Click on the arrow above to hear what Mr. Lincoln has to say.
The year 2009 marked an incredible milestone in our country's history.
On January 20th we witnessed the Inauguration of the U.S.A.'s first African-American president, and on February 12th we celebrated the 200th anniversary of the birth of one of our greatest presidents - Abraham Lincoln!
To view the work of other project participants, click here.
Did You Know?
To help generate school-wide interest in Lincoln's 200th birthday, some of the second graders read "Life of Lincoln Moments" over the intercom each morning. Copies of the facts were given to the classes to use in a number of ways, such as creating a book of facts, for research, or for discussion points. On Lincoln's birthday, over the intercom, the second grades led the school in singing "Happy Birthday" to President Lincoln. Below are the facts that were read, with links to the answers.
Did you know?
Abraham Lincoln was born on February 12, 1809 in a log cabin in Kentucky. This year we celebrate the 200th anniversary of his birth.
Abraham Lincoln was our 16th president and, in our opinion, one of the greatest! Today is his 200th birthday. Please join us in singing "Happy Birthday" to him!
Second graders led the school in singing "Happy Birthday". We ended by shouting "Happy Birthday, Mr. Lincoln!"
I combined our birthday card work with our "Did You Know?" work to create a Mixbook. I ordered two copies - one for our classroom and one to be donated to our Peirce School Library. You can view our book here.
More Lincoln Learning
After we created our cards, we continued our learning with a great Abraham Lincoln Tab Book from enchantedlearning.com. This proved to be challenging, but excellent practice in searching text for answers to questions.
I also used an Abraham Lincoln Growth Chart Bulletin Board outside our room (see left). Lincoln's graphic is exactly his height of 6 feet, 4 inches. All the children were measured against him on his 200th birthday, in both inches and centimeters. We will remeasure in June to see how much we've grown!
Lincolns for Lincoln (with a little help from George)
Beginning on February 12th, and ending during the week of March 2nd (Lincoln's Inaugural week, both terms), the second grades collected pennies, $5 bills, quarters, and $1 bills (a little help from George) to support the "Give a Lincoln for Lincoln"
Campaign, along with some projects right here at Peirce School which will honor Abraham Lincoln's Bicentennial.
On March 10th we had a "Count Up" day. We hoped we'd reach our goal of collecting $200 for Lincoln's 200th birthday. Did we? Keep reading to find out.
Click on the Give a Lincoln for Lincoln image above to learn more about the campaign.
How many pennies did we collect? See below to find out.
We first counted our $5 and $1 bills with our quarters. It equaled $122.00! Next, we estimated how many pennies were in our collection. Then we counted and tallied. Our total was 4,777! Telden's estimate of 4,600 was the closest!
We added our penny amount to our quarter, dollar and five dollar bill amount and found that we had $169.77!!! Combining our amount with Ms. Macdonald's, we had reached our goal - Over $200 had been collected!Special thanks to Kristen Garrigus, Carol Greeley, Laila Moore Niles, and Teresa Lopes for helping with Count-Up Day!
The second $100 went to books about Lincoln and Washington for our own Peirce School Library (see left). Each book has a bookplate explaining that it was donated by the second grade.
The remaining money went to purchase a bookmark for each student, teacher and staff member at the Peirce School, as a memento of this historic year.
Four new pennies will be released in 2009, each commemorating a different aspect of Lincoln's life. Learn about our penny.Click here for info on the new 2009 pennies, especially for kids. For lesson plans about the new pennies, teachers, click here.
Polishing Pennies Try this experiment for the pennies you're collecting!
During Sharing, Mike brought in a most interesting family treasure - a framed tribute to Lincoln's 150th birthday.
We learned that this was the year (1959) that the penny's reverse (back) design was changed from the "wheat" to the Lincoln Memorial!
Also, as part of our celebration, I gave each of the children a giant replica of the 1909 penny - the first year Abraham Lincoln appeared on the obverse (front) of the penny. You can purchase them here.
New Lincoln Stamps On Abraham Lincoln's 200th birthday, four new U.S. postage stamps were issued in his honor. Watch the video to the right, as "Mr. Lincoln" himself purchases a sheet.
