American Symbols

American symbols, by far my most favorite thing ever to teach. We focus on one symbol per day starting with the American Flag. We read books about each symbol, do a comprehension worksheet, coloring page, and then some kind of project. So far we learned about the American Flag, the Bald Eagle, the Statue of Liberty, the red rose, and the Liberty Bell. They are having so much fun learning about these and I am having a blast teaching it! Here are some fun things we've done so far with my unit.

We watched some YouTube videos touring the inside and outside of the Statue of Liberty which made the kids so excited and amped up to take a class trip to New York. lol I had to burst their bubble that that trip was most likely not happening this year although I appreciated their enthusiasm. Then we dressed up as The Statue of Liberty! lol They loved this.

I told them we are going to draw the statue and they complained they wouldn't be able to. I was so impressed with their drawings. I love directed drawings. And then they added a sentence to go with it. I encouraged them to write an informative sentence, because we learned so many cool things about her.

We also did the copper experiment to see why the Statue of Liberty is green. They were fascinated! I had hoped they'd turn more green, but apparently we didn't add enough salt water to them. Our pennies did have some green on them though. They couldn't believe it.

I forgot to bring real roses which the kids hassled me about lol. So I promised I would bring some Monday. I just love taking pictures of my kids so I had each team pose together with my fake flower bouquet.

Next, was the Liberty Bell. They loved watching YouTube videos touring the bell. I even brought in a cracked bell and a regular bell so that they could hear the sound difference.

Next week, we will be learning about the President, The White House, Abraham Lincoln, George Washington, and Mount Rushmore! More pictures to come soon :)

Mount Rushmore was fun, because I have a few goodies to make it more engaging and memorable. We watched videos touring the mountain and then took pictures of ourselves in the mountain. Last, we got in groups of 4 and the challenge was to get yourself in the correct order of presidents just like Mount Rushmore.

After watching tours of the inside and outside of The White House...of course they all wanted to live there lol. So we made the White House and wrote about what we would do if we were the president of the United States!

 "I would fly the airplane".

As we learned each symbol we taped it up on the map so the kids could get a sense of where these things are located from us.