Presidents’ Day

February 15, 2017
Storie Belden

Presidents’ Day is just around the corner and I thought I’d share some of my favorite resources to use in the classroom.

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Presidents’ Day Video

I like to start with a short video. This one gives a brief overview (less than two minutes) of Presidents’ Day. Once we have the basics of when and why we celebrate Presidents’ Day, we’re ready to dig deeper and focus on George Washington and Abraham Lincoln.

https://youtu.be/uIFaHVez4f8

You can find even more Presidents’ Day videos here and here.

Nonfiction Books

When learning about Washington and Lincoln, there are so many books to choose from. Here are my favorites that I use for both guided reading and shared reading. You probably have them in your classroom library, too!

Be sure to check out this post to find some great fictional books.

Presidents’ Day Activities and Resources

Since we are familiar with nonfiction text features at this point of the year, one of my favorite activities to start with is a scavenger hunt. Not only is this fun for students, but it helps them understand the way the text has been organized and gives them a preview of the information to come.

As we begin reading, students can record information learned about each president on their graphic organizers.

Graphic organizers are a great way to record information learned from books about Presidents' Day.

Reading biographies is also a great time to work on timelines. The National Geographic Kids texts have a timeline included. After studying these timelines, we use information from Abraham Lincoln (Magic Tree House Fact Tracker) to organize important events in Lincoln’s life.

After reading about Abraham Lincoln's life, students can use this timeline activity.

Even though nonfiction tends to be more straightforward than fiction, I find that many of my students struggle to comprehend as quickly as with fiction. I like to use comprehension checks to make sure we aren’t moving too quickly through the texts.