Election Day

Hello Families,

It's an exciting day today.  We have been talking about the election in the past weeks, but today we learned the "nitty gritty" of how our voting process works.  We learned about the electoral votes and what they mean in an election.  We also talked about the popular vote and what happened in the 2000 election between Al Gore and George W. Bush.  We even voted on vanilla and chocolate using this system.  We found out that the electoral votes were 7 to 3 for chocolate, but the popular vote was only 8 to 7!  It was a great example of the difference between the two counts.  Finally, we discussed the swing states and their impact on elections.  For homework, I have asked the students to keep up with how the election turns out in the swing states.  They have the states in their Scholastic News magazine, along with an electoral map.  Please allow them to state up late enough to get the outcome for most of them.  I estimate that the majority will be in by 8pm, since most are in the eastern region.  

Thank you,
Debby