IT'S ABOUT TIME, TEACHERS, for PRESIDENTS!

 

Inauguration Day is Jan. 20th and Presidents' Day is Feb. 17th. So, it's about time for some presidential resources.

How about some trivia about our leaders? These 20 task cards will reveal interesting and intriguing facts about our presidents. Use them for a research project or enrichment. Available digitally and in print. Click here to jump to the product page.

Extend the learning to math and literacy with VOCABULARY FRACTIONS TASK CARDS. Your learners will reveal the names of presidents by combining fractional parts of words. They must deduce the correct word represented by the picture and use correct spelling. Solving equivalent fractions provides even more challenge. These task cards are presented in print and digitally on TPT Easel.

PRESIDENTS VOCABULARY FRACTIONS are so fun that I made 2 sets! Click here for the 2nd edition.

PRESIDENTS SQUARE PUZZLERS are fun and challenging brain teasers. The puzzles must be reconstructed so that the images match on every interior side. This builds perseverance and stamina, but disguises it all as fun.

Some poetry for presidents allows you to teach about the presidents, poetry, and so many other topics. Check out the POETRY POSSIBILITIES provided to find skill lessons and activities.

You may also like these patriotic products:

IT'S ABOUT TIME, TEACHERS, for BLACK HISTORY MONTHH

 

Now that Groundhog Day, the 100th Day, and Valentine's Day have come and gone, you can give more time to BLACK HISTORY MONTH. A unique way to study this topic is with and through poetry. (I love combining different disciplines for more efficient teaching!) POETRY POSSIBILITIES for BLACK HISTORY MONTH provides 12 original, copy-ready poems. Each poem has a teaching point about poetic elements and forms. Also supplied are custom made skill lessons, activities, and poetry writing prompts; the poetry possibilities.

Another distinctive product for BLACK HISTORY MONTH is BLACK HISTORY SQUARE PUZZLERS. These fun brain teasers exercise critical thinking and problem solving, build perseverance and stamina, and stimulate the brain while disguising it as fun. Similar to Scrambled Squares, these differentiated puzzles must be reconstructed so that the images match on every interior side.

It's About Time for Presidents Day!

I reached into the archives to pull out this craftivity.  It's a fun way to make a Presidents' Day display.  

For every student you will need 1 sheet each of red, white and blue construction paper.  I used 8" x 8" square sheets, but you can avoid a lot of cutting by using 9" x 12". You will also need cardboard patterns of Washington & Lincoln.  I found silhouettes online, printed them, and then traced them on cardboard.  Cut them out and your resources are ready.

Since paper weaving has been around forever, I'm assuming you know how to create the woven background.  After each student has chosen which 2 colors to use for the weaving part, ask them to exchange 1 of those sheets for about 6 - 8 pre-cut strips of the same color.  I supply the 1" strips.

When the weaving is completed, each child should borrow the silhouette pattern of their choice to trace on their remaining sheet of paper. 

The beauty of this project is that by encouraging your students to choose 2 colors of their choice for the background, saving the 3rd for the silhouette, you will give your classroom a burst of color without having all 20+ projects look the same. 

Following are some resources for Presidents' Day that I think you will love:

These products are not specifically for Presidents' Day, but rather for any patriotic holiday.

This one is FREE!

Presidents' Day + Freebie February

One of my favorite activities leading up to Presidents' Day is a probability center.  My students work in pairs flipping a penny 100 times and recording the results:  heads or tails.  A great bonus to this center is that it is usually close to our 100th day, so groups of 100 are fresh in our minds.

Each pair receives a set of 10 ten frames. Prior to starting, they predict how many times they will get heads and how many times they will get tails.  They write their predictions on the back of their recording sheet.  

My students take turns being the flipper and the recorder, switching jobs after filling each ten frame.  They record an H each time they get heads; T each time they get tails.  

At the end, they compute how many of each they got.  The final step is to compare their prediction to their reality. My kiddos love this activity.  I'll bet your's will, too.

It's day 10 of Freebie February! 

Just for today, you can get Patriotic Squares Critical Thinking. This activity is also known as Latin Squares. 

Enjoy!

You might enjoy these patriotic products, too:

February: Do What You Love

One of the things I love to do with my students is immerse them in poetry because it offers so many teaching possibilities. Naturally you can focus on poetic structures and poetic devices. But have you ever used poetry to teach reading skills? Because poetry is usually short and the message concise, it's a perfect venue for studying vowel sounds, contractions, punctuation, parts of speech, syllables, rimes, inflections, .... The  possibilities are nearly endless. It's always good practice to relate these skills to what is being read. Practicing skills in isolation may transfer to reading skill building; then again it may not.  

Does it sound daunting to combine poetry with ELA skills?  It doesn't have to be. As the ELA coach for my elementary building, I determined that poetry was generally intimidating to my teachers, or at least viewed as a luxury that may not receive much attention. Resolving to change that, I began giving my teachers units of poetry with "possibilities" for using it in the classroom.  Since I work with K-5 teachers and students, these Poetry Possibilities units have applications for all elementary levels.

Poems have reading skills already built into them.  All you have to do is look at it with a "reading skills eye." Thus, if the poem is replete with a particular consonant blend, use it in a guided reading lesson about that blend.  If the poem has a sprinkling of contractions, devise a review lesson about contractions using the poem.  As an example, look at the following poem, noting that it has several compound words in it.

Due to the structure of a poem, it is easier for young children to locate the compound words. If you reproduced this poem on sentence strips for use in a pocket chart, that would facilitate identifying the compound words as a group.  With a little magic and masking tape, you could make the compound words come apart. Alternately, you might focus on the punctuation and how it helps the reader to read with expression and fluency. Or, you might choose to conduct a mini-lesson on contractions. For example, the Possibilities for the above poem include:

If you are interested in more seasonal poems with teaching points and skill suggestions, visit my TpT store here. For February poems and possibilities, I have 3 (!) products: Black History Month Poetry Possibilities, February Poetry Possibilities, and  Poetry Possibilities for Winter.  Another unit, 100th Day of School Poetry Possibilities, is useful this time of year, as well. (Better yet, it's FREE!!) 

As a reading specialist, I highly recommend using poems for guided reading lessons and review lessons.  It has always been a favorite activity of my remedial students if for no other reason than they had less text to conquer.  Just a word of caution: reading poetry is principally about creating enthusiasm for reading.  Take care not to defeat that goal by always turning poetry reading into a skill drill.

As proof of just how much I love teaching with poetry, I present my Poetry Possibilities units: