A Week of Abraham Lincoln

This week, I taught my first social studies unit to my kindergartners. In preparation for President's Day later this month, we decided to teach the kids about Abraham Lincoln. I had some reservations about the unit, since it meant bringing up the topics of slavery and assassination, but the kids took everything very seriously and learned quite a bit. However, every time I asked them to tell me something they knew about Abraham Lincoln, the first answer would be something like "he got shot". Oh well. I tried.

Day 1 
I love using story pockets to introduce historical figures. In honor of Abraham Lincoln, I decided to use a story hat instead. After I revealed each item, the students took guesses of who we were going to be studying. After both the penny and the $5 bill were out of the hat, one student figured out that Lincoln was the man of the week.

After we unpacked the story hat, we put together a KWL chart with our learning goals for the week and then watched the BrainPOP biography of Abraham Lincoln. I don't have a BrainPop paid account, I just keep signing up for free trials under different email addresses. They'll never know.



Day 2
We read Abraham Lincoln's Hat by Martha Brenner. It's a cute story about how Abraham Lincoln would keep his important papers in his hat so that he wouldn't lose them. Then we decided what we would put in our own hats. Some of the writing was pretty adorable.

 "I would keep robots in my hat"

"I would put books in my hat"

Day 3

Okay, here's where it gets overly ambitious. Today, I had about an hour and 15 minutes to use with the kids so I decided to do something a little more fun. We started off by reading A Picture Book of Abraham Lincoln by David A. Adler. Then, we talked about how Abraham Lincoln was as a child and a young man. Then the stupidity began. I decided that it would be fun to make our own log cabins. Not out of popsicle sticks or cardboard, but out of pretzels. Pretzels and chocolate frosting. 

For a class of 24, I had to buy 4 bags of pretzel sticks, 6 cans of chocolate frosting (for 6 tables), and a bag of caramels for the door and chimney. Altogether, it cost about $23. Then I had to gather and wash about 24 empty, small milk cartons from the cafeteria. What happened after that was a complete mess. I hate that I had to crop out their adorable, chocolate-covered faces, but I don't want to violate any policies. 

Anyway, this is how my log cabin looked.

And now for some of the kids'

They came out pretty cute, but the kids were a complete mess. I don't mind a mess (they're only five, after all) but my co-op didn't seem so thrilled. The tables washed down in less than 10 minutes and the kids were mostly clean by the time they got home. One child's mother did question the chocolate around her son's mouth and my co-op explained that "the student teacher did a fun craft with the class". To that, the parent responded "I guess that's how they learn". Still not quite sure what that means.

Day 4

It was the final day to learn about Lincoln, and my supervisor came in to observe me. We filled in the "know" section of our KWL chart and then learned a little bit about how we could use a timeline to show all of the important things Abraham Lincoln did in his life. Then we created our own class timeline. This sounded like a good idea when I thought about it, but then I realized that it meant creating an individual page for each member of my class (all 24 of them). I had to come up with 24 important dates and 24 coloring pictures to go along with them. This resulted in some pretty funny pictures of Lincoln.

All-in-all, the week went pretty well. Hit a few minor snags, but everything got cleaned up and I got good marks on my observation. Next week I only have a day to teach about George Washington, so let's see how far in over my head I can get.