2020 Presidential Candidates: Resumes and Scavenger Hunt Task Cards

Woah! What a start to summer!!! We have watched movies in the backyard outside, seen Toy Story 4, and spent a ton of time in the pool! I so enjoy the slower pace of life and my time with my kiddos that are growing up way too fast! I also appreciate that I have only been on break for 5 days and I have tons more to enjoy!!!

As many of you know, I get absolutely jazzed around election time and the upcoming: Presidential election is no exception!!!

I wanted to take the time this summer to create some great resources to get your students jazzed and informed about the next election.

Today I have finished my labor of love (I've been working on this since February!!) of candidate resumes and task cards for all 27 major candidates.  It is a great way for your kids to get a concise overview of each candidate so they can compare and contrast.

On each resume, I have included biographical data, education credentials, work history, & military experience. I have chosen to focus on minimum wage and economically helping families, education, immigration, and healthcare for the issues discussed.

There are 21 task cards that help students investigate the candidates in greater detail. I have them look for those that have been governors, served in the military, been a Rhodes Scholar, etc. The task cards give the students a scaffold for investigating these amazing women and men!

This item is going to be part of a larger growing bundle. I will be making a Primary Word Wall which will help students understand topics like Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA), single payer insurance, refugee status, and much more. I will also be creating an interactive bulletin board to track the primaries in January, and an escape room to help students navigate and further understand the presidential primary process!

I think that should take up my summer nicely (on top of teaching coding camp and taking a course in STEM education....at least I'll have a tan while doing it!)

***Head on over to my Teachers Pay Teachers Store right now! This item is 50% off till midnight on Friday!

Tech You Can Use Tomorrow: Epic! Books

Hello all!  I hope the holiday season is finding you all festive and well!  Things are going fabulously over here in EngagingLand and we are counting down the day till break!!!

So, do you want some tech you can use in your class and implement tomorrow?  If you haven't yet, you MUST use Epic! Books!!!!  Epic!  is an online library that is totally free for teachers.  Teachers can have students read casually off of a guest account or can quickly and easily create an account for each student.

So .... why is it amazing?

The teachers in my district love Epic! and are using it with students who are K - 8.  My favorite thing is the amazing and quality informational text.  Their nonfiction books are amazing (I can't get enough of their National Geographic titles!) and teachers are using these to introduce kids as young as second grade to the concept of research.

A couple of weeks ago, like many urban districts, we started to enroll students from Puerto Rico.  These students all came with different backgrounds and access to education.  I was personally working with a couple of students who spoke no English at all.  The principal and I set these students up on Epic! and selected "Spanish Books" as their preference and voila!!! We had an instant Spanish language library and these students got to spend at least a part of their day exploring and in their home language!!!

If you are already using Epic! in your classroom, I would love to hear the ways you have implemented it!!! Feel free to comment below, head on over to my Facebook page (https://www.facebook.com/ToEngageThemAll/ ) or email me at engaginthemall@gmail.com.