Something "Last Minute" for Lincoln's Birthday?

Here's a fun, almost  last minute activity to do to celebrate Abraham Lincoln's birthday on February 12.  You just need to have some....

And, of course some dull pennies....

Take 4 small bowls, custard cups, or plastic cups.  Put one of the following solutions in each container:

1. A fourth cup of ketchup
2. A fourth cup of dishwashing liquid
3. A fourth cup of baking soda mixed with a little water to make a thick paste
4. A fourth cup of white vinegar with 1 teaspoon of salt

Drop a penny or two in each container.  Come back in 15 minutes.  Remove the pennies from one container at a time.  Rinse them.  Rub them dry with paper towels.

Which solution do you think works best?

And while on the subject of presidential learning, why aren't there any free black and white coloring pages of the White House?  I mean ones that we can download without messing up our computer files and copy without worry of copyright infringement?  It seems positively un-American!  Well, I followed the directed drawing steps on one website and created one of my own. And I'm HAPPY to share it with you!  

Click here  here to download and print a copy for your child/students to color!  Oh--it's a white house, you say? What's to color? Maybe they can color the sky above and the grounds below!

The White House will be one of the pages in My Little Book about Abraham Lincoln,
soon to be featured on Teachers Pay Teachers, I hope!

For more fun ideas to celebrate our 16th president, click on an earlier Good-bye Kindergarten blog post right here !

What's Good to Read on Valentine's Day?

I'm busy working on creations for my new Teachers Pay Teachers' store which I hope to open by 2020.  I'm thinking of calling it, "Here Hugo!"  and considering the above logo. What do you think?  

One of the products I want to share is a binder of two or three dozen of my original poems. Over the years, I wrote these poems on various topics of interest to kindergarteners: family, animals, the weather, and holidays, always popular topics with 5 and 6 year olds!  Most of my poems rhyme and are based on familiar high-frequency (or sight) words.  You can discover how I used them to help children learn to read by clicking on this link to an earlier post, Creating Song and Poetry Binders.

Valentine's Day is coming and I thought I'd offer one of my original poems here for you to download and print. Children can color the different hearts to correspond with the color word mentioned in each stanza.

Click on the word freebie to get a printable download.

This poem was inspired by a book that I enjoyed reading as a child and also read to many classes of kindergarten and primary grade children.  It's called The Blue Valentine and it's by Gwen Schultz.  It's still available on Amazon and, I imagine, in some public libraries. It's a sweet story about appreciating creativity which is a timeless ideal, right?

                                  A new girl in first grade celebrates Valentine's Day by creating a special,
                                                           one-of-a-kind valentine for her teacher.

Other favorite books of mine are these three, each of them written by a wonderful author:

My new favorite book for Valentine's Day is the one that I'm sending to my almost 6 year old and 3 1/2 year old grandsons: My Heart by Corinna Luyken.  

This book has a really important message, empowering all readers to listen to the voice within them, in happy times and troubling ones.  It's a book to read at other times of the year and in the various circumstances in which we all find ourselves.

" My heart is a window,

My heart is a slide,

My heart can be closed...

or opened up wide."

Happy Valentine's Day!