Homeschool Recap, Week 23

This week we did a Presidents Unit Study, that also included info on American symbols, songs and words.

Monday:

- We talked about why we celebrate President's Day, the duties of a President and read Madam President.

- Preston colored the Presidential Seal, then wrote "Barrack Obama is the President."  Unfortunately, he was not in the best of moods this morning and the writing assignment turned into a full-on battle.

Maybe it's because I spelled "Barack" wrong?  Oops!

 - After a break, we continued on and did a President's Day Spin & Tally

- We talked about the White House and read Pets At The White House

- Preston looked through the Big Book of U.S. Presidents

Lots of interesting facts in this one!

The thing Preston liked most about this book, was looking at all the different "First Ladies."  Haha!

 Tuesday:

-Today went much better than yesterday, whew!  We started off reading an interesting book about George Washington's Teeth, called... well, George Washington's Teeth.  Poor guy had all kinds of dental problems!  But, Preston could really relate to the story since last week's crazy teeth happenings (and he's going back on Wednesday for more dental work too!).

- For math we did the Spin & Tally again from yesterday, and a Probability Coin flip from the same site.  She has such adorable worksheets and activities!

- We discussed the White House a little more and Preston wrote "The President lives at the White House."

- Then, thankfully I remembered a video (VHS) we bought at a library sale just a few months ago about George Washington, so we watched that.  It was about his time as a General.  We discussed how his actions and attitude made him a great man.  

- And Preston colored a print out of a cherry tree and wrote "I can not tell a lie," after we talked about the story of George cutting down the tree and admitting to it.  Let's hope some of that sticks!

- Finally, we read a silly story called George Washington's Cows.

Wednesday:

-  Preston spent the nite with his Grandma Jill & Grandpa Steve on Tuesday nite, then we had a dentist appointment Wednesday morning... so school was called off for the day.  The dental visit didn't go as smoothly as I'd hoped, so I figured he earned the day off.

Thursday:

- Today we talked about Abraham Lincoln, starting off with a pretty sad book called Abraham Lincoln Comes Home, about the train that brought the late president's body from D.C. home to Springfield, IL.

- We talked about the bald eagle.  We read an article in his God's World News Magazine, and he colored a picture and wrote "The bald eagle stands for freedom."

Got through it without fighting this time!

- We played a 'First to a Dollar' game.  The game board had 100 pennies, then the players draw out of a bucket and can get a penny, nickel, dime or quarter and move that many spaces (1, 5, 10 or 25) and the first to $1 wins!  This REALLY helped Preston get the hang of which coin is worth what - we've been struggling with that, but he seemed to get it down during this game!

Yay math games!

- We also did a worksheet where he had to add pennies and nickels and tell me how many cents he had.  He did really well with the addition!
- There was a dot-to-dot that revealed a hat like Lincoln wore, and he also colored in a picture of Honest Abe.

He gave Abe pink pants & purple jacket, ha!

- We read Abraham Lincoln Loved Animals.

Friday:

- We reviewed the devotions we read this week, and Preston illustrated one of the themes in his notebook.  He drew a picture of himself with God putting a force-field around him for protection.  "God gives protection."

- We played the 'First to a Dollar' game again... he won again, too.  And we finished the other side of the worksheet adding Pennies & Nickels, and then adding Dimes.

- Preston colored the Flag, while I read Stars & Stripes and we talked about the Pledge of Allegiance.  Then he wrote on his paper "I pledge allegiance to the flag."

- Later we looked at the book Oh, Say Can You See and listed to the CD it came with, which includes the Star-Spangled Banner, Yankee Doodle, My Country 'Tis Of Thee and more.  We sang and danced around!

Trying to read along to the song.

- Preston also read John, Paul, George and Ben on his own (most of it anyway).
- Later in the day, Preston was reciting the Pledge of Allegiance, pretty much all the way through.  So... we'll see if it sticks!  He was doing his best to turn it into a song so he'd remember... maybe that'll work!

Library books we checked out for this unit study: