Even though many children might think of Presidents Day as a day off school, the holiday represents the perfect learning opportunity for your elementary students to study various aspects of the United States presidency.
From the history surrounding each president, to what a president does day-to-day, there are lots of avenues to pursue when planning lessons around the theme. Writing prompts serve as a great way for students to demonstrate what they have learned as well as express themselves creatively.
Each of the following elementary school writing prompts could involve teacher-driven background and examples, student-led research and crossover into subjects such as history and government. With so many presidents to study, there are lots of interesting stories to cover!
Elementary School Writing Prompts to Celebrate Presidents Day
Writing Prompt #1: Choose a president and write about his life.
Depending on the grade level of your students, this particular prompt can be a paragraph talking about what they learned in class or a two-page paper that includes research the student did on a president.
The scope of what you want will direct the student. For instance, if you want to cover a few presidents and offer up a few stories from those presidents’ lives, then your first-grade students can write about whichever one they liked the most.
However, if you teach fourth or fifth grade, then you might open it up a bit more and provide a sample writing in class as well as an outline that clearly defines what pieces you’d want to be sure they cover, such as birthdate, hometown, childhood story, year of election, family and their most famous story from presidency.
PROJECT IDEA
Have the students create a page about the president they picked that mimics a scrapbook. They can take their writing and cut it up to go with “photos” or drawings. The idea is for it to look like the president’s family scrapbook. Then take each student’s two pages (or spread) and create a classbook, so they remember this unique class project. e sure to follow the pasting guidelines on our FAQ page.
Writing Prompt #2: Write about what the president does and why it is important.
Again, this elementary school writing prompt can be made more challenging depending on the grade you teach. You could prepare a presentation on what the president oversees and does during the day; making it more or less detailed depending on grade level.
For older students, assign some extra reading assignments to help explain further what the president does. If you teach younger students, then you could use a book like “P is for President” by Wendy Cheyette Lewison or “What is the President’s Job?,” written by Allison Singer.
Then, all you need to do is let the students take the writing prompt and run with it!
PROJECT IDEA
Have your students make their writing prompt into a diary entry written from the president’s perspective. If your students don’t know what a diary is yet, then give them a few examples of what a typical diary entry might look like and include. By creating a classbook out of the diary entries, you’ll end up with a very interesting compilation of what your students learned about the president’s job!
Writing Prompt #3: If you were elected president, what would be the first thing you would do and why?
Here’s a writing prompt that will allow your students’ creativity and imagination to shine through—and it might just be fun to see what they dream up.
Consider giving a quick presentation that provides some fun, quirky facts about things presidents have done in office that wasn’t quite normal or is just interesting. For example, you could use information found in books like “I Wish I Knew That: U.S. Presidents: Cool Stuff You Need to Know” edited by Patricia Halbert.
Filled with some fun facts, your students will surely come up with excellent ideas on what they would do if they were elected president.
PROJECT IDEA
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Have students write an “official document” such as a pretend bill like this one, that has a place to sign the document. On the day that the writing prompt is done (or perhaps due for upper-grade levels), set up a celebratory way to have all the students sign the bill.
Then, paired with an illustration showing what they would do as presidents, publish a classbook out of the “official documents” that will certainly be a treasure for parents and students.
Writing Prompt #4: Pick a president and write about his important contribution.
Every president has highs and lows during the term(s). For some presidents, it’s easy to point to those high moments from Abraham Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address to Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal. However, some of the lesser known presidents certainly contributed to American history, so it’s important to explore some of those and what their important contributions were.
For lower elementary school students, this writing prompt might mean picking a president based off those you studied the last couple of weeks. Another option might be having the students talk with a family member and ask what their favorite president is known for and why it’s important.
Older students should be able to pick a president and do a bit of research, especially with a few helpful suggestions, to figure out what important contribution that the president made.
PROJECT IDEA
Much like an idea board, the students could create an information board where they visually display their writing and related pictures or graphics. For lower grades, you could use construction paper and give them two pieces to create the board. Upper-grade level students may be able to do something more technologically advanced such as Google Slides to make their boards.
Have students take their information boards and use the info they found to contribute to a classbook. Doing this not only gives the students a published work to show their friends and family, but it is also an excellent way to brush up on some presidential trivia!
More Information for Teachers
At Studentreasures Publishing, we want to offer useful resources to you that benefit your students. Visit our online teacher’s lounge to look for more ideas on ways to improve your students’ writing.
Also, be sure to sign up for a free classbook publishing kit. Reward your students’ hard work by publishing their pieces, and enjoy seeing their thrilled faces when they see the finished product.