"BARACK OBAMA!!" yells out her kindergarten class.
"And how did he become president? What do the people have to do to get a new president?" asks Ms. Smith.
"They vote," the kids replied.
For the last week the kids in Ms. Smith's classroom (now known as Ward S), have been learning about voting--and the process that leads up to it. They are going to vote on the best name for the huge crane that's putting up the steel for the brand new buildings of Old Colony. Each student has come up with his or her idea of what the crane should be called.
There are so many: Long Neck and Santa Maria, Abby and Big Guy.
The kids of Ward S narrow down the nominees to six so they can vote on their candidate for the crane's new name.
The voting begins.
Each kindergartener comes up and puts a check by his or her choice.
It's hard to get the checks up so high to vote for Dinosaur Machine! And that makes it a little tough to count up the votes afterwards.
It's very close.
But Big Giraffe is the winner in Ward S!
Meanwhile in Ms Breneus's classroom (now known as Ward B) the same process is going on.
It's Circle Time and the kids each suggest their favorite crane names.
Some of them want names of people they know.
Daud has known his idea for over a week. It's Lifty!
Here are all the nominees.
The kids work together to pick the six names they will vote on for THEIR candidate.
They decide to pick the ones that make the most "sense."
At first it looks like Dyna-Mike is going to have a landslide victory!
But that's the thing about democracy, when all the people can vote for what they want, you never know what will happen!
Lifty gets a lot of votes...
Then Clifford pulls through and wins!
So now we know the two candidates.
Will the crane be named Big Giraffe?
Or will it be Clifford the Crane?
Who knows--for now, at least. Tomorrow the campaign begins. And on Friday, using secret ballots, the voters will choose!
