little illuminations: President's Day

Our President's Day activities are usually spread out before and after our winter break. It makes it tough to continue a unit with a break in between, but with holidays, field trips, teacher trainings and other distractions, it was the only way to cover all the things we wanted to do.

I get tickled at the comments from the kids around Presidents Day (and election time). You can often hear the parents' political views through the children's comments. The last two years have been interesting, with many Obama comments. My favorite this year was not about Obama though. I have two large posters with Washington and Lincoln that I hang this time of year. One of my friends commented that the pictures were nice, but "we really need one of Ronald Reagan because Daddy says he was the best president!"

We made log cabins out of craft sticks glued on paper. The cabins were interesting this year because I got called out of the room right as I began to give instructions, so basically the kids used the materials to make their own versions of what a log cabin would be like.

We sang lots of songs about the presidents, including this one I wrote some years ago called Abe Lincoln Was His Name-O!

We learned a bit about money and the Presidents on the coins. Our favorite coin activity is placing drops of water on the coins. With just enough drops, the water forms a bubble over the top. The water also magnifies the writing on the coins, so that is pretty cool for the kids to observe, too. The kids can't get enough of this! After demonstrating in large group, I initially set up a station for 2 at a time, then added 2 more, but more and more continued to crowd in until the table was full!