Wednesday, February 15, 2012

Presidents' Day {Thinking Maps!}


Oh my word! Is time flying for anyone else? President’s Day is RIGHT around the corner. We will be enjoying President’s Day with a mid-winter break! Ya-hooo!

We’re working to CRAM in some Presidents wherever we can. In my case, I’m doing a little bit of those“cross curricular” writing opportunities. Plus, I appreciate the two-birds-one-stone of it all!

Our district’s “year at a glance” calls for us to dedicate February and some of November to non-fiction writing. We’re still early in the process, so there’s a lot of scaffolding in these activities – especially for my first grade friends.


We’ll be reading each of these books this week. I’m not sure if you can tell, but I swiped them from the biography section of our school’s library. Cost: FREE!



 A Picture Book of Abraham Lincoln & A Picture Book of George Washington
By: David A. Alder / Illustrated by: John & Alexandra Wallace


While we're reading them, we're keeping track of our learning on an anchor chart. (I lack the artistic skills of one babblying artist)
Regular anchor chart with questionable visual/spatial reasoning. 

We used our “research” to complete a tree map with what we learned.




At the end of the week my firsties will choose their favorite president and make up one of these babies with a published piece of writing – featuring their research. I wish I could tell you where this template came from – But, I adopted my classroom from a retiree and this was left in her files!




My second graders, however, did this project last year (which they reminded me of A LOT today). So… they’re going to use the Double Bubble to compare the presidents. These kiddos will end the week with a compare/contrast piece featuring both presidents. I’m sure they’ll love the more involved writing J!


Here are the Thinking Maps we're cranking out this week!


Download Includes:
* Cut & Paste George Washington Circle Map
* Cut & Paste Abraham Lincoln Circle Map
* Fill in the blank Circle Map/ George (For my second graders)
* Fill in the blank Circle Map/ Abe (For my second Graders)
* Blank Tree Map
* Double Bubble Circle Map 


Enjoy your Wednesday night!

15 comments:

Unknown said...

Thank you for following my blog! I love yours. I am a new follower!

Unknown said...

You girls are just AWESOME!
Jennifer
First Grade Blue Skies

suzyzoo said...

I just found this website. It is great!

Elisabeth said...

I'm going to try and cram in as much as I can in these next 2 days as well so THANK YOU for those awesome thinking maps to guide me along the way! : )

Steph said...

I'm a new follower and I just love everything about your blog! Thank you so much for sharing!

Patty Rutenbar said...

Thanks for these great thinking maps. We are supposed to be using them, but I get brain dead every once in a while! I appreciate you taking the time to create them and share them!
Patty

Second In Line

Mrs. Jones Teaches said...

Wow! Great thinking maps! Thanks.

Squirrel-Bottom Diaries

test said...

I'm all for FREE books! :)

Mary
Mrs. Lirette's Learning Detectives

Emily said...

My kids LOVE learning about presidents. There is just so much to do in such a limited time. Love your thinking maps. =)

Emily @ Second Grade Silliness

Dr. Cara Whitehead, NBCT said...

Your students will love these free online word games from VocabularySpellingCity using President's Day words. http://www.spellingcity.com/view-spelling-list.html?listId=8081883

The Colorful Apple said...

That's what my anchor charts look like too! And I am so jealous of Abby's!

Sara :)
Smiling In Second Grade

Lisa R. said...

I always look forward to your posts! Thank you for everything that you create & share!

Lisa
fsuteach81@yahoo.com

Lisa said...

Love these. Thanks for sharing. I'm going to pin them on my board.

Yea for library use! While I have hundreds and hundreds of books I bought in my classroom, I'm always taking bucketfuls out of the library. We just returned a tub full of dino books and took out all the David Shannon books. The kids' interests change so tehbooks must too!

Michelle Griffo said...

I love this project, tree maps are my favorite!!!

Michelle
Apples and ABC's

Lesa Moore said...

I am just now taking the Thinking map workshop. I love this idea...

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