Let's collaborate and infuse citizenship education: Kids voting in primary classrooms

Teachers comment that there is no time in the day to cover social studies as they struggle to implement new programs designed to increase the reading levels of the students in their classrooms. Successfully adapting the project called Kids Voting USA during the fall, 2004 election helped pre-service teachers learn how to infuse civic learning goals, social studies, and voting education into the primary classroom on a daily basis. Pre­ service teachers taught lessons on the voting process to students in a public school district in grades kindergarten through second, during their internship course in the fall of 2004. Students learned how their vote made a difference and discussed the issues when presented with the facts. Pre-service teachers developed a list of children’s literatures to support the skills that were being taught. Data compiled at the end of the project confirmed that the students were able to use thei r skills across the curriculum while pre­service teachers not only increased their understanding of civic learning goal, but also increased their own knowledge of the voting process.