OBJECTIVE
Students investigate elections and the voting experience.

MATERIALS
Duck For President - Doreen Cronin

PRE-READING ACTIVITY

• Have your students start thinking about the story Duck For President before you start reading it. Tell your class that they will be constructing a story similar to the one they are about to read by each contributing a sentence.
• Say, Today we will be reading a story about a duck that runs for president. Let's make some guesses about what might happen by making up a similar story of our own. I will start with the first sentence and then everyone else will contribute a sentence.
• Say, There once was a duck that lived on a farm that ran for president...
• Have each student contribute a sentence to the story.
• After your class creates their own story, read the book and point out any connections the story has to the one your class made up.

DISCUSSION QUESTIONS

• Why did Duck first run to be in charge of the farm? To be governor? To then be president?
• How did Duck win those elections?
• What does it mean to campaign? What is an election? What does it mean to register and vote?
• Why did Duck head back to the farm in the end?
• Why is voting important? What does it accomplish?

ACTIVITY

• Invite your students to be creative about the story by asking them to imagine one of the speeches Duck gave.
• Say, Twice in the story Duck gave speeches that only other ducks could understand. What do you think Duck was saying in these speeches?
• Ask your students to deliver speeches of their own to the class. Tell them they need to include the words "Vote" and "Election" in their speech and they should list the promises Duck would have made to the other ducks. Encourage your students to be creative.
• Break up your students into groups of two so they can practice their speeches and help each other perfect them.
• Invite students to share their speeches with the class. Your class should respectfully quack when each person is done delivering his/her speech.

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