Good Ole Abe (Yeehaw)

If I were president I would not let anybody share food.

We have spent the last eight days learning about America's two most well-know presidents; George Washington and "Good Ole Abe" - at least that's the name we gave him in our poem-turned country western song (written by yours truly). Of course, I'm talking about Abraham Lincoln and we studied about him first.

Well, Good ol' Abe was an honest man

He was the president of our land

He wore a tall hat and rode a horse

His face is on the penny of course

Good ol' Abe (Yee-haw)

Good ol' Abe (Yee-haw)

We pulled fact halves out of two different buckets. The students had to read them to figure out if they made sense or not. When they didn't, they had to reach back in and try again. 

 The students gathered facts about Lincoln all around the room and wrote them down when they visited the writing center, doing the Write the Room activity.  For our cumulative project, the students attached the facts they'd written to an Abe Lincoln craft we made as as whole group. They now line the halls of Garth. 

We read stories about Abe's kindness, humor, and forgetfulness. The students wrote in their journals about who they thought was kind (and why), who they thought was funny (and why), and what they forget.

 

I always forget to feed my rabbit.

 One day during indoor recess, it clicked with them."Hey! Mrs. Lukacsko! These are called Lincoln Logs! They look very somber here, but they were really were excited to figure out why those blocks they'd been playing with all year were called Lincoln Logs.

After four days, we moved on to George Washington. One of the ways we learned and memorized all the facts we did about both presidents, was by the group reading we did at the Smartboard every morning.  The students colored the same book that we read together when they went to the book-making center. These books go in their book buckets afterward and are among their choices when they take home an extra book for their reading assignments on Tuesdays and Thursdays. On the first day of the week, I read the book one page at a time, letting them echo it back. On the second day and third days, I choose a few student volunteers to read, and then the class echos back. On the fourth and fifth days, student volunteers read without an echo back. After five days of reading it, the facts are well-learned. But what's even better, is that their reading has improved: they've picked up new sight words, practiced decoding strategies, and improved their fluency. Now - they should be able to read that book every time they pull it out of their book bucket in the read-to-self center and when they bring it home as the reading assignment of their choice.

 I was a bit under-prepared with my journal plans this week. I wasn't sure what we'd write about on day one or day four - so you'll notice some don't have the prompt glued above their writing. After reading the first book about Washington, I thought it would be interesting to see what laws the students would make if they were president. Some went a very serious route and took what they'd recently learned from our readings into consideration. 

If I was president, I would want everybody from every state to be free.

If I was president, nobody would fight each other.

While others took the silly route

I would make us play video games all day.

If I was president I would say "No girls painting nails."

If I were president I would not let anybody share food.

 And there was one clear libertarian of the group. 

If I were president I would let anyone do anything. 

 We read a silly book called "George Washington's Cows." It was very much fictional except for the fact that Washington lived on a farm. That prompted this journal writing; Would you want to grow up on a farm? 

I would not want to grow up on a farm but I would like to visit a farm.

Ava, who has a farm, had a lot to say on that subject. 

The students wrote about bravery, too.

I am brave because I rode on the back of a golf cart. 

For the final journal writing of the week, the students wrote about what they'd learned. 

Abe Lincoln was on the penny. He had a horse and rode a horse. His horse's name was Old Bob.

Abe Lincoln was an honest man. Abe was nice and Washington was a solider in the war. 

Washington lost all his teeth and got new teeth.

Abe Lincoln was funny. He was tall. He liked to read. He was kind. Abe was honest.

Our focus in phonics for the past two weeks has been vowel teams. 

We have played this starfall game A LOT to work on them.

We had a lot of fun at out sight word stations this week. I can't get the video to embed, so just click this link and you can go on a tour of those daily stations; hop scotch. spiral writing, play dough, snap cubes, crayon-resist magic words, (and one other station that piqued no one's interest this week- can't win 'em all).

Here's a look at some of the centers and math workshops your child worked in this week. 

The magnet center left me this message one day

 There were three choices in the sight word center. This colorful word search seemed to be the most popular.

Washington is synonymous with cherry tree so we practiced our subtraction with some 

Hi Ho Cherry O

The students continued to work on their estimating by filling up a container with bugs for their partner. Their partner would estimate how many were in the container, then they counted them together on the counting pad

Combining shapes to make other shapes...

 In these last two weeks, we began a unit on money, specifically coins. My goal is that they learn the coin  names, though I am also teaching them the values. They played this coin bingo game to get familiar with the slight differences between the coins.  

 Then on Friday, we made these flip books to reinforce what we'd learned. 

 Ask your child to tell you some of the Abe and Washington facts they learned this week. Chances are they will surprise you with how much they remember. They just couldn't get enough of it! Have a great weekend!