Sarah's First Grade Snippets: President Mini Unit with a FREEBIE!

I'll start this time with your freebie:

Click on the picture to download

This President's Day freebie comes from my Presidential Packet!

For this mini-unit, students pretend to be president for a week. They get sworn in at the beginning of the week, then learn all about their duties as president. Below is a reading passage about the president, a web to organize ideas, an Anticipation guide, and two graphic organizers. The Can, Are, Do graphic organizers have two options. One just to write in answers and the other requires filling in the blanks and gluing in the correct spot.

One of the jobs as president is to help balance the budget. This activity has two versions: country (US) and school.

For this activity, students have only $2.00 in dimes. They are told about each "program" that the country or school needs. Each program needs 50 cents but they only have the $2.00. So they have to make choices in small groups about how much money each program gets. Then they color in the dimes to show how much they spent on each program. After that, they write about which program they think is most important and why.

There are two version of this activity: Country (above) and school (below)

I usually do one as a whole group and the other as a partner activity.

(Look familiar? I posted this activity a couple years back but I've spiffed it up since then!)

Another job as president is to choose other important leaders for our country. As a class, brainstorm ideas about what makes a good leader. Make a list or web on the board. Then students will choose a person they think will be a good leader and write about it. The worksheet has adjectives to describe the leader. Students choose a person with one of more of those qualities and write about why that person would be a good leader. It could be an opinion piece or a persuasive writing.

Presidents may not be able to make laws on their own, but they have a part in passing laws. Students will read the reading passage about a president's role in making laws. There are a few different writing activities. They can write about laws they would change, pass, and veto (for our country or classroom). They could also write about laws they would want to see passed. The will write about this and then give "a speech" (read their paper) as a president would if he had a law he wanted to support. A graphic organizer accompanies the writing page. Last, I would use the "Veto Power" page. I will write four classroom rules that I want to add (some realistic and some silly). Then we will discuss them and, as president, they will veto or sign the bills to make them laws. you could also have them think of new rules (as Congress), then each person can veto or sign as president.

As president, you have to interact with leaders in other countries. It's important to be a problem solver! Students will read the task cards and write how they would solve the problem.

Students will also read a passage about a principal and compare a principal to a president. Students will see that these leaders have a lot in common!

Also included: George Washington and Abe Lincoln reading passages. After reading, they can do Venn diagram or T Chart. I also included a Read and Sequence for Abe Lincoln's life and two options for Read, Think, Match.