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President’s Day Teaching Ideas Your Kids Will Love

President's Day is an important time to celebrate all presidents, but especially Washington and Lincoln. This post rounds up books, resources, and ideas to help your planning.
Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent, a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.

President’s Day is almost here. Just think how Abraham Lincoln’s words and leadership impacted our country and the path that it would take. Knowing our history and understanding the contributions each of our leaders has made starting with Washington is so important.. In this post, we’ll celebrate President’s Day with a great collection of teaching activities.

President's Day Teaching Ideas Your Kids Will Love pin 1

BEST BOOK OPTIONS FOR PRESIDENT’S DAY

Abe Lincoln Loves Animals and George Washington’s Teeth

To begin, I want to share two books that I feel give a pretty decent synopsis of Washington and Lincoln’s presidencies. I looked at quite a few that honed in on a specific period of their lives, but these told the full story in a way that I think young readers can understand. George Washington’s Teeth tells about the various stages in his life as he loses his teeth, and Abe Lincoln Loved Animals explains Lincoln’s life as well as his love of his pets.

Did you know that a turkey is pardoned each year because Lincoln just couldn’t shoot a turkey for Thanksgiving. He was also broken hearted about leaving his dog, Fido, in Illinois when the family traveled to the the White House.

Abe Lincoln Crosses the Creak

I also loved the book, Abe Lincoln Crosses a Creek. It tells more about his life as a boy, and I think many kids would enjoy hearing some of the silly stories.

Abe Lincoln’s Hat

Finally, Abe Lincoln’s Hat is a nice one to show that even this great leaders had trouble with organization. I think it’s great for showing that you don’t have to be perfect to have wonderful ideas.

John, Paul, Georgia, and Ben

To honor George Washington, two of my favorites are John, Paul, George, & Ben and George vs George. Both give a great explanation of the history.

If you’re working with biographies, I also recommend the picture books by David Adler (A Picture Book of  Abraham Lincoln and A Picture Book of George Washington). You can easily find one for each of the presidents for class research work.

What’s included in my president’s day bundle?

President's Day is an important time to celebrate all presidents, but especially Washington and Lincoln. This post rounds up books, resources, and ideas to help your planning.

In my store, I have recently added this resource for Presidents’ Day. It included guided reading materials for George Washington’s Teeth and Abraham Lincoln Loved Animals. There are youtube read alouds for both of these books as well as a few of the others I shared.

In addition to the guided reading materials, teachers can also use the lapbook project for further Presidents’ Day studies and research. Students use other biographies, the encyclopedia, or nonfiction from your library to tell about the lives of Lincoln and Washington and how they compare.

President's Day is an important time to celebrate all presidents, but especially Washington and Lincoln. This post rounds up books, resources, and ideas to help your planning.
President's Day is an important time to celebrate all presidents, but especially Washington and Lincoln. This post rounds up books, resources, and ideas to help your planning.

Finally, the unit concludes with a lapbook project about George Washington and Abe Lincoln. Students create the lapbook pulling together all of the ideas they learned from the two mentor texts. It’s a great culminating activity for President’s Day for grades 2-4.

More Activity Ideas for President’s Day

President's Day is an important time to celebrate all presidents, but especially Washington and Lincoln. This post rounds up books, resources, and ideas to help your planning.

President’s Day gives us the opportunity to highlight the life events, character, and history of these great men. The lapbook that I created to go with the mentor text lessons can work well as a post reading culminating activity. It includes foldables for life events, vocabulary, quotes, and compare and contrast leaders.

There are many activity options for Presidents’ Day on Pinterest as well as on Teachers Pay Teachers. I started my board years ago, and occasionally pin more to it. I just love some of the great art options that you can tie in with any writing project.

Printables from Sweet Integrations

The first is from my friend, Sandy over at Sweet Integration. She just created this adorable resource for students to explore being president for the day. You must hop over and grab this great little freebie from her store.

Presidential Peek Over by Classroom Compulsion

In the second photo is from Classroom Compulsion. I think this idea is so adorable, and I think honestly it could be modified to include other presidents as well. With a change in hair color or clothing shapes.

George and Abe Writing

The third choice was not linked unfortunately, but I think the idea could be recreated without much difficulty. You could have your students record facts they’ve learned, pretend to be either George or Abe and describe their day, or write about their achievements as president.

President's Day is an important time to celebrate all presidents, but especially Washington and Lincoln. This post rounds up books, resources, and ideas to help your planning.
President's Day is an important time to celebrate all presidents, but especially Washington and Lincoln. This post rounds up books, resources, and ideas to help your planning.
President's Day is an important time to celebrate all presidents, but especially Washington and Lincoln. This post rounds up books, resources, and ideas to help your planning.

TECHNOLOGY IDEAS AND RESOURCES

For tech resources, I suggest looking on youtube for the books I mentioned earlier. I know we all like to mix things up, and sometimes, a video read aloud may work better for showing the pictures, right?

The resource I created featured Abe Lincoln Loves Animals, but I’ve used all of these books at various times. They all seem to share tidbits of information that you might not know otherwise. Kids are fascinated by the trivia, so I’d try to grab these to share.

What do you have planned for Presidents’ Day? Please share your ideas below in the comments. I hope you find a few ideas you can use here. Be sure to pin the image below so you can come back to this post later.  I hope your students enjoy the activities.

Other Links You Might Like:

Frog and Toad Teaching Ideas for the Primary Classroom

Teaching Ideas with a Dog Theme

How to Use The Butterfly House for Teaching Life Cycles and More

President's Day is an important time to celebrate all presidents, but especially Washington and Lincoln. This post rounds up books, resources, and ideas to help your planning.
Carla with Comprehension Connection
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Hello and Welcome to the Comprehension Connection Blog!

I’m Carla, the author of Comprehension Connection. I’m a recently retired Literacy Coach and TPT author. I’m a Wife to a great guy, Mom to two grown children and two fur babies. I’m a Virginia Blogger, a Travel Lover, a Coffee Drinker, and a Gal who loves All Things Techie.

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