. Before allowing the students to vote we spoke about how the voting process worked. We discussed that their votes should be secret and that they shouldn't share who they voted with others. In order to make it as close to the real thing I created a voting booth at the back of my classroom. I did this by turning a shoe box into a ballot box and setting it up in front of a test tent.
They absolutely loved it and surprisingly didn't share with each other who they voted for.
After everyone had voted it was time to count the votes. And if our class was able to vote we would vote for... Drum roll pleaseeeee!!!!
Click the link for a freebie to get a copy of my presidential candidate pages.Click Here to Grab Your Freebie! Included you will find note taking pages, the ballots,and the If our class could vote posters!
I hope you all enjoyed my post. If you hold an election in your classroom I would love to see it in action. Feel free to #Firstgradeisafairytale and #primarypunchbowl
Oh, and be sure to follow the Primary Punchbowl on Instagram. There will be an exciting post you won't want to miss in a few days. ;)
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