presidential fun recap {and a few valentine freebies}

I wanted to repost last year's post about our fun on President's Day.
I loved how things turned out and in case you did not see the post, here goes!
There's a NEW Valentine Freebie at the bottom!

Last Year

Monday when the kids came in, they had huge funny money bills on their desks. {Dollar Tree!!}I had actually bought them to use for the 100th Day, but time was not on my side.
Needless to say they were ecstatic

Our strategy/skill lesson for the day was an adaptation of Amanda Nickerson’s Character Traits pack.
After I gave them examples of each about myself-short, spunky, stubborn, shy, and pale…they decided which were inner traits and which were outer traits-and they added bossy and best teacher ever to the list…those go hand-in-hand!

Next, I read What Presidents are Made of…oh my! What a great on the whim purchase this was! The illustrations are amazing. I love that the do-dads used represent something about the person. Ah-Ma-zing!

Then we made a circle map of presidential character traits we thought were important to have

and the kids chose one {some did 2} traits they possessed and wrote why that was important. They turned out a-dorable. Here are some favs.

If you want to do the same-here are the signs and writing papers!
Just click below {they are 2 separate files}

We also made Amy Lemons’ little Lincoln craftivity today! Oh, precious! We read Abe Lincoln’s Hat then the kids wrote what they would keep in their hat.

Here they are! You gotta read the one below. A child of my own heart.

SO there you go! I plan on the same for this year-at least for the most part. We do have Monday off, our Itty Bitty City economics day is this friday, not to mention Valentine's Day!
I have a new freebie to share from my blogless teammie! She's on TpT though! We She recently made vocabulary jars for word work and made this one as a freebie for you! Be a doll and leave these awesome girlies some feedback!