Patritotic Curriculum for Little Ones

During Graduate School, my Dean, Dr. Hartzler, was not only an amazing man of God, but he was like a dad to me.  And after I had Julia and was a stay at home mom, he visited TCS to speak, I made sure I visited that day also with Julia in tow just to see him!  After giving him a huge hug I told him, "I miss teaching so much Dr. Hartzler."  He is a dad of 5 amazing children and he told me, "Kristi, use this time while you are home to invest in your children and write your OWN curriculum for them!"  In other words, I don't have to stop teaching, I can teach my kids, and have fun doing it!  So pardon me if I'm a little excited about sharing some of my lesson plans with you, but this is what I love to do, I'm passionate about it, and I love my kids, so I want to share it with you!

Julia is 3 1/2 and loves to learn!  We are currently reading through this book called Kids meet the Presidents by Paul Rodhe & Paul Beatrice.  I picked this book because it was small (my kids like books that are easy to hold and not too heavy) and there were 44 pages of 44 die cut portraits of the presidents.  I thought it was super cool.  (click on the title of the book if you'd like to see it and order it through amazon.)
We read about a different president each week (I do some paraphrasing because this is definitely an elementary age book but I wanted that so we can still use it when they are older)  and some days we just review the ones we've already read so I point to the portrait and say, "Who is this?" "George Washington!"  Who is this?  "Barrack Obama!"  Who is this? John Adams!  When I start my coin unit we may jump ahead to meet Lincoln and Franklin D. Roosevelt! 

I'm also in the process of purchasing Just a Piggy Bank by Gina Mayer.  I love these books!  We have a slew of them at home, I love the pictures and the humor of the author.  But this book is going to "kick off" my coin unit I'm going to be starting next month with my kids (mid June to July).  Both my kids have piggy banks and we LOVE to put coins in our piggy banks but I wanted to teach them who the men are on the coins, the names of the coins, and their value.  I'm going to be using the following worksheets to help me.  click here for penny...click here for nickle....click here for dime....click here for quarters.  Now you can have some worksheets for your preschooler....and the websites have more information, so check it out if you have time. 

My Mark (2 years old) during our President reading time just soaks it all in, and that's okay, at least he's hearing it.  When we do the coin unit, he can color the worksheets, put the coins in his piggy bank and help us count the coins, while Julia may be able to remember who is on each coin and the value.  We will see!  But it will be fun to learn with them!

Do you know of any songs about coins, or money we could sing?  Or maybe any rhymes?  That's my next research project!

Happy Memorial Day!