General ideas for U.S. Presidents

[Marie]

General ideas for U.S. Presidents.

[cbollin]

Has anyone else used a different method than what is recommended in the guide for the president cards? I don't want to glue them to paper. I thought about taping one side down so that we can peek underneath if needed.

I simply put card on the right hand side of the paper and tape along the left edge of the card to the paper. then we can flip back and forth. It fits quite nicely that way.

-crystal

[MJ in IL]

It kind of hurts, but I just decided to glue them. The kids think it is great!

[JohnsWife]

How about stapling them?

[MJP]

What about the corner stickers that are used for scrapbooking photos or postcards? That is what I am planning on using.

[Julie in MN]

American Presidents Life Portraits: George Washington through George W. Bush.
Set of 2 videos by C-SPAN (not sure if it's on DVD)

For older kids who are ready to study a little further before they write a page about a president, C-SPAN has lots of teacher resources, including a short video about each president. We watched the next segment whenever we started a new president.

You can also watch these for free at C-SPAN:
http://www.americanpresidents.org/presi ... hedule.asp

(1) Click on the president's name in the narrow column labeled "featured president" to read facts about the pres.

(2) Click on "watch" next to the pres. "bio" you want to watch.

Also, I didn't use it, but the study guides for each pres. on the video are here, plus extras:
http://www.americanpresidents.org/class ... erview.asp

[Julie in MN]

We have used some general books on all the presidents to help make the president notebook pages this year (7th grader). Since the president are NOT the only history topic of the day, we needed quick information, but wanted it to be meaningful, and fun was a bonus.

We often started with the short C-SPAN video (my last post).

Then, here are a couple of books in which we could quickly find interesting facts:
- U.S. Presidents, Feats & Foul-Ups, The Good, the Bad, and the Silly, by Nell Fuqua
- Don't Know Much About the Presidents, by Kenneth C. Davis

Here are some we used when we needed to understand something a big more. It also has tons of pictures:
- The History of the American Presidency, by John Bowman
- Scholastic Encyclopedia of the Presidents and Their Times, by David Rubel
- The Reader's Companion to the American Presidency, by Brinkley & Dyer, read by mom only. Includes a unique chart on statistics during each president's term -- population, federal finances, etc.

Here are a few more that we used on occasion.
- Lives of the Presidents, Fame, Shame, and What the Neighbors Thought, by Krull. In the same series that MFW recommends for musicians. We enjoyed some of the half-page descriptions, but never got to the ones that were several pages long. (Usually we needed info on the lesser known presidents who had shorter stories, anyways.) Ds also picked this up during book basket now & again.
- The Buck Stops Here, by Provensen. Has a large page for each pres, with several little drawings, and some info in the illustration or the caption about what was going on at the time or what the president did. Some are on a sort-of timeline or time sequence. Not a lot of info, but occasionally made a point more clear (such as Taylor's military career).
- First Pets, Presidential Best Friends, by Fuqua. Has a page or so on *most* of the presidents (I count 34 out of 43 -- the ones who had pets?), up through G.W.B. There is a list of their pets (some presidents had lots!) and one or two paragraphs about the pres/pets.
- Yo, Millard Fillmore! by Cleveland & Alvarez. Each pres has page of info in paragraph form (the book is small). Then there is a page for mnemonic devices to help memorize the presidents. First there is a memory word or two for the president's name ("a dam" for JQ Adams), which is also illustrated. Then there is also a story sequence/quiz for remembering all the memory words in order (JQ Adams' boat falls over the dam, but the water turns into playing cards, all "Jacks" for Jackson). We didn't use this book except for book basket, but it I hear the device has been helpful for some folks.

[cbollin]

My brother got the girls a set of Fandex cards on the Presidents/Vice Presidents. It was nice to add just a little bit more reading on them without too much to read. My oldest liked them.

for fun we enjoying clicking around on the Kids page of the official whitehouse dot gov website.
go there,
click on Kids (near top)
click history

It has some biographical information on each president, not just the current one. Lots of information for Kids and education on that website about the executive branch of the US.

[dhudson]

For kids that like to color - we got the Dover, "American Presidents Coloring Book" which has a page per President. We are going to use that as our notebooking page as we are making a Presidents timeline with the facts that the TM recommended for notebooking. I wanted a visible timeline for my kids to remember the Presidents better.

[Julie in MN]

Page 9 of these "federal reserve lesson plans" has kids identify the presidents on the bills. It's designed for older kids, but I thought it was fun: (page 9) http://www.stlouisfed.org/education_res ... cy&Fed.pdf

Page 12 also has some interesting info about the markings on the bills.
Page 21 identifies all of the details on the Lincoln $5 bill.
Page 22 is an interesting definition of "money."