6 Lesson Ideas About the Presidential Election

Kirsten 0:00

Welcome back to the podcast where we, as always, talk about very innovative and fun ways to teach social studies. Today is no exception. We are going to be talking about how to help upper elementary students understand the presidential election process. This election is proving to be quite interesting in a variety of ways. It doesn't matter which side of the bell you fall on. There are so many different events that have been happening over the last few months that have been quite memorable and really unprecedented. So I think it's important to make sure to highlight in some way this specific election, and really any election that happens, whether it's at the local level or state level.

Kirsten 1:36

Kirsten 2:42

So we're going to be talking about some activity ideas that you can do, that can do the same for your own students. The first activity idea is a mock election. This is very classic, super easy to do, but yet so memorable. As you know, I just talked about a simple mock election that we did that I still remember from fourth grade, and I even remember who most people voted for. You can use real candidates, or even you can get, like, completely made up and just do voting on your favorite types of cookies or favorite candy. We did this back when I taught kindergarten, where they voted on which cookie was better, chocolate chip cookies or Oreo cookies. You could still talk about the election process. So let's go into how you could make this work. You would definitely first want to make sure you're introducing your students to the concept of elections and discuss key terms such as candidates, voting and ballots. Assign roles if you want with other students being candidates, maybe somebody's a campaign manager and somebody's an election official. The second part of this is campaigning. Students are creating campaign materials for their chosen candidates, such as posters, speeches and campaign slogans. This helps develop their persuasive writing and public speaking skills on election day, whatever day you choose, set up a voting booth in the classroom. Each student votes, and the cookies are counted, if you choose that or the ballots are counted to determine the winner. And then lastly, you would announce the results and hold a discussion on the experience. What did students learn about the election process, and how do they feel about the outcome. Were they happy or were they not so happy? So mock election is a really great activity idea if you're short for time or you just want to do something simple and well known.

Kirsten 4:33

Another activity idea is debate analysis, very similar to how I did this in high school. This could be great for your older students, but this is a great way for students to critically evaluate candidates and the issues they talk about. So what you could do is choose a recorded debate, or you can use transcripts, take an excerpt, if needed, provide students with a worksheet or paper to guide their analysis process, including sections for noting different key points. Talk about their body language and overall presentation that each speaker has after watching discuss the candidates positions on the key issues that you choose to focus on. Encourage students to think about why a candidate might emphasize certain points, and also how they handle rebuttals or one off comments or kind of like strays catching strays. How do they handle that? Have students also write a short essay, paragraph or report analyzing the debate. They can focus on one candidate or compare multiple candidates, discussing who they think perform best and why.

Kirsten 5:44

Kirsten 6:50

Kirsten 8:18

Kirsten 9:09

All right, we've talked a lot about activity ideas related to the voting process and election process. Let's do a nice activity after the election, or even when the inauguration happens in January. So my last activity idea I have for you. Activity idea number six is to reflect and discuss. Reflect on the election process can help solidify what they've learned and what is happening in real time. So what you could do is, after the election, hold a reflection session encourage students to discuss their thoughts on the election process, what they learned and how they felt. Another idea is to have students write journal entries about their experiences. They can reflect on what they found surprising, challenging or exciting. And lastly, thinking about facilitating a group discussion. Students can share their reflections and thoughts on the importance of elections in voting.

So there you have it. There are six activity ideas for you to engage your students in the presidential election process, from mock elections to debate analyzes. These activities can make learning about elections not so boring, but a little bit more fun and informative. If you try any of these activities, I'd love to hear how it went. You can always share your experiences with me on social media at the southern teach, or you can shoot me an email. But in general, thank you so much for tuning in to this episode, and I will talk to you again next week.