Preschool: Election Day

Dear faithful readers,

My humblest, most appreciative thanks for making my page views climb, even as I take a long break from blogging.  I'm still teaching, still tutoring, and still plugging away at my Child Development Associates.  And I am still photo documenting it all to share with you when I have more spare moments.

But today, I have a time-sensitive post to share.  Today is Election Day, so our class conducted our own presidential vote.  I explained simply that Barack Obama and Mitt Romney both want to be president, and so we, the people of The United States, all cast a vote to decide who it will be.  I printed out photos of each candidate, as equally sized as I could find, and gave each student a sticker to cast his or her vote, explaining that you can vote for whomever you like, but you only get to vote once.  I turned the Circle Time easel around for a little voting privacy and assured the class that their selection was between them and their sticker.

Not pictured in this photo is the rest of the class, sitting on the rug just behind this voting machine, waiting their turn to do their civic duty.

I was their elections official, and we even had a little voting machine malfunction when a sticker got stuck to a voter's finger.  All is well, though, her vote was cast and her voice was heard.  Our election was so authentic, the children all got stickers to keep after they voted.  

Before the grown-ups' election results are in, here is my classroom's vote tally:

And here are some relevant Kid Quotes:

We will make our choice and put a sticker on who we are voting for.

Three-year-old, who went along with his parents as they voted: "Not me!  I already vote!"

 . . .

So today, all the grown-ups will vote, and tonight they will count all the votes, and tomorrow when we wake up, we'll find out who the next president will be!

Three-year-old girl: "ME!!"