Favorite Books for Presidents Day {and a few more ideas}

Hi, friends!  I hope you are having a great weekend so far.  February is such a busy month with all of the holidays...Today's post features a few of my favorites for President's Day!  *Depending on who the current president is, I also read a book about him.  FYI-The new book shown below about President Trump is not available until February 15.  To purchase any of the books shown, simply click the Amazon links.

                          President's Day

       
                                                                   

I like to pair my President's Day Pack with these books in the week leading up and week of President's Day.  We spend a day or two on both Lincoln and Washington individually.

**Loving having a variety of paper choices for my kids for quick differentiating!**

Once we've learned about both Washington and Lincoln individually, we compare them both.  I love using my Venn Diagram Pocket Chart {that you can snag below}!!  Such a great investment.  We also wrap up the week with a mini-book from my "President's Day" pack.

                                                               

Literacy Centers are themed out, as well!

Everything shown in this post {aside from books and art project} can be found below!!!

Happy Reading!

xo

Megan

*Note: this post contains affiliate links for the books shown above.  I selected these books because I own all of them and enjoy reading them to my first graders each year.  The thoughts in this post are accurate and and my own.

President's Day

Man, is February jam-packed or WHAT!?  So many holidays and a short month, too!  Today I have a few President's Day ideas that I do each year.  This is going to mostly be photos because I am getting ready to enjoy my weekend!

1.  Graphic Organizers-these get us thinking about both men and activating our schema.

2.  Brain Pop Jr.-a fantastic, paid site with short videos about all kinds of things.  They have both Washington and Lincoln on there and I show them to my class each year.

2.  Browsing books about President's Day, Lincoln, and Washington-The kids LOVE looking through thge "Biographies" bin in our classroom library and finding books about these men to read during quiet reading time!

4.  After our unit of study, we wrap up with some writing.  We also do Washington and Lincoln {not pictured} crafts.

5.  Comparing and Contrasting-Also as a review, we compare and contrast both Washington and Lincoln.

6.  Looking through pictures of prior presidents-the kids LOVE these cards.  I found them at the Dollar Spot at Target many years ago.

7.  Assembling and reading a book about Presidents Day-mini-books are great ways to get grade-appropriate information to your young readers!  This is in my "Hooray for President's Day pack" but you can also find it as a separate purchase HERE.  I will tell you the pack is a better value right now because it's on SALE THROUGH MONDAY!

8.  Making connections with President's Day centers-The week after we've learned about an important person, people, or event, I like to use thematic centers as a review.

Enjoy your 3-day weekend!
xo
Megan

President's Day Recap

We managed to get most of our President's Day learning in, despite the continued snow days!  Below are some pictures highlighting what we did!

We began with Washington and our "K & W" section of the K-W-L chart.  I was surprised that the kids didn't know much about Washington!

Then we started our learning about him.  We watched a Brain Pop Jr. and read many books throughout the week.  The kids always get real excited when one of our "W" questions are answered throughout our learning!

We summed up our Washington learning by completing the "L" part of our K-W-L and doing a little expository writing and of course a fun craft from Mrs. Cupcake.  Some of the crafts turned out so funny!   The writing page and K-W-L pieces are from my "Hooray for President's Day Pack, pictured below."

We had limited time, but moved on to Lincoln!  We started with a discussion and the kids seemed to know more about him.  We just so happened to be learning about main idea, so I quickly turned a read aloud into a main idea lesson.  Excuse my disgusting easel and my random pictures! Haha!

We continued to read more books, watched a Brain Pop, and finally ended with more Lincoln writing and a craft.  We reviewed both presidents with a Venn Diagram and also did our President's Day centers.

The kids were obsessed with the White House because one book I read to them had a lot of facts about it. I found this sweet digital tour of the house on You Tube.  They loved it!  Click the picture to check it out for yourself.

They also love these US presidents cards that I found in the Target Dollar Spot a few years ago!

President's Day was a great unit of study!  Somehow, we squeezed it all in!

xo
Megan