A Vote for Cuteness

First, I want to send my thoughts and  prayers to everyone who was affected by Superstorm Sandy. Here in Connecticut we are slowly recovering. Schools have been closed all week, 200,000 people are still without power and the property damage is just horrible. Luckily, my family and friends are all safe, and for this I am incredibly grateful.

With all of the tragedy and anxiety of the past week, I thought I'd share a little cuteness with you. But before I do, I have to make a confession, and you have to promise not to judge. Here goes... I'm one of those crazy dog ladies who puts costumes on their dogs. And I have way too many of them. There. I said it.  Somehow in my mind, costumes are not clothing, so I haven't crossed the line into the "Paris Hilton putting pink dresses on her dog" kind of crazy. Just the normal kind of "I just think my dog is the cutest thing ever" kind of crazy. Besides, since Sally is blind she can't see all of the dogs in the neighborhood laughing at her.  Poor Sally...

OK, on to the cuteness.  To introduce my class to the concept of voting and show them firsthand how elections work, I created a project for them which follow the whole process from start to finish.  The critical issue that we tackled for this project was: What should Sally be for Halloween?  Pretty important stuff indeed!

First, we read a book about all of the costume choices.  The kids wrote about their favorites and explained why other people should vote for their choices. (Who says kindergartners can't do persuasive writing?)  Then, we set up a polling place in the hallway outside of our classroom.  We cast our votes first, then we invited the whole school to come down to read our campaign posters and cast their votes.

We're keeping track of the votes by adding tally marks to our data sheets every day. Since we've been out of school all week we don't have a winner yet, but luckily Halloween has been postponed until November 7th, so Sally will have plenty of time to get ready.

Now that the kids have seen the election process firsthand, they're ready to transfer what they know to this week's Presidential election.  We'll work with a kindergarten friendly easy reader that explains how our country's elections work and introduces the kids to Obama and Romney. We'll wrap it up with a cute little Voting Booth Craftivity that has a curtain that slides open to show the two presidential candidates.

You can check out this cute Election Day Emergent Reader and Craftivity pack in my TPT store.  I'll also send a free packet to the first few people who leave a comment telling me which costume you think Sally should wear on Halloween.