Presidents' Day Preparations

Tomorrow starts the week long study of US Presidents followed by a week long study of US Symbols.
Our curriculum specifically states to learn about
Washington, Jefferson, Lincoln, Roosevelt, and who ever is our current president.
How do I do this?
I tackle one president a day for one week.

One Monday we talk about the US’s first president George Washington.

We have a paid subscription to BrainPopJr, which I LOVE,
So we watch this video.

We read several books about Mr. Washington.

We make a chart about him and we use Cupcake for a Teacher’s fantastic art projects.
I put my example art on the chart for the classroom.
We also move these charts into the hallway for others to see our creations.
Each student also makes their own Washington art project.
It brings him to life and allows the lesson to become more memorable.

We do the same type of activities on Tuesday using Jefferson.
One thing I always add to my Presidents’ Day lessons is coins.
Money is no longer a Common Core Standard in K or 1st.
Our first grade asks that we continue to teach coin recognition and coin value>
Since using money as a life skill to add to money and number sense only makes sense,
we were happy to continue this math activity for our students.
Additionally, I integrate coins and their value with Presidents’ Day.
When we discuss Washington, we look at real quarters to see him.
{The reverse side is harder now that many of the quarters have states and such on them.}
For Jefferson, each student holds a nickle and looks at Jefferson.
We also flip the coin over to see Monticello, which was his home.
This building is not a required US Symbol
but it is a great way to separate a nickle and a quarter in the minds of your students!

Wednesday we move onto Lincoln.
Here is our chart on Lincoln.

I also have FUN hands on activity related to each president to make them more meaningful.
We flip pennies and create a probability graph using heads and tails for Lincoln’s pennies.
We also use Lincoln logs to create log cabins too!
This is a great way to PLAY TO LEARN.

To find Lincoln Logs, search consignment stores and sales to stock up on these.
Also ask your older students’ parents to hand some down when they no longer need them.
You can still purchase them on Amazon here and in most stores, but the cheaper the better.

We also create a Washington Monument using unifix cubes and pattern blocks.
You can see my template below on the right.

I choose to incorporate BOTH President Roosevelt into my Thursday lesson if I can help it.
Why? I usually have a student or two who loves history and Presidents.
Therefore, I want to add more depth for them. I also know students will hear the last name Roosevelt often as they grow.
I want them to be aware that there was FDR and Teddy. 🙂

On Friday we cover our current President.
Since this year is an election year, we generally bring up the candidates for future presidents here too.
We also watch a video on what a president does, also a BrainPop Jr. video.
We also make a chart about what a President does here.

Why do I wait until Friday to discuss the job of the President?
My students think they know what the president does on Monday.
We talk about it all week. We just chart it Friday.
They think he runs the county and is the boss.
We relate his job to how I am the leader of the classroom and the principal is the leader of the school.
By Friday, we have learned about many President and we have a better sense of the actual job of a President.
We also discuss thing each of the Presidents is know for doing.
For example, we know Washington was President twice and he set the standard for being President only twice.

Then we chart PR words to add the lesson to our phonics activities.

{The st activity for the next week!}

Now the real fun begins.
We use the QR Scan & Learn activity sheets to review and learn more about our presidents.
This table is diving into Abraham Lincoln here.
They scan the code on the sheet and an audio file pops up that reads the sheet to them.
Some of my stronger readers do not need to listen to this activity, but the mostly all prefer to!
Then my students follow the directions on the sheet to fill in their answer sheet in front of them.
Then the rotate around the room to get all the 5 stations complete!

Here is a completed activity sheet posted outside my classroom on our Monkey clips.
{Hence the tail hanging down!}

{There is a US Symbols Version as well.}

We also use the topic of Presidents in our writing activities.
Here is a writing activity we complete independently during Daily 5 time.Next week we dive into US Symbols.

One of the most important symbols we learn about is the US flag.First, we take construction paper and we create our individual flags.
Then, we make sure we have a red strip on the top, across our blue field, and on the bottom.
Next, we also try to add 50 white stars using paint and unsharpened pencils.
This is also a great way to practice counting to 50!

We clean up with baby wipes. 🙂

Then we work on labeling our flags as well.

One of my favorite days is when we learn about the bald eagle.
Since I live in GA, we have Berry College close by.
They have a live eagle camera which allows us to WATCH an Eagle’s nest in real time.
There are several of these around the county, including in Washington State.
I like using different location based on what time we will be doing these activities.
If we are doing these in the afternoon, watching the best at dawn in Washington can be more lively then Berry College.
Here are the birds being fed by their mother or father.
{I am not sure which is which, but we often see parents trading our parenting responsibilities through the day.After doing this for years, we actually saw the adult eagle and baby eagles go to the bathroom in their nest!
You can see the white around their nest. The don’t use the bathroom in their nest around the outside of the nest,
but never inside.

As we see the things our eagles do, we write in on these sheets.“The Bald Eagle can fly. The Bald eagle can eat. The Bald eagle can look.”
We also discuss how these are all verbs, or things we do!
We also incorporate an art project into the week by creating our own Bald Eagles!

I have a variety of US Symbol writing prompts to connect our social studies time to writing. We also talk about Lady Liberty!
We take pictures of our students with their own crowns.
This one has 5 spikes on it and Lady Liberty has 7. Make sure your crown has 7.
We take a paper plate and cut out the center and a little bit of the bumpy edge.
We paint both sides with green paint.
Then we cut out spikes and glue them to the crown on one side.

We use a clip board and a “torch” one of the teachers picked up years ago.
I take my students’ pictures of them being Lady or Sir Liberty.

We also work on our vocabulary using this labeling activity sheet.
And no, my students rarely know what kind of tablet she is carrying.
They know it isn’t an electronic tablet, but before iPads my class didn’t understand the “tablet” either.

Here is a picture of the labeling sheets.

We also talk about the initials USA. We use our own initials to make this make sense to us.
Most girls who love monograms know what their initials are.
But, I always pull an official class list to MAKE SURE each student knows their legal first, MIDDLE, and last name.
We add our initials to the chart. You can see mine first as MAA.
I created a teacher version to project to my class as well as a student version to complete with me I also use these numbering to 100 sheets in math centers to practice our numbers to 100.