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!


Don't forget enter for a chance to win a $10 Gift Card to TeachersPayTeachers!!!!

Kindergarten America Unit

Like most of you, I am sitting at home thinking next week's lesson plans though my head. We are beginning a unit that I am very excited about. So many students do not realize how big our country is, what our symbols represent much less even know that we have symbols. Time to get the room looking less wintry!!

As I was doing little pinterest-ing (is that a word?!) and looking through some of my old stuff I have saved on my hard drive, I thought I would share what my little kinders will be doing next week! (whew that was a long sentence!)

First, I found this sweet video!! I really encourage you to watch it! I love the song choice in the background and the pictures of our country. A negative to this video for kinders is that there is a lot of written narration but I think I can easily narrate for them. Maybe just watch first and talk about different things we saw in the pictures and then narrate the facts.

This week we are going to use Google Maps to find SC on the map and then zoom out to see our whole country. We will pin point various destinations that they are familiar with. (Disney World, California, Hawaii)

This BrainPopJR video will be a perfect starting lesson to introduce the symbols and the vocabulary. If you do not have an account, have no fear this video is one of their FREE ONES!!!!

Throughout the week, we are going to use different types of media (texts, articles, videos etc) to explore and research American Symbols. Each student will be creating their own book with an illustration to match. (great for describing how illustration match text and vice versus) We are going to learn about The Flag, The Liberty Bell, The Statute of Liberty and The Bald Eagle.

During writer's workshop time my students will independently be working on items found in my America Unit. They will go on a scavenger hunt using my word wall picture cards. They will write sentences using the words they find. Then they also have some fun writing sheets that they have to find a word that starts with each respective letter.

Here are a few example of what is included in my America Write the Room Unit!

Click here to see examples of my students' work!!!!


What are your favorite activities and lessons to do during your America Unit??