Teaching Election 2016:
Elect a Classroom Mascot

Analyzing candidates and hands-on balloting will help students understand the election process.  Older children can analyze the current candidates and platforms, but younger children will learn better with examples that they can relate to. Enter the classroom mascot!

Introduction: Discuss local sports teams and their mascots –  a bear, ram, bronco, eagle . Suggest that your classroom could have a mascot that is elected by the students.

Choosing the Candidates: discuss various animals that are in simple children’s books that the students all know: Clifford, Winnie the Pooh, Angelina or Olivia. (Older children would have more sophisticated choices.) Read the books aloud together and discuss the animal’s characteristics and examples from the books.  What are we looking for in a mascot? Kind, brave, honest? Build critical thinking. How did the candidate show that he was kind?
Campaigning:  Students make posters about their favorite candidate. (Vote for Angelina – she works hard! Vote for Pooh – he cares!) They might even make short speeches in front of the class.

Voting:  Build a voting booth with a decorated tri-fold display board and stand it on a desk or table.  Create paper ballots with a circle to color by the pictures of the candidates and their names. Or create an electronic ballot using a tablet with a touch screen program to keep the ballots secret from the next voter. Children enter the voting booth one at a time. Distribute “I voted” stickers.

Counting the votes:  Use a vote-counter program on a tablet and projector.  Student counters read the ballots aloud and the count is projected on a screen.

Celebrating the Victory: Encourage the students to rally around the winner. Students create a poster announcing the classroom mascot and display it in the hall or classroom.

• http://www.scholastic.com/teachers/unit/elections-everything-you-need
  
  
• http://www.edutopia.org/blog/US-election-teaching-resources-matt-davis
  
  
• https://www.teachervision.com/elections/teacher-resources/6615.html
  
  
• http://www.pbs.org/parents/special/election/article-theraceison.html
  
  
• http://www.educationworld.com/a_curr/curr271.shtml 

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