On our drive to the Midwest for Christmas, we somehow got onto the topic of presidents, and who was president when. On a stop at a local K-Mart (we were early for a dinner date in Upland, IN, not much choice around) we found a place mat with all of the presidents and when Ella asked us to buy it, we decided that a parent couldn't go wrong. What we were not prepared for what would happen after we actually started using the place mat. Each meal is now filled with questions about the presidents: who was good (Abe Lincoln was the best, we tell her), who was bad (I'm not even going to post our opinions about that!), how long were they president (She finds it fascinating that Grover Cleveland has two pictures because he served in non-consecutive terms), who is alive and who is dead? She now has favorites which include: Andrew Jackson (who let all kinds of people into the White house and they got mud on the chairs), William Henry Harrison (who had the shortest presidency, dying after he refused to wear a coat or hat during a freezing inauguration, giving the longest inauguration speech in history) and William Howard Taft (who was so large he got stuck in a bathtub). We didn't think that she would enjoy it so much! Unfortunately, Brad and I are running out of presidential trivia to share with her. Do you have any good trivia on presidents that we can share?
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6 comments:
Hooray! Another young presidential scholar in the making! My fascination started the same way...in fact, i just updated my placemat from WalMart!
http://www.littleknownfactsshow.com/presidents.html
That seems to be a good site.
Andrew beat me to it, but I'll have to say, "Welcome to the mother-of-nerds" club. His interest in presidents followed a project I did for an ed tech course as I finished my master's degree. I think he was 6. We ended up buying him lots of presidential biographies. And, there is a great set of presidential trivia cards that was entertaining (who walked around the White House with a raccoon around his neck, etc.). It was one of the sets that is connected with a ring and is a great car toy.
In Amazon, "President Trivia" gives lots of hits. Here is one game that might work for Ella -- http://www.amazon.com/Scientific-Toys-Interactive-U-S-Presidents/dp/B000C24EDU/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&s=toys-and-games&qid=1262625096&sr=1-2
Enjoy!
==anita==
We got a real kick out of this post the other day! If you come visit Lancaster, we'll take Ella to visit James Buchanan's home, which is a mere three or four blocks from where I'm typing right now. Of course, Jimmy B. wasn't exactly our greatest president (probably actually among the worst), but so it goes. For our part, Josiah's not into Presidential trivia. He's in the typical 3-yr-old "why" and "how" craze, wanting exacting detail on causal mechanisms. "How do they make traffic lights?" "How do electric train engines go? How does the electricity move them?" and so forth. Isn't it such great fun to be a parent? :)
find an old copy of the mini-series backstairs at the whitehouse.
first hand look of a mother and daughter who worked at the white house from Taft - Eisenhower
I'm not sure who the worst president was, but David Palmer was the best!!!
Good blog to visit, the Presidents Trivia is really interesting, more to go
more to post, keep posting
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