Our Election Unit

Here's some honesty for you ... I am dreading the election so much that I was planning to not even cover it with my kids in school. I figured that in four years, when they are older, we'd do a full unit. But, they do have a fascination with the presidents, and I know that tiny seeds could be planted now to make the election in four years even more informative. I certainly didn't want to spend a week on it. But, I did pull together some reading, writing, math, a craft, and cooking to make the election fun and meaningful for them.

We will divide our studies up into two days: the first day being tomorrow and then we will finish it on Tuesday, ending our lessons with a field trip to the polls for me to cast my vote.

Literature

Grace for President by Kelly S. DiPucchio

Vote! by Eileen Christelow

Duck for President by Doreen Cronin

Patty for President by Jean Davis Callaghan

So You Want to be President by Judith St. George

See How They Run by Susan E. Goodman

Arthur Meets the President by Marc Brown

Writing

Write a five part paragraph using a Graphic Organizer for Grace for President.

Math

Electoral College map analysis
Electoral Map Math (scholastic)

Craft

If I Were President ...

General Activities

"Election Day: Choosing our President" video by Learn Our History
Word search
Vocabulary worksheet

Other Activities (that we probably won't get to)

"The Electoral Collage" and "Electoral Challenge" game (Scholastic)
Electoral Collage memory game
"The Race is On!" video (Scholastic)
"Seven Hats Challenge" game (Scholastic)
"Casting Your Vote" movie and activity (OLE)
"Evaluating Leadership" movie and activity OLE)

Food

She's a Grand 'Ol Flag Lasagna

Who knows ... by the end of our lessons the election might be meaningful for me, too. Or, at the very least, I might actually have a grasp on the Electoral College.

ABCya

Eli's reading resource teacher shared a website with me yesterday that I would like to pass along. It's called ABCya . There are separate educational sections with fantastic games for ages kindergarten through 5th grade. I browsed the 2nd grade level, and it includes age-appropriate games about Letters, Numbers, Shapes, Geometry, Patterns, Mouse Manipulation, Art and Holiday games. There are lots and lots of fun and creative games for children to play. They are fun, but oh, so educational. Eli's favorite, in his short time playing it, was Create a Car . A lot of the games also have Apps available for purchase (99 cents for most of them) for the iPad and iPhone. I have been looking for another free website for games similar to Starfall , for some time. I think I have found it. I can feel confident having Eli and Brynne play these games.

Cells ~ It's What's for Dinner

Dawson made edible cells on Friday. He made an animal cell pizza ... and a plant cell chocolate chip cookie ... He reviewed what he's learned about cells the past two weeks, and I had dinner made by someone else. Win, win!! I am linking up at Science Sunday at Adventures in Mommydom.

America: The Story of Us ~ Episodes 8 "Boom" and 9 "Bust" Lesson Plans

Only two more units to go, and I will wrap them both up in this post. (Well there are actually five left, but I only completed lesson plans through the next two.) This was as far as we were able to get in the series this year. We were at the end of our school year and Dawson was ready to move on to his unit-of-choice: knights. The next two units in the America: The Story of Us series were Episode 8: Boom and Episode 9: Bust , or better known as The Roaring 20's and The Great Depression. We spent three weeks combined on these two units. Our book for both units was The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald. I had never read this book before and I thought it was an excellent portrayal of the good and bad of the 20's. The symbolism was astonishing and meaty, and I recommend having your student do an essay on the symbolism in the piece. I wish I would have done that with Dawson. We watched both Episodes 8 and 9, did the discussion questions/video quiz fo

MaryNovember 3, 2012 at 10:52 PM
I have several of these books on our Elections study book list. My problem is I haven't started it with Nolan yet! We may be doing our election study after the election. LOL

Looks great!

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