March was Women’s History Month and I thought it was only right to celebrate with having our own mock election. This was a double whammy as the United States is also in the midst of gearing up for the presidential election in November. I thought it would be neat to give my participants a tiny taste of what goes into voting. I definitely steered clear of using any of the potential candidates. Instead I picked Rebecca and Samantha as our candidates. I thought it was appropriate to use these two American Girls, as they were both alive when women received the right to vote.

For my set-up, I changed it up from the normal pods. I instead made two long tables and assigned participants to a specific party. Rebecca was the purple party, and Samantha was the pink party. I did this because I did not want a specific party to have way more people than the other party.

Once everyone was assigned to a table, I did a mini lesson about why women didn’t have the right to vote and how they eventually gained the right to vote. I then explained that the two parties were going to campaign for their doll. I explained that while they would campaign for one doll they could always vote for the other doll. My chosen activities were Campaign placards and buttons. They could also make mini buttons!

While they were making their buttons and signs, I placed Samantha and Rebecca books on their respective campaign tables. I said once they were done to start researching their girls a little bit. I did have a power point that listed what each girl stood for, what they had accomplished, and their goals in life. We then had all the kids line up and they could say why people should vote for their doll. Some of the promotions were:

She is pretty.
She is nice.
She likes to help others.
She taught her friends to read.
She helped the laborers.

Afterwards, we had everyone vote.

 

While we counted the ballots, we fed them cucumber sandwiches and pink lemonade. Very reminiscent of the time.

Our winner……