Duck for President!

Yes, you read that correctly!

Last week, students listened to the read aloud of Duck for President by Doreen Cronin. In the book, Duck was tired of doing work on the farm and thought if he ran the farm, things would be different.  Soon, he was voted to be governor, and then president.  At the end of the story, he realized being a president is hard work so he returned to the farm to write his autobiography.  We learned election vocabulary such as vote, ballot, and requirement.  
Then students had to share their reasons why they would vote for either Duck or Farmer Brown to be president.  Based on a persuasive list of reasons, it was already looking like Duck was the popular candidate.
Students enjoyed making campaign posters to show their support of their favorite candidate.  Listen to the students' reasons why they would vote for either Duck or Farmer Brown in the video below.


This month's school character trait focus is responsibility.  We discussed what responsibilities a president has as a leader of our country.

We also thought about the responsibilities teachers and students have.  We noticed that there are some similarities in responsibilities for children and adults if we all want to be respectful, caring people. 

This past Monday, students couldn't wait for the afternoon when they had the opportunity to be a part of the voting process and actually cast their vote.  Each child in my class had a job: check people in, hand the voter a ballot, be in charge of the ballot box, hand the voter their "I voted!" badge and thank them for voting, or hold up signs urging others to vote.  Everyone was very polite and patient!

We returned to the classroom and counted up the votes.  I recorded them on a chart using tally marks.  After I counted the ballots, I had helpers recount the votes for each candidate to ensure I counted correctly.  In my class, 11 people voted for Duck and 5 people voted for Farmer Brown.

For the entire Kindergarten, Duck won with 54 votes.  Farmer Brown got 22 votes and 2 children were undecided voters.

Reading Duck for President was a wonderful way to introduce children to the election process!