Things to file away for next President's Day

I think this post is a note to myself to help me remember what I want to do with my firsties next year. In my post last Sunday, I wrote about an idea Mrs. Claborn and I had and were excited to try out. I'm back today to let you all know how it worked out... it didn't. Since we'd been studying coins for a few weeks AND it was President's Day, our idea was to trstudent'sprofils profiles on a paper plate and have them create their own coins. It turns out I seriously underestimated the size of a first grader's head, and overestimated the size of a paper plate. So, as we teachers so often do, I had to scrap that plan and come up with a new one. I had already told my students that we were going to do it, and they were really excited. New plan: I traced their profiles on black construction paper and then gave them a full piece of white construction paper and had them create a dollar. They LOVED it and I got a kick out of the values they gave to their currencies - some of them had so many zeroes I honestly didn't know what the number was! They still really wanted to create their own coins though, so we did something a little different this week and had an art center. It was great seeing them creatively showing what they know about coins as they included all the important things we've learned about that are on pennies, nickels, dimes and quarters. I definitely will do this activity again! I also wanted to share two links for virtual field trips related to President's Day. I already knew my class loved nonfiction, but I was still surprised to find out how engaged and enthralled they were as they learned about Presidents Obama, Washington and Lincoln last week. I will probably share these with my class some time next week (when I can manage to find an extra few minutes) and bookmark them to share with my class next year when we do our President's Day unit. Check them out!

A Tour of the Capitol:

http://kids.clerk.house.gov/grade-school/lesson.html?intID=33

A Tour of the Lives of Presidents Lincoln and Washington

http://score.rims.k12.ca.us/score_lessons/special_events/presidentsdaymuseum/index.html

Also, I'd like to thank Mrs. Thiessen at The First Grade Sweet Life for this post where she shared a mobile making idea. While I read biographies about Washington and Lincoln to the kiddos, they jotted down facts they found interesting on index cards. We then shared these facts, posted them in our Venn Diagram pocket chart, and chose four facts for each President, which were incorporated into their "show what you know" projects. The students chose between making a foldable or a mobile for each and being able to choose really made it an enjoyable and meaningful experience.