If You Were President is a nice, short activity from Scholastic through which elementary school students can learn about budget balancing basics. In the activity students select a three member cabinet, set a five part budget, and answer questions from the Press. When they’ve finished answering questions from the Press, a short newspaper article is written about their budget and cabinet decisions.

Applications for Education
If You Were President could be used as part of an elementary school lesson about government budgetting. I like that students are asked to defend their choices in writing after creating their budgets.

H/T to Vicki Davis.