My American Privilege Day 5 of 22 Days of Thankfulness

I am thankful that I have both fulfilled my American duty and taught my students a little about the process! I'm thankful I was able to vote early, as I'm headed off to Atlanta to the 2012 NAEYC Annual Conference, and I wanted to make sure my vote was cast. (You knew I'd have to work that in there, didn't you?) Our class talked a little about the democratic process and participated in a little vote of our own. 
What are you thankful for in your school or blogging life?

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Celebrating President's Day in Pre-K

As President's Day was last week, we learned a little about George Washington, Abe Lincoln and the early days of our country. Here are some of the activities that kept us busy.


Early in the week, I asked them what they thought a president does. We had read a little about George Washington, but hadn't gotten into Presidential duties yet. I love the answers they come up with!

What does a President do?

• Fights with soldiers

• Works

• Fights

• He's the leader of the USA

• Protects the country

• Speaks into a microphone to all the people

  Specifically about George Washington:

• George Washington rode a horse

• He wore a wig to fancy dances

• Wrote a letter

• Saved the bad guy's dog

We explored the presidents' faces on coins and talked a lot about coins. We did some crayon rubbings and made patterns with coin rubbings. It was fun to watch the presidents appear! We used an eye dropper to drop water onto coins and counted the amount of drops each coin could hold. It was especially fun to watch the bubble of water form over the top. One of our observations was that the water formed a mini magnifying glass of its own! We got out our magnifying glasses to get a better view! (Sorry the photos don't show the bubble very well!)

 

 We got out our microscope and examined a penny. We even found Lincoln sitting inside the Lincoln Memorial!! We cleaned some dirty pennies with ketchup. It was like magic! The coins came very clean with just a little rubbing! One of our favorite coin activities was sorting into piles. Some of the friends made patterns with coins, too!

After reading "Saving the Liberty Bell" by Megan McDonald,  we made these cute Liberty Bell replicas with disposable cups and tin foil.

We measured and compared our foot size to Abe Lincoln's foot. He had really big feet!

"Look Mrs. Ayn, I'm Abe Lincoln!!!"

We used pretzels to make log cabins like Lincoln lived in.

We made cute little George Washington and Abe Lincoln faces.

We had a lot of fun and learned a little about the history of our country!


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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!

 

It's pretty cool to put that last drop on and watch the bubble melt!


Some of our favorite reads for President's Day:

Feel free to leave a link in the comments of YOUR favorite President's Day activities!