President's Day, George Washington

Happy President's Day, ya'll!

In Room 210 in the yellow hallway, it's Happy President's WEEK!  Today was our first day with our Common Core, Unit 5: American Contributors Who Have Bright Ideas!

So, this week, in honor of President's week Day, our American Contributors that we are learning about are George Washington and Abraham Lincoln.  This week's activities all come from this Presidents Comparison Pack.  It is a mini-unit, that is included in the full American Contributors unit.

Today was all about Georgie!

He was our first president, so it's only natural that we start with him!  We started by reading a non-fiction book on George Washington.  I love this set of Rookie Biographies!  They are the perfect level for first graders to understand (and some can even read them independently by now!)
http://www.amazon.com/George-Washington-Rookie-Biographies-Mara/dp/0516273353/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1392686877&sr=8-2&keywords=george+washington+rookie+biography

We charted as we read about him.  As we read more texts this week, we will continue to add anymore little details to this chart (mainly, we are missing the fact that he is on the quarter and dollar bill!)

We started reading our Washington poem from this year long, first grade poetry pack.  We will continue to read our Washington poem this week during our shared reading time and students will add it to their poetry folders on Friday.

Then, students got our unit long, "Who Had a Bright Idea?" booklet.  We filled out our Washington page with his main contribution, "He helped our country win its freedom."  We will continue to add the contributions of other important people throughout our unit.  This booklet is also great to reread as a class during a shared reading time.

During each Common Core Unit, I change out the signs above my group tables to go along with our unit.  This unit, each table group is named for one of our contributors.  I made light bulbs out of large yellow construction paper and posted a picture of each of the 6 "focus" contributors on one side.  The other side stays blank until we add their contribution.  As we wrote George Washington's bright idea in our booklet, I added his contribution to his light bulb.  My George Washington table was *pumped* that I was writing on their table group's light bulb! It was adorable!!

Later this week, we will be learning about Abraham Lincoln, comparing the two presidents, writing an opinion piece about our favorite president, graphing our favorite president, and making a Lincoln and Washington craft!  Stay tuned...President's Day isn't just a day in our classroom.  We will be celebrating President's WEEK all week long!

Read more President's Day posts >>>HERE<<<

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