Bundle: What is the Electoral College? Voting with Mystery Candidates

I've used both of these activities every year and they have always been a hit - especially on an election year! The two products in this bundle are tried and true with 7th and 8th grade students.

What is the Electoral College - PowerPoint and Partner Activity

I have used this Electoral College activity over and over throughout my two decades in the classroom, and it has always been a hit; especially on an election year! You are provided with a fully-editable, and detailed, 46-slide PowerPoint that explains how the Electoral College works, the potential flaws of the system, a student note sheet, and a reflection sheet where students write a minimum 100-word explanation on whether or not the Electoral College is a good system or not for electing a president.

Note: I used the Ink Free font in the PowerPoint and MS Word. You can change the font to whatever you'd like since it is fully-editable, or if you don't have the Ink Free font for some reason.

The activity is the best part! Students are partnered up and given a competition packet, a pair of dice, and some colored pencils to take part in an Electoral College simulation where they understand how important winning the Popular Vote is to get the Electoral Votes of each state. You will hear a lot of yelps when students win California as well as the moans of the students who didn't!

The kids always have fun playing this and you'll be surprised how even your must reluctant learners will willingly participate .

I hope you and your students have as much fun with this activity as my students and I have had over the years. A fun touch at the end is to take a photograph of the winners with the Presidential Seal along with the defeated (see preview). You could also put up a bulletin board titled "Future Presidents??" or "I Made it to 270 First!"

Choosing a President with Mystery Candidates

Presidential Election/Voting. I have so much fun with this activity every year so I hope you will too! When I teach about the election process I use this activity to demonstrate with students that you really need to know more about a candidate than just the surface level of information.

Included in this activity are 10 "Mystery Candidates" that only have a brief description about them including their age, education, and career information. No picture is provided for the students and they are all real people throughout history including:

The Mystery Candidates Are:

George Washington, Joe Biden, Michelle Obama, Marie Curie, Bernie Sanders, Adolf Hitler, Donald Trump, Martin Luther King, Jr., John F. Kennedy, and Thomas Jefferson.

Students write an explanation in the box explaining why the characteristics of each candidate would be a strength or a weakness. Like I mentioned, this is a lot of fun and it really gets the kids excited to see if their candidate wins!

Included in this resource are a copy of the packet of candidates with the age, education, and work experience of each candidate, a PowerPoint to use for students to discuss strengths and weaknesses before the mystery candidate's picture is revealed, and a ranking of presidential characteristics survey for students. It is fun to tally the scores of the candidates as well as the presidential characteristics survey so students can see what it would be like if their class actually got to vote. They can see what is most important to kids their age in regard to the characteristics of a president as well as who won based on the information provided for each candidate.

Here's a few other products you might like...

Presidents' Day, USA - Latitude & Longitude

Elect a President with Mystery Candidates!

Presidents of the United States - The "EYES" Have It!

Presidents of the United States - Word Wall

For a GREAT classroom management tool check out my BEST-SELLER!

Student Conferencing "Deli-Style"

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