Our Presidents

We have had the pleasure of celebrating Presidents' Day today and remembering two of our countries amazing presidents. George Washington was our Founding Father and Abraham Lincoln, who was our 16th president, abolished slavery.
So, in preparation of our vacation day we learned about and did some fun activities about these two great men.

 Washington and Lincoln Books We Read

These are great biographies written for the 3-4 grade level.

Washington and Lincoln Portrait 

When you were a kid did you put crayon shavings between two layers of wax paper and then melt them with an iron? I thought of this the other day and had an idea. I found an image of Lincoln and Washington online and printed them. We put one of the images under wax paper and drew the outline of the facial features.
Then, we made shavings of crayons that were face color, black and greys. You can use a pencil sharpener. Just don't push too hard.

You will want to put a paper towel onto an iron safe surface and place your wax paper on top of the towel. Now, fill in the areas with crayon shavings. Just as Lucy is doing here.

This one is ready to be ironed. (On the first one, we put too much crayon so you may have to play with the amount of shavings.)

When you are done, place a piece of blank waxed paper on top and then another paper towel and iron with your iron on a low setting.

We did Lincoln and Washington. We ran out of white crayons from our Crayon Valentine Hearts so Washington has grey and black hair.

They didn't turn out exactly like I envisioned them but we had fun. Let me know if you make these and how they turn out.

Lincoln's House

We also made a small replica of Lincoln's first house out of "Wooden Skill Sticks". They are popsicle sticks that have notches on them. So you can build like you do with Lincoln Logs.

Lucy's House on left and Mommy's on right

I decided to paint my house brown. So, after we constructed our houses Lucy wrote words on the sides of hers that described Lincoln.

Front: "Lincoln"

Back

Side: "ended slavery!!!!!"

 Happy Presidents' Day! and Thanks for reading and please leave a comment.

What An Amazing Park!!

We found a park that is only 15 minutes from our house but took us back in time to the 1770's. What an amazing find this was! Like most parks, there is a playground, a big grass field and basketball courts.

The incredible part of the park is an island that is accessed by a covered bridge. A moat runs around the island and is home to many birds and ducks including mallard ducks, white ducks, greebs and a few seagulls. We even saw a Red Eared Slider Turtle. As you adventure towards the island, a statue of Paul Revere welcomes you.

Once we crossed the Charlestown bridge we were transported back in time to a miniature town of Boston, circa 1770.

The little Boston town has a group of "stores" including a print shop, an apothacary, ropemaker and saddlemaker. Inside the shops are slides and poles and ladders that the girls played on. Upon climbing up a very narrow staircase, you can walk across a bridge to other stores. The brick wall in the photo below is the bridge.

Next to the shops is a replica of The North Church Tower with two slides. You can see one of them on the left side of the church in the following photo (along with my beautiful little girl)

There are non-working cannons to protect Boston. Here is one of them with my beautiful older daughter.

The island closed early today so we didn't get to explore the whole town. There is also a replica of Paul Revere's house and a replica of a cemetary. We will definately go back and do some more exploring but we had a great day!