Election Day Word Search: Free Printable
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Get this engaging printable Election Day Word Search for free. It includes 15 content-specific words about voting for students to find, plus lots of ideas for vocabulary and knowledge-building. An answer key is included, too!
Why We Love It
Election day is such an exciting time when we get to exercise our right to vote. It’s important to teach kids about this special right and help them understand that many people, including minorities and women, had to fight for the right.
This Election Day Word Search is designed to be an intentional activity, to build awareness of content-specific vocabulary while practicing literacy skills.
The Word Search
A word search always presents a fun challenge to kids as they practice visual discrimination skills. Most kids really enjoy them, plus they work well as an independent activity, morning work, or an extra credit challenge.
Some children may have a strong understanding of voting and election day. They hear their parents talk about it, they watch the debates, and they may even go along with their parents to vote – many proudly coming into class with an “I voted” sticker.
But others may not have had these rich experiences. So teachers need to ensure to build students’ understanding of the topic and teach them about voting and elections. Teaching content-specific vocabulary, like the specific vocabulary included in this word search, is a great way to do so!
This word search is designed with content-specific words to build students’ knowledge about the topic of elections.
There 15 different words that are commonly used around Election Day:
- Vote
- Election
- President
- Ballot
- Campaign
- Candidate
- Republican
- Democrat
- Citizen
- Democracy
- Elect
- Govern
- Nominate
- Party
- Poll
Extension Ideas
Read-Alouds
Pair this activity with high-quality read-aloud books about election day and voting. Many of the vocabulary words included in our word search will be heard in these books.
We recommend:
- Vote for Our Future
- I Voted: Making a Choice Makes a Difference
- Your Vote Matters
- One Vote, Two Votes, I Vote, You Vote
- V is for Voting
After reading, have students use our free alphaboxes graphic organizer to deepen comprehension!
Vocabulary Instruction
Word searches are a great way for kids to focus on specific vocabulary.
For example, kids may hear the word ‘party’ and think the word’s only meaning is something like a birthday party. They may visualize friends, balloons, presents, and a cake.
But they may never have heard the word ‘party’ used in a way that relates to elections. Teaching kids how this word has a second meaning presents a great opportunity to build students’ vocabulary.
Words & Definitions: Here are ‘kid-friendly’ definitions for each of the words included on the list. You can use these as a starting point for teaching kids about the terms and building knowledge about voting and elections!
- Vote: To make a choice about who you want to be your leader or about a decision in an election.
- Election: A special event when people get to choose their leaders by voting.
- President: The leader of the United States.
- Ballot: A special piece of paper that people use to cast their votes in an election.
- Campaign: The activity where a candidate tries to get people to vote for them in an election.
- Candidate: A person who wants to be elected to a job, like president, governor, or mayor.
- Republican: A member of one of the two main political parties in the United States.
- Democrat: A member of one of the two main political parties in the United States.
- Citizen: A person who belongs to a country and has certain rights, like voting.
- Democracy: A way of governing where the people have the power to make choices about who leads them and what rules they follow.
- Elect: To choose someone for a special job by voting.
- Govern: To lead and make decisions for a group of people, like a country, state, or city.
- Nominate: To officially choose a person to run for a specific job, like president or governor.
- Party: A group of people who share similar ideas about how the government should be run and what laws should be made. In the US, the two main parties are the Democrats and Republicans.
- Poll: A place where people go to vote during an election.
Morphology
Incorporate morphology into your lessons while breaking these long words apart!
Think about the word democrat. Using a word sum is a great way to show and analyze the specific word parts.
dem + o + crat
dem = people, o (connective), crat = power
Literal meaning = People in power
Grab our free word matrix and morphology word cards to help with your instruction. And don’t forget our popular Morphology products that focus on Greek bases and Latin bases!
Recommended Resources
- Get our recommendations for the best children’s books to build kids’ vocabulary!
- Learn about an essential strategy for learning vocabulary – using the 6 types of context clues.
- Learn more about teaching homophones.
Get 8 Election Day themed roll-and-read board games (plus DOZENS more!) with our Phonics Roll & Read Games. resource.
The games cover CVC, Blends, Digraphs, FLOSS, Magic e, and more!
Download & Print
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More FREE Word Searches: Video Games Word Search, Wizard Word Search.