Scholastic’s Election 2012 is a nice set of resources through which elementary and middle school students can learn about various aspects of the 2012 Presidential Election. Election 2012 prominently features student-friendly articles about the Republican primaries and caucuses. Before you have your students read those articles you might want to have them take advantage of some of the other resources provided by Scholastic’s Election 2012.

Scholastic’s Election 2012 Q&A page offers short answers to common questions like, “what is a primary?” and “what is Super Tuesday?” After going over those questions and answers with your students they can test their recall of that information by playing the On the Road to the White House Game which is based on the Election 2012 Q&A.

Applications for Education
Scholastic’s Election 2012 could be a good way for elementary school and middle school students to follow the process of choosing a new U.S. President. The section about the candidates themselves is a little thin, but that could be the jumping-off point for students to do some research about the candidates.

Here are some resources for teaching about the 2012 election that are appropriate for middle school and high school use:
How Candidates Raise and Spend Money
Election Lesson Plans from C-SPAN
Primary Elections and Gerrymandering Explained

H/T to Michelle Krill for the Scholastic Election 2012 link.