Presidents day

We weren't in school for Presidents day. Well, I should say the kids weren't in school, it was a plan day for me. The previous Friday and following Tuesday I had some ELL testing and didn't see my students either. I went almost a whole week without seeing. When I was done I had a 3 day week, so I took that time to really go over Presidents day and work on those very cute activities I have found on other blogs. 

I can't say I created anything original. We did activities very similar to last years, just tweaked a bit.

Wednesday was all about Washington, Tuesday was all about Lincoln, and Friday we compare the two, talked about the presidency, and who is our current president.

The Kindergartners made those cute Washington and Lincolns.

School A

 

School B

 A close up of George...

and Lincoln.

 Of course I had to add our current President. I was not surprised, but pleased to know that most of my students, knew who he is and could tell me his name. It may not sound like a big deal, but when you just came to this country and can't even really ask a question, or share a story it is a big deal.

 We then proceeded to complete a Venn-Diagram comparing the two.

I printed a large one and completed it with my students, as a model. That is the one I displayed. I used my Doc Cam and projector so my students could see and they completed one of their own at their desks that they get to take home. I got this Venn-Diagram from Sarah Paul's Freebie President Unit.

The Washington and Lincoln templates I got from Mrs. Larremore's blog Chalk Talk.

I wanted something a bit more for my First grade students.

I had the students color, cut and paste the president from these template I found on Pintrest. Then I used the facts from Mrs. Thiessen's compare and contrast activity. I can't fr the life of me find the Lincoln and Washington templates. If you know where to find them please leave me a comment so I may share the source.

School A

School B

We read...

to talk about each president. We read the Washington page when we learned about GW and the Lincoln page when we learned about AL, and the Obama page when we learned about BO. Here are a few screen shots.

 

 I love the illustrations. It does have ALL the presidents, I just did not want to overwhelm my students.
 

On Friday we read...

and talked about what a President does.

Then we completed this "If I were President I would..." sheet.

 "stop the state of fighting people."

 "help people to clean up."

 "help the people with stuff."

 "go to the white house and work." This one made me crack up.

"I would free the slaves." This one made me think he was thinking about the Civil war, because we did talk about it a bit when we were learning about Lincoln. However, after going home and reflecting on it, I wondered if he was making a connection with his home country, where they are in fact still a great deal of oppression, slavery and war. It made me sad and glad that he is now here in the US.

One of the other resources I used were some Brain Pop videos.
George Washington
Abraham Lincoln
What the President does.

The kids really seems to get it so much better with the videos and they were able to tell me so much more than I thought they would. I was pleasantly surprised.

This week is all about Seuss, and I am as crazy as the Cat in the Hat himself! :P I have a formal observation tomorrow so wish me luck.