Kids Activities for Presidents’ Day

Presidents’ Day is a strange holiday. Doesn’t it seem like every president should get their own special day, just for having gotten to be president?

Presidents’ Day corresponds basically to Washington’s birthday (though Lincoln’s birthday is in February, too), and is a day we commemorate, remember and learn about our presidents.

There are lots of different learning activities for Presidents’ Day. You can find books about at least some of the presidents for any grade level, or for little kids read books like Duck for President to talk about the fact that we have presidents who we vote for.

Older kids can research and learn about specific presidents, or try out some of these fun activities collected from around the web.

Free Presidents’ Day printable activity pack — Amy Lemons/Teachers Pay Teachers — craft ideas, tables and letter/word activities

Presidents’ Day learning center binder — Cortney Johnson/Teachers Pay Teachers — free printable activities including a coin toss game, drawing monuments and president flash cards (not updated for this year, but still really great)

Presidents’ Day activities — Education World — has a good timeline of the evolution of the holiday, as well as activity suggestions for all grades

Montessori-inspired Presidents’ Day activities — Living Montessori Now — spell Washington, count the numbers of the presidents, timelines and more all made with free printables

Presidents’ Day Homeschool — Simple Little Home — a variety of activities for little kids

Make your own coin design — MPM Ideas

Polishing coins — Teach Mama

If I were president writing printable — Ginger Snap Treats for Teachers — there are lots of these out there if you prefer one with more space, without lines, etc.

Log cabin craft — Toddling in the Fast Lane — made with cardboard rolls

Lincoln’s hat craft — Deceptively Educational

Presidents’ Day crafts — DLTK Kids — some general presidental stuff and specific crafts for Washington, Jefferson, Lincoln, Teddy Roosevelt and Trump

Presidents’ Day word search — Newspapers in Education

Presidents’ Day memory game — Primary Inspiration

Do you do anything special to learn about Presidents’ Day or specific presidents? I’d love to hear about it.

With little kids especially, linking learning to physical activity really does help them learn. Movement can help kids focus, and it just keeps them from sitting still all day, which isn’t good for anyone.

The good news is lots of different learning activities can be adopted to get kids moving while they learn, so let’s look at some math and number activities that use gross motor skills.

Probably the most obvious thing would be hopscotch, which helps kids count while they hop. You can also mix up the numbers, do skip counting with the numbers, give kids a simple math problem and have them hop to the correct answer, and on and on.

This number hop game from Gift of Curiosity is a more chaotic version, with number flash cards on the floor that kids can hop, skip or jump to as you call them out (this one is more for individual number identification than counting). It’s a great indoor option if it’s too hot, cold or rainy out to do traditional hopscotch, too.

This painter’s tape number line idea from Days with Grey doesn’t involve quite as much movement, but kids can move around while they place things on the number line and work on learning about one to one correspondence. In the blog post they use shoes, but you can count anything you’ve got handy. (Be warned when I visited this website had an ad that continually took up the whole page, but you can get the idea pretty quickly.)

One of the important tasks of learning numbers is learning a parent’s phone number just in case it’s ever needed, or how to dial 911 in case on an emergency. Teaching Mama has a great way to practice telephone numbers and get some movement in with a giant telephone keypad made out of paper plates. You can also use this for counting practice, but it’s a great idea for learning phone numbers, too.

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