Presidents- Yay for Centers!

This is my second week teaching presidents.  We are learning a lot! I tried centers with my class yesterday & today, and I am so proud of the students!  They worked so well together and kept the noise level down- which is usually unheard of.

First, we read about the country's capital city and ours.  Then we read about different monuments in Washington D.C.; such as, the Jefferson Memorial, the Lincoln Memorial, and the Washington Monument.  After I had the students make their own memorial out of play dough.  The monuments were suppose to be for them if they were president.  They turned out very interesting to say the least and were very creative.

I had a computer station as well.  The students got on this website: http://www.whitehouse.gov/about/interactive-tour.  If you have never been here I suggest you check it out! It has an interactive tour of the White House.  Students could go to different areas of the White House and click to view pictures in different areas and rooms.  The pictures were very neat and had captions.  The students loved getting a peak in the house.  I even learned facts from the site.  Like, did you know that the White House has a bee keeper and they make their own honey to be used in the kitchen!?

We did a fun craft for George Washington.  He completed our hallway bulletin board display.  It is so cute to see how the students use their own creativity to make a uniformed craft unique.

Gallon Girl

In 2nd grade we are learning measurement.  The children are trying to memorize how many cups, pints, and quarts are in a gallon.  We have a gallon man poster hanging up in the room, however, I felt that the students still did not understand what a cup, pint, quart, and gallon really looked like.  Sure they've seen a gallon of milk, but I did not feel that all of the sizes sunk in.  So... for the past 4 weeks I've been collecting containers and here is the final project!!! All of my students loved it!  (:

Presidents - Abe's Hat

I started this lesson by reading, Abe Lincoln's Hat, by Martha Brenner.  If you're not familiar with the book, it discusses how Lincoln kept letters and important notes in his hat.  The book is a nonfiction picture book & the children loved it!  I had the students make their own Abe and write what they would keep inside his hat.  I saw this project idea on the blog: http://acupcakefortheteacher.blogspot.com! I made some modifications and the stories came out great.  The children had a lot of fun writing and sharing their Abe.  I love making crafts with them, especially when I can tie them into creative writing projects!

Presidents - A cherry tree

I am doing a unit on Presidents with my 2nd grade class.  They have little to no knowledge about who a president is, so we are learning- slowly but surely. :) I started out the unit by watching a short 10 minute video about Abraham Lincoln & George Washington.  They learned the fictional story about George Washington and the cherry tree.  We then made our own tree with our hands.  There are 44 hand prints (one for each president) and the students wrote the presidents' names next to each leaf.  We may not fully grasped who a president is, but we do know there have been 44!