How to Get Kindergarteners Interested in History

Today is George Washington's birthday, his 286th!  Readers of this blog know that I love history and also that I am something of a "party girl!"  I have written posts about how we celebrate the birthdays of Martin Luther King and Abraham Lincoln in my classroom.  Check out the links below, if you are interested!

A Kindergarten Birthday Party for Martin Luther King
A Kindergarten Birthday Party for Abraham Lincoln

In the past, I would honor George Washington with a special birthday party, as well.  I would dress up as Martha Washington, do my best imitation of a Southern accent, and teach my students about "my deah husband, George."  I would express astonishment over the modern attire of little girls, the existence of crayons and glue sticks, everyone's (lack of) manners, and--of course--all things technological!  I kept up the act ALL DAY LONG and the children and much of the staff really seemed to enjoy it.  It was exhilarating and I highly recommend you try it if you have any theatrical proclivities and are at least 10 years younger than I am...

I also used to share some stories about George Washington that are probably myths: stories about George and the cherry tree, George tossing a silver coin across the Potomac River, and George engaged in the "sport" of fox hunting.  Each story was followed by a related game which generations of my students loved.  For example, they would take turns tossing a quarter across a "river'" marked by two lines of tape on the floor.  However, at some point, I realized that I wanted my students to understand that George Washington was a real, true person and so I stopped perpetrating these myths.

The trouble nowadays is that there are hardly any kindergarten-friendly books about George Washington!  This is the main one that I shared this year:

That's my right-hand man, Reader Rabbit, holding up the book.
Reader Rabbit introduces ALL of the books I read aloud to my students.

I also read and sang Yankee Doodle illustrated by Patti Goodnow.  Few children are familiar with this tune and it's nice to expose them to some Americana.

The Scholastic website has back issues on George Washington and videos and games, too.

I found a few YouTube videos which my class really liked.  The first two are OLD Sesame Street videos about the crossing of the Delaware.  The third is a read-aloud of George Washington's Teeth.  I like that it ties-in with Dental Health month!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BGdubHSIyQo
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Df7kUedWwn8
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ArPE-Kvs0K0

Over the years, I have written a couple of poems about George Washington which we study during our daily shared reading times.  If you want to understand how I use a weekly poem to develop reading skills, please click right here ! And you are welcome to grab copies of the poems by clicking
here or here !

This year, we kicked off our study with a very cute art project which I adapted from several I found on Pinterest.  I precut all the pieces so this became a quick 10-15 minute "following directions" activity for the students (and an hour-long cutting project for me.) 

I then devoted three read-aloud sessions to George Washington, focusing on his childhood, his soldiering, and his presidency.  We would read, recall key details and record them on a class chart, and then individual students would copy and illustrate their favorite facts. I tacked up another page of each child's writing below his/her art project daily.  The bulletin board was very colorful and impressive!

I stapled all the fact sheets to the bottom of each child's G.W. portrait
when it was time to take home these delightful projects,

On the second day of our George Washington lessons, I felt very rewarded for my efforts.  Two little girls each brought in books from home about our first president.  They were very proud about sharing and I felt happy that I'd instilled an interest in history in their lives.  And one little boy drew his first EVER recognizable picture of a person; it was George Washington crossing the icy Delaware.  You just never know what will excite a student to learn!

I am so thrilled that this student has finally drawn a recognizable picture!

What I've Learned About LOVE In Kindergarten

Yesterday was Valentine's Day. When 21 voices chorused, "Happy Valentine's Day, Mrs. Hugo," I realized that would be the last time I'd be receiving so-ooo much love on Valentine's Day. And now I know what I'll miss most about teaching kindergarten.  It's the love.

It's the hugs in the mornings. It's the joyful way I'm greeted as if I'm a long- lost friend after lunch.  It's the "I love you's" after someone really enjoyed a game, an art project, or a story that I told.

It's the flowers, rainbows and Batman drawn and colored on all kinds of paper and proudly offered to me.  It's the first time a child remembers how to spell the most important word of them all--love.

It's first and second graders, too, stopping by to say "Hi!"  And older former students who deliver a big box of candy on Valentine's Day, send an email to thank me for teaching them the Backwards ABC Song, or never forget my birthday and always bring me my favorite dark chocolate.

It's college students studying elementary education because they loved being in my kindergarten who return to volunteer.  It's parent volunteers and grandparent volunteers who continue to help out even though their own children have moved on to the upper grades.

It's all this love and much more than I can put into words. It's what I'll miss most about kindergarten.  It's the love.

I've had my students make lovebug ladybug bags forever.

A Kindergarten Birthday Party for Abraham Lincoln!

Did you know that there have been more books written about Abraham Lincoln than any other person in world history?  This is the sort of fact that our kindergarteners LOVE to know: the BIGGEST, the TALLEST, the MOST always gets the attention of young children, doesn't it?

Until the 200th anniversary of Lincoln's birth in 2009, there were very few books that I considered "kindergarten-friendly."  But now there are many to choose from!  My favorite is this book by Jim Aylesworth, Our Abe Lincoln.

One of the reasons that I like Our Abe Lincoln  is that it is a song book. Although I don't have the best singing voice, I'm not shy about singing aloud with my kindergarteners! The tune is catchy and my kindergarteners love to join in my singing.  In fact, they walk around all day singing verses from the book:

Wise Abe Lincoln said, "No More!" to slavery,

"No More!" to slavery,

"No More!" to slavery,

Wise Abe Lincoln said, "No More!" to slavery,

Many brave days ago.

Thoughtful teachers wonder whether or not to explain slavery (and war and assassination) to young children, and then how to do so.  As with all difficult subjects, I think it is best to wait for children to ask questions and then answer them simply.  The illustrations in this book lend themselves to simple explanations.  For example, in the picture that accompanies the above verse, President Lincoln appears to be protecting a group of people from a bossy-looking, fancily dressed gentleman.  With 5 and 6 year olds, it may be enough to explain that Lincoln did not want to see anyone force other people to do things for them.

I read 3 pages a day for 4 days.  As we finish each page, we do some shared writing on a chart that looks like this:

And then students have a chance to copy and illustrate the sentences of their choosing into a booklet with pages that look like this:

If you are not comfortable explaining hard issues to young children, there are so many fun stories about Abraham Lincoln that can be shared in the days leading up to the birthday celebration.  These books are all very good read-alouds with kindergarteners:

As I did with our birthday party honoring Martin Luther King, I announce the upcoming event by posting a picture of the American hero on the classroom calendar.  Then, I share with the students the fact that Abraham Lincoln carried notes around inside his tall, stovepipe hat.  After that, I pass out the invitations in little construction paper hats that I've made for each of them.

I don't read this book to kindergarteners but I do hold it up while sharing the story.

Our shared reading the week before the party is always a poem about Abraham Lincoln. I have found a variety of poems over the years.  Here are two:

And you can grab the one I am currently using here.  

I also teach the children a sweet little song that I found years ago.

The Party

Before the party, the boys cut and glue stovepipe hat shapes and beards to sentence strips.  The girls draw flowers on simple construction paper bonnets with calico ribbon ties.  You can grab the pattern for the boys' hats right here.  The pattern for the beard is here, too.You can see how the girls' bonnets are made by looking at my earlier post on The First Thanksgiving so just click right here.

I allot about an hour for the party with a 15- minute presentation at the beginning, four 7-8 minute center activities, and 10 minutes to make and eat the birthday treat.

There are usually a few parents, grandparents, and younger siblings who attend the party.  This year, I was especially honored to host our principal and a colleague who is also a "lover of all things Lincoln!"  After greeting our guests, we recite our poem, sing our song, and some children may read aloud a fact from their booklets about Abraham Lincoln.

There are 4 game tables set up for the party and the children and our guests circulate around the tables, enjoying the activities.

Penny Drop: Kids take turns kneeling on a chair and try dropping 5 pennies in a tall container.
They color the number of successes on a 100 chart.  It's fun to see how many pennies are dropped in the jar
 in total.

Heads or Tails: Students gently toss a penny and graph the results.

Hats:  A post it note is stuck to the back of one of the hats.  Students take turns reading the numbers and turning over the hats until they find the one with the note saying "Win!'  They turn their backs while an adult or another student changes the location of the "Win!" note and play again and again.

Lincoln Logs:  What a great example of how we honor the memory of our 16th president!
And ,after introducing the toy at the party, it makes a lot of sense to add Lincoln Logs to an engineering center .

After the games, we regather to sing Happy Birthday to Abraham Lincoln.  I have birthday candles in red, white and blue.  The blue candles stand for the centuries (2), the red would stand for the decades but there are currently zero (0), and the white are for the single years (9.)  This year is the 209th anniversary of the birth of Abraham Lincoln!  

Back at their tables, the children use a plastic knife to put a small dab of chocolate frosting on a round chocolate cookie.  Then they stick a Little Debbie Swiss Roll (or a HoHo) on the frosting.  The effect is that of a stovepipe hat and the taste is, well, delicious!

I hope you try celebrating Abraham Lincoln's birthday.  It's educational, fun, and proudly American.

Teaching Kindergarteners Story Elements with Ezra Jack Keats

The Snowy Day by Ezra Jack Keats is a kindergarten classic. First published in 1962, this book about a small boy and his adventures in the snow has delighted generations of young children.  

For several years now, I have done an author study on Ezra Jack Keats. I've focused on the series of books about Peter, the small boy who is featured in The Snowy Day.  Peter appears in six of the books that follow The Snowy Day.

In each of these books, Peter faces problems, finds solutions, and matures a little bit more.
He encounters the same problems as many of our students.  For example, in Peter's Chair, he must deal with becoming an older brother.  In A Letter to Amy he anticipates the ridicule of his friends when he invites a girl to his birthday party.  In Goggles, he has to escape a gang of bullies in his neighborhood.  So, these books offer young children the opportunity to identify problems and solutions in books which have real applications to their own lives.

We read the books in what seems to be the timeline of Peter's life :

After we read each book, we list the characters and describe the settings in the book on a simple poster.  Then we gather in a circle to view my sketches of the major events in the book.  Students take turns finding the next event in sequence and we tape it to the chart.

If you'd like copies of my drawings of the events in each book, please click on the book's title:
The Snowy Day
Whistle for Willie
Goggles
A Letter for Amy
Peter's Chair
Pet Show

Finally, we discuss the problem which Peter faces in each book.  I help the students with the wording and write it on one half of a sheet of construction paper which I've cut like a jigsaw puzzle piece.  After we discuss and write the solution on the other half sheet of the construction paper, the students see how the problem and solution fit together.

Throughout our kindergarten days, problems do arise, right?  Someone needs a bandaid, someone's feelings are hurt, someone can't find a pencil.  Once we arrive at the solution, we signal that the problem is solved by folding our hands together.  It's a fun and calming way to reinforce the concept that (nearly) every problem has a solution.

There are other great reasons to read books by Ezra Jack Keats like the ways in which they celebrate diversity and creativity.  I really like the website of The Ezra Jack Keats Foundation and especially the lesson plans offered on this page.

I hope I've shared some new ideas for a kindergarten classic!