Elections

Well it's that time again, we'll be electing our new President in a couple of weeks. This can be a difficult concept for children to grasp on their own, but relatively simple to teach. Here's how I teach it to my early elementary children:

I Have the kids take surverys from everyone they meet/what they see...My oldest son can make his own graphs, so we'll make a graph where he can ask people's favorite rainforest animal, favorite cartoon, etc. My youngest (who is 4) will have to point out what colors he sees throughout the day, so on Monday we'll look for green and red, and we'll mark them on the chart. At the end of the week we can see what was more popular.

I printed a coloring book of the candidates, a voting box, the Democrat Donkey,the Republican Elephant, etc. from

For my oldest (2nd - 4th grade) I printed electoral worksheets from Enchanted learning . I printed the word search, and the election grammar worksheet, and the early reader booklet.

For my youngest I printed Ben Franklin's ABC's and cut it into a booklet.

For both I printed (for me really) Ben Franklin's Explanation on the Election day, primary election and general elections.
Then we read the book Clifford For President, and Duck For President

So, once we finished the Unit on the Election I put together a lapbook that the kids can work on hopefully while I'm standing in line waiting to vote.

On Election Lapbooks:
There are some really AWESOME free lapbooks available on the internet. My two favorites are:
Homeschool Share
Notebook Learning (I really LOVE this site!)
DJ's Lapbook:
The Presidents: I've sectioned the presidents off into 8 catagories for my oldest to list the presidents and the years of them in office:
The Early Republic: 1789 - 1829
George Washington
John Adams
Thomas Jefferson
James Madison
James Monroe
John Quincy Adams
The Jacksonian Democracy: 1829 - 1853
Andrew Jackson
Martin Van Buren
William Harrison
John Tyler
James Polk
Zachary Taylor
Millard Fillmore
The Sectional Conflict: 1853 - 1881
Franklin Pierce
James Buchanan
Abraham Lincoln
Andrew Johnson
Ulysses Grant
Rutherford Hayes
The Gilded Age: 1881 - 1897
James Garfield
Chester Arthur
Grover Cleveland
Benjamin Harrison
Grover Cleveland
The Progressive Era: 1897 - 1921
William McKinley

Theodore Roosevelt
William Taft
Woodrow Wilson
The Depression and World Conflict: 1921 - 1961

Warren Harding
Calvin Coolidge
Herbert Hoover
Franklin Roosevelt
Harry Truman
Dwight Eisenhower

Social Change & Soviet Relations: 1961 - 1989
John Kennedy
Lyndon Johnson
Richard Nixon
Gerald Ford
Jimmy Carter
Ronald Reagan
Globalization: 1989 - present

George H. W. Bush
Bill Clinton
George W. Bush

The Parties: Essentiall this is a small flip book where DJ can give a brief description of the parties. (Democrat, Republican, Independant, and Green)
Steps To Becoming A President: Essentially explaining the 5 main stages to becoming president:
Choose to run for office. Declare yourself to the public and begin describing what you would do with the position.
The Primary. Each party selects one person to run as their representative.
The General Election: Each adult over the age of 18 chooses their candidate
The Electoral College: Each state collects the votes from teh people. Then chooses who 'won' that state. They then give that candidate a certain number of points - based on the # of people living in that state (so California would get more college points than Deleware because it's bigger and has many more citizens)
The Inaguration. The person choosen then takes an oath and is sworn into office for the next 4 years.
The next 3 will be flip tabs where DJ can give a brief explanation of their purpose.
The Job of the President:
The Job of the Vice Persident:
The Job of the Cabinet:
The 3 Main Branches of Government: this is a small acordian booklet where DJ can give a brief description of the 3 main Branches of the Government and who represents them. (Executive, Judicial and Legislative)
The Seal of the President: DJ can color in the seal and give a brief history of the symbol.
Many of the Cut Outs for this lapbook can be found Homeschool Share - Election.

X-Man's Lapbook:
Much of X-mans book is coloring, as he really isn't ready to do much more.
Ben Franklin's ABC's: we cut his ABC's into a booklet abotu the government and included it in the lapbook.

Candidates: I found coloring pictures of the 3 main candidates, and printed them out,
Where does the president live? X-man can color a pic of the White House
How do we choose a president? This is a small flapbook which I've written the 5 stages of to becoming a president: Declare candicy, Primary, General Election, Electoral College, and Innaguration It will have a pic of a voting box on teh front, and X-man can add a pic for each stage