Well. To be totally honest, I made the timeline, last election cycle. It was very neatly labeled, but the kids didn't really have much to do with the production. It's doubtless still down in the basement somewhere, and since Current President #43 ended up re-elected, we could have saved quite a bit of time if we'd just dusted it off and hung it right on up. But now that my consciousness about the importance of kids engaging in hands-on projects and owning the work has been raised, and in honor of this week's Educational Technology theme, I thought we'd start afresh. So...
To Make a Historical Timeline...
First the Guinea Pigs taped together a looooong strip of paper.
Then they taped on portraits of the Presidents, all in a row. (If you're thinking about writing to ask why it takes 54 flashcards to get to the 43rd President... don't.)
Guinea Pig #3 painstakingly wrote the numbers 1-43 in teeny tiny handwriting...
... and Guinea Pig #2 wrote in the names...
... using a Painless Placemat* to check the spelling.
Then....
Educational Technology Still Life #2:
So You Want to Be a Historical Thinker?
When the Guinea Pigs got tired of writing, they browsed through an assortment of Presidential writings... *
Guinea Pig #3, absorbed in Historical Thinking
Guinea Pig #2, absorbed in Historical Thinking
Guinea Pig #2, expressing his uncertainty about who will emerge as President #44
Ack!! The hallway that we used for last election year's timeline is too short for the one we made this time!! (This year's cards are bigger.)
Of course, using the the playroom wall required that we temporarily interrupt the broadcast to do a little playroom pickup....
Thereafter, affixing the timeline to the playroom wall required so many hands, we had to enlist Mr. Guinea Pig to document our progress...
Guinea Pig #2, pondering the ageless timeline question re: Grover Cleveland: two pictures, or one, with two intervals?
Guinea Pig and Historical Thinker #2, worrying anew about who might emerge as President #44
Historical Thinker #3, attempting to revive Historical Thinker #2
* A Presidential Library for Kids:
So You Want to be the President? by Judith St. George and illustrated by David Small. This is one very. funny. book. The others in the series are also good.
Hail to the Chief: The American Presidency by Don Robb and illustrated by Alan Whitschonke. Also funny and informative.
If the Walls Could Talk: Family Life at the White House by Jane O'Connor. Reasonably funny and reasonably informative.
Wackiest White House Pets, by Kathryn Gibbs Davis. Just the thing, for an arguably narrow audience.
Woodrow, the White House Mouse, by Peter Barnes and Cheryl Shaw Barnes. I wouldn't necessarily have thought that taking a mouse-sized view of the Beltway would come off, but this whole series (there are Congressional and Supreme Court rodents as well) is terrific.
The Story of the White House, by Kate Waters. This is a straightforward, easy-to-read book about the White House itself (not the Presidency). Alas, it is evidently out of print.
Painless Learning Placemat: Presidents. I'm thinking these are likely to be going on sale very, very soon.
US Presidents Flash Cards. We used these ones from Brighter Child's this election year. I actually like the ones we used last time, which were published by National Geographic, better -- they were smaller and had actual photographs or photographs of official White House portraits rather than only so-so illustrations herein. But obviously there are a lot of versions out there and any will do for this purpose. If the cards are small, you can get two packs of them and have the kids do a Montessori-style matching exercise with them.
Finally, somewhere in the house, but not immediately traceable for today's still life, we have one last book, Lives of the Presidents: Shame, Fame (and What the Neighbors Thought), by Kathleen Krull, illustrated by Kathryn Hewitt. I like all of these series, which are aimed at a slightly older age group than the above.
1 comment:
Great activity! Thanks for sharing!
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