21 February 2012

President's Day Activities


President's Day Activities
This week we are studying President's day and we are celebrating George Washington and Abraham Lincoln's Birthdays.
We started out with the movie Getting to know Abraham Lincoln (click below for a preview) and a song we also did a movement activity where we started out small and grew taller and taller like Abe Lincoln. 
Here is the Presidents Song we sang.

 Last week we also learned about Abraham Lincoln. We talked about how tall he was and I decided this would be a great estimating and measuring project. The first thing we did was have the kids all estimate how tall they thought Abraham Lincoln was. After that we measured how tall he actually was, and drew him paper.  The kids were so excited to see how tall he was and wanted to see how tall they were in comparison.  They got to lay down and we measured with the measuing feet.  The kids counted the feet and inches on thier own and I recorded their answers.  When all the kids got a chance we hung him up on the wall and even the teachers were able to record their heights! 
We made George Washington and Abraham Lincoln lapbooks to review all we learned about president's day. 
We made George Washington and Abe Lincoln portraits for the covers of our lapbooks.
The kids drew their own faces!  I was impressed!!  :)

We made log cabins out of sticks.

For snack I bet you can guess what we had....Log cabins!! 
We used a graham cracker for the base and cream cheese for the glue.  A few of the kids used a small pretzel for the window!  So creative!  I have also done this with the pretzel rods and peanut butter. 
 Our math activities this week are all about money math!  We learned about the quarter and we counted by ones to 25 and counted by 5's to 25.  Also we sorted money and made money patterns.  The older kids did basic money adding and matching sets.  (sorry I didn't take pictures of our math activities) 
For art we will make quarter and penny rubbings, Lincoln and Washington portraits, Cherry tree handprints with tissue paper cherries and cherry pie baking.  
For the cherry pie you just put cherry pie filling in a 9X13 pan and put bisquits on top of the pie filling.  Dap the top with butter and bake at 350 for 20 min.  I will post pictures later this week.

On Wednesday we will do a science experiment with pennies.  What liquid will clean a penny best?? 
Our languge lessons will be based around our first 25 sight words on president silloettes and the "ig" family as in wig.  I am excited about the wig ideas I have this week, I have about 15 wigs I am bringing to school and the kids will get the opportunity to sort CVC words and if they rhyme with wig they will run and place them under their wig.  The read aloud book we are reading this week is:
Abe Lincoln at last

We will finish the week by making powder wigs and acting out a president's day poem as I read it. 
 Here is my February Pinterest Board for more President's day ideas! Kidzone Teacher Mama Feb Pinterest Board
Like most Americans, I truely admire the integrity and hard work these great men have done for our country.  They set a standard that is hard to come by these days.  I think it is important to teach children about the high standards that were so important to these men.  I want my children to have a good example to model. 
I hope you found some ideas you can use in your classroom or at home with your own kids. 


1 comment:

  1. Thanks for leaving a comment to let me know you stopped by my blog! Your kind comment made my day =-) Plus now I get a chance to find your blog & you have great ideas! I am your newest follower too!!!
    Beth
    www.livinglifeintentionally.blogspot.com

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