The Educators' Spin On It: Afterschool Express: President's Day

Sunday, February 19, 2012

Afterschool Express: President's Day

Welcome to our Afterschool Express! This week we spent some time learning about President's Day. Since both of us did different things with our children we figured we'd both share what we did.

Amanda's "Spin On" President's Day

President's Day Necklace
Every year, I make President's Day neclaces with my Kindergarten class and now with my kids. We would discuss the colors and symbols of the United States in addition to the Presidents. The neclace is made from 3 circles of varying sizes and a paper penny. A penny stamp, sticker, or color print of the coin would work as well. The kids hole punch and thread a yarn through. This neclace will help them to remember the symbols and the important things we have discussed that day!

Portrait of Abraham Lincoln

This year, my five year old also drew this portrait of Abraham Lincoln using white crayons on black paper. You could do this with several different presidents as you learn about them, making 5-6 pictures. When the pictures have been completed, you can staple them together to make a president's book!

Kim's "Spin On" President's Day

I always found it easy to learn about President's Day by learning about Money at the same time. Here are a few activities your child might enjoy and learn the Names of Presidents from and be able to identify money too.

Counting Pennies Book

Here's a fun way to work on Abraham Lincoln and Counting all at the same time. Have your child cut out the coins and numbers. Then have them glue them onto the pages of the book in numerical order. At the end you can have them glue the pictures of the President. We added President Obama too and George Washington.

Coin Rubbing

I love to to make activities that are hands on for my children. This is a simple but very hands on activity for your child to learn the coins and a bonus is that they learn the names of the President's and some American symbols. Grab a sheet of paper and some crayons and let them explore what happens when you rub the crayon on the paper over different coins. Then we talked about the different things we saw and labeled them with words.

Coin Patterning
Either using their Coin Rubbings or Printable Coins or Real Coins you can have your child make a pattern with coins. As they are creating their patterns you can talk about the name of the coin, the name of the presidents and the American Symbol on the back.

Here are a few more resources I plan to use with my daugther tomorrow when she's home from school and wanting to know the importance of celebrating President's Day.

Online Version of Arthur Meets the President By Marc Brown

If I Were President I Would Writing Prompt from Growing Kinders

Here's a Little Reader book to find out What Does a President Do? from Scholastic (free)

Here's my favorite site with lots of President's Day Ideas from Kinder-Pond

For more Ideas for President's Day Activities check out our Winter Board on Pinterest.

We'd love to see what activity your child liked the best from our blog or from our Pinterest Board. Send us an email at theeducatorsspinonit@gmail.com and we can feature it on our From our Readers Page! Hope you have fun doing these President's day Activities with your Afterschooler!