A guide for using our resources

Children will study one way that Abe Lincoln dealt with the pressures of his job.

Vocabulary: country, president, quill pens

Social Studies Focus: Presidents’ Day

Simple, spectacular ideas to boost your lessons.

• Duck doesn't like the chores on the farm, so he holds an election! But he soon discovers that being president is a very hard job.

• On chart paper, write the sentence stem if I were president . . . Then let kids finish the sentence. If they like, they can stick with the issue’s theme and name ways they would stay calm on the job.
• Kids can also share things they would change and ways they would help people. Use a combination of dictation and kids’ own writing to complete the experience chart.

• Use pages 2-3 of the issue to do this scavenger hunt as a group.

1. Find the heading. Underline it.

2. Find the picture where Lincoln is writing a hot letter. Put a ✔ on it.

3. In the sidebar, find the words that mean feather pen. Circle them.

4. Find the subheading in the purple box. Draw a square around it.

Skill: following directions, writing

Materials: A Portrait of Abe Lincoln skill sheet, crayons, pencils, glue, brown pompoms or brown tissue paper

• Hand out the skill sheet. Have kids color in the picture. Then glue brown pom-poms or balls of crumpled brown tissue on his beard, using the dots as a guide for where to place them.
• Next have kids finish the sentence with one fact they learned about Abe from the magazine, such as Abe Lincoln was a calm leader or Abe Lincoln used a quill pen.