Presidents' Day

Last week we actually had Presidents' Day off! For the past several years it has been used as a snow make-up day, but with the strange snowless winter we've had so far we got it off. But, we did have to go to school on the Friday that was to make a 4 day weekend due to fog in August! Oh well, a three day weekend was better than no holiday weekend.

We spent a lot of time talking about presidents last week. We use Guiding Readers (Deanna Jump & DeeDee Wills) and read Duck for President and Abe Lincoln's Hat. The kids really seemed to be very interested in learning about the presidents & had fun with the silliness of Duck.

The updated version of Guiding Readers includes craftivities and we made these cute Ducks. The look adorable hanging on our classroom clothesline.

Check out the close-ups of a couple Ducks. The little guy who made the one on the right might not have followed the instructions to the letter, but I do have to admit that that I think it's pretty funny!

After writing this post I created a Close Reading set to go with Duck for President. It includes everything you need to do 3+ readings of this fun book & is perfect for your Presidents' Day or Election Day studies. Click HERE to purchase. 

This Kinder was apparently  very impressed by Abe Lincoln. We had some coloring pages of Abraham Lincoln's face which he colored, cut out, and added a body made from scrap paper. He carried it around with him, took it home & brought it back to school all week. He told me that he even slept with it! Check out the second picture ~ he wrote facts about Abe & taped them on the back of the hat. Just like the real president, this paper president is carrying papers inside his tall black hat!

Coming up ~ next week is Dr. Seuss's birthday. We celebrate by reading lots of Seuss books and make some Cat in the Hat, Horton, and Things 1 and 2 themed crafts. I also like to put out some "inspired by Dr. S." activities in the literacy centers that week. I made a Funny Fish consonant blends literacy stations to use next week. It's fun for early March, but could be done any time of year!

Check it out HERE.