Mrs. Russell's Room

George, Abe, & Barack: A Complex Text President’s Day Unit for Firsties

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George, Abe, & Barack: A Complex Text President's Day Unit for Firsties

$8.00

This unit uses higher order questions for the following texts:

A Picture Book of George Washington by David Adler

A Picture Book of Abraham Lincoln by David Adler

Of Thee I Sing: A Letter to my Daughters by Barack Obama

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Description

Included in this pack are the following teaching resources:

Explicit lesson plans for each of the complex texts mentioned above.

Fishing for Facts with George: Whole group or Small group pocket chart activity with true and false facts about President Washington

George Really Measured Up: A Non-standard Unit Measurement Activity

Differentiated Graphic Organizers for prompts relating to George Washington.

Honest Abe:Whole Group or Small group pocket chart activity– Fact or Fiction statements that relate to Abraham Lincoln.

Presidential Fluency: Nine brand new fluency passages–three for each president that are lexiled and leveled.

I’ve included generic writing pages, a book review, and two different crafts. One for Abraham Lincoln and one for George Washington.

BEGINNING FIRST GRADE
Quick As A Cricket is one of the first units I use in first grade. It’s a fun way to look at vocabulary by studying antonyms and synonyms. Students read the text multiple times to work on discussing description and making mental images. It’s a great book! The lesson plans are super explicit to guide your study.
 
Fire! Fire! is a great unit to use with first graders in October. We used this one in the run up to having firefighters visit the classroom, or even after visiting a firehouse. We used Robert Munsch’s ‘The Fire Station’ and Gail Gibbons’ ‘Fire! Fire!’ to work on comprehension and sequencing. I tied in work on blends, and making tens in math too! We even did a science experiment on how to put out fires! This is a jam packed unit that is really versatile. We love using it yearly!
 
MID FIRST GRADE
George, Abe, and Barack is a must use in February in my first grade classroom! I love teaching social studies and tying this unit into additional fluency on the presidents! In this unit, the students learn about George Washington and Abe Lincoln through their biographies. They read ‘Of Thee I Sing’ which is Barack Obama’s book for his daughters that includes the stories of many different influential Americans. It is a great way to work on fact and opinion and vocabulary while working on social studies and discussing people who made a positive impact on our country.
 
Tomas and the Library Lady is a great little story about a boy who moves from Mexico and makes a meaningful connection to reading through his family and a relationshp with a librarian. I use this text when I am teaching biographies, but I’ve also used it during Hispanic American Heritage Month. Just depends on the year. The students work on story elements, text dependent questions and a class book! It’s a great little unit.
 
LATE FIRST GRADE/EARLY SECOND
In the spring, I use Kitten’s First Full Moon to analyze story structure and cause and effect. Students also work on reviewing roots and suffixes and discuss main ideas and details. It is a great tie in with any unit on earth space.
 
Zin, Zin, Zin A Violin is a wonderful rhyming story about orchestras and counting! The students learn all about different instruments why working on summarizing, main idea and context vocabulary. It’s a wonderful way to integrate music into your lessons! There is a fun violin craft that we made that tied in non-standard measurement! Fantastic integration ideas!
 
How People Learned to Fly is one of my favorite units to teach! Its is differentiated and full of resources for first and second graders! I love the science connections that we make and the additional fluency passages that are in it. The students focus on fables, main idea and vocabulary in this unit. We also learned about The Wright Brothers and flying. You don’t want to miss this one in the spring!

 

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