Gilded Age Presidents

After President Lincoln and Johnson, you get Grant.  He’s a likable guy, but wasn’t the best president.  He’s mainly remembered for all of the scandals that happened during his presidency.  He was not a man suited for political office.  He was a man suited for military life.

But then comes a long string of presidents who are rather forgettable.  There’s not anything major that happens to them, and a couple of them were one term presidents.

In honor of the election that’s been going on they created a poster for the president trying to persuade you he was the best president and why he should be remembered.

So, I read to them from our Early American Reader collection from Heritage History and as I read they drew their pictures (if you use the coupon code on the right you can get a free copy of this when you buy any curriculum from them, SCORE!).

They were told to write one sentence and then draw a picture with lots of detail in it.  I usually tell them to include at least three colors, because otherwise Batman will just leave it all one color.  That day I didn’t, and I’m kinda glad because I love how Batman’s picture came out.

Isn’t it cool?  He can give you a 5 minute explanation about all of it.  There’s servants, the president is sleeping in bed, a kitchen with food being cooked, stairs.  I love it.

After everyone was done I hung them up and we were going to have Jeff vote on them impartially, but that was messed up by 3 kids proudly telling which project was theirs.

All in all, it really helped them to remember the Gilded Age Presidents, which I have to admit I get mixed up sometimes too.  It’s not a perfect recall, but they all remember something about them.

I’m gonna link this up over at All Things Beautiful tomorrow for her history linkie.