George Washington and Abraham Lincoln

To begin our unit on two famous presidents, George Washington and Abraham Lincoln, I first wanted children to think about who a president is and what their job is as president of the United States of America.  

The children had some thoughtful responses to these questions that started off our Presidents unit.

What is the job of the president?

"They keep our country safe." - Oliver
"They keep our country clean." - Ryan
"They say true words." - Aiden
"They make sure there are no more wars." - Vivi
"They make sure people are nice to other people." - Kip
"They make sure people do not fight with each other." - Lilla
"They make sure no one is hurt or mean." - Jordyn 

By the end of the unit, children were able to answer this essential question:

What characteristics make a strong leader?

Children enjoyed listening to biographies of when Washington and Lincoln were young and about their jobs and adventures before they each were president.  They were surprised that they could make text-to-self connections with these famous leaders such as loving to read and learn and having moved as a child.  I was impressed that as I read the books about Lincoln, the children were independently making wonderful text-to-text connections with what they learned about Washington.

We practiced finding the main idea and details of a nonfiction text as evidenced below in our Washington thinking map.

Chatterpix made our Washington directed drawings come to life so we could share our new knowledge with you!

After we learned about each president, we compared them in a Venn Diagram.  Each student had a chance to pick a fact and determine where in the Venn Diagram it should be placed.

Lastly, we used information from this Venn Diagram, along with the many other intriguing facts we learned, to write opinion pieces about which leader was our favorite president.

Did your child teach you anything interesting about one of these presidents?

CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RI.K.1
With prompting and support, ask and answer questions about key details in a text.
CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RI.K.2
With prompting and support, identify the main topic and retell key details of a text.
CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RI.K.3
With prompting and support, describe the connection between two individuals, events, ideas, or pieces of information in a text.
CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RI.K.9
With prompting and support, identify basic similarities in and differences between two texts on the same topic (e.g., in illustrations, descriptions, or procedures).