Learning about George Washington!

Like many of you out there, I am adjusting and modifying plans. This past week we were supposed to have some fun with Valentine's Day  (including a party!) and begin our President's section of our America Unit. However, I have not been at school this entire week! I was out Monday due to the Destination Common Core Training with Kid Adsit (Read about my AWESOME day here!) and then the rest were snow days!

The week before the Epic Snow Storm of 2014 hit, we began our American Unit. You can read all about it here! We learned about our country's symbols. Here are a few pictures of their completed work!

Each child made their own flag by measuring and cutting strips of red paper and drawing their 50 stars! I didn't realize until after I took the picture that one of his red stripes fell on the floor oops! They then wrote facts that they learned about the flag!

                                 

Just some fun Americana décor in the classroom!

This is our bulletin board! Their flags and writing are the main focus! They made the Bald Eagles with their hands and feet! So cute. I jazzed up the board with some fun 4th of July Decoration!

                       



For the Statue of Liberty, I had a premade cut out for them and they added their writing from their research!

Moving on to learning about Washington!

     We are going to spend the week learning about George Washington! We will begin by look at this picture:

Some questions I will ask my students:

1. Do you know who this is?
2. Do you think he is still alive today? Why or Why not?
3. What do you notice is different about how he looks than how we look today?

We will also be using our Scholastic Magazine that I am beyond grateful to have received these as a DonorsChoose Grant! This edition describes about Washington's life prior to becoming the President. The kids will love it!

 

Anchor Chart- TL chart (What I think I know and what I learned)

Everything that we think we know will be in blue on sticky notes and everything we have learned along the way will be in red. After researching, if  we find out something that is on a Think I know  sticky is found to be true we will place the sticky on the anchor chart. If it is found to be  not true we will create a misconceptions charts.

 

Together we will read through the magazine. The magazine is broken up into sections with matching pictures and text. I am going to cover up each section as I introduce it.  I will read a section while pointing to the illustration that describes the text. (Teaching the standard, describing the relationships between texts!) For the next section, I will reveal the picture only. I will explain that I know pictures describe the text. I will show them what I mean by modeling it with the picture then the text. The last 2 sections I will ask them to practice with a partner and then by themselves.

 

After reading the magazine, we will play the sequencing game provided on the website. The students will have to place the pictures in order of how they occurred in Washington's life. We will also watch the video biography provided on this site. Throughout this whole process we will be stopping and adding to our chart!(This will take several days!!)

 

Some other videos that we will be using:

 

BrainPopJr Getting to Learn About George Washington

 

 

Great video that we will use during our George and Abe study!


A fun rap about Washington!!


We will be busy researching, charting, and exploring about George Washington this week. We will make a George Washington craftivity to help us anchor our learning! Picture and updates will be added next week!

Visit my America Pinterest Board for more ideas!


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