Electoral College

 Ever try to make sense of the Electoral College? I was working with some 4th graders on that very topic trying to explain that popular vote doesn't always cut it in a presidential election. This site from Scholastic got them interested! We talked about considering the amount of people that live in a state, not just the size of the state as well as Representatives vs. Senators and how they are allotted. They were still confused until we played the game on the smartboard. There is not a direct link to the game, but look for the Electoral Challenge here. It could work on a computer for single students or pairs, but was also great as a group in two teams on the smartboard so we could talk about it as we went. The directions for the game explain how the electoral votes are assigned to each state and that the goal is 270 votes. They really loved this and wanted to play again but we were out of time. I think I will definitely use it with other groups. (One of the best parts might just have been that one of the teams named themselves Awesomeness -  you gotta love that!) Here is a screen shot so you can see what the game looks like.

 What are you doing for the election coverage? I think next we might try this site from Disney to let students see who they would really be a supporter of from ideas alone. It could be interesting to see if they are most in line with who they think they are or not.