Sweet and Simple Things: Presidents Day

So I wasn't going to do anything really special for Presidents' Day. At first, I thought my 'Shiny Pennies' post could be considered a Presidents' Day activity and I would just leave it at that. But, last night I started thinking we should have a little theme to the day and this is what I came up with.

{our day was biased towards Abraham Lincoln - sorry George}

Abraham Lincoln's Beard

I had seen this craft at Almost Unschoolers and thought it was cute so we gave it a try. I cut a paper plate in half and cut out space for the kids faces. Once colored I punched a hole on each side and tied them on with yarn.

Sadly, it held their attention for all of 1 second. Sarah colored and then didn't even bother to try her beard on. Jillian at least tried hers on and checked out how she looked in the mirror. Thankfully, it was my boys who appreciated my crafting efforts. Matthew thought it was pretty fun and so did little Nathan who just looked too cute.

A Cereal Box Log Cabin - where Lincoln was born

I emptied a granola cereal box and started prepping it much the same way as the Valentine Mailbox. I took the box apart and cut it so that when put back together {inside out} it would look like a cabin. I took out my trusty gluegun {wow! once you start using a glue gun it's hard to go back to regular glue!} and glued the little cabin together. I had to do some trimming because apparently my measuring was off.

Since this cardboard was pretty stiff I scored all the parts I was going to fold with the sharp edge of my scissors. This made a nice crisp fold in the cardboard.

I also cut out a little chimney and scored along the folding lines. It should look something like this.

Once folded and glued it will look like this.

Finally we got to the popsicle stick part. The kids glued on popsicle sticks with white glue, but again when it didn't hold well {or fast enough for me} I took out the hot glue. I have to admit that I ended up helping out a lot with this craft!

The last step was to paint it all brown and stuff a cotton ball into the chimney. Done!
Now I hope the kids play with it! Actually, I told Matthew he can add it to his Lincoln Logs set. He was very excited about that so I'm sure it will get some playtime.

Lincoln's Hat Snack

My little Snowman Hats were such a hit I thought we could try Lincoln Hats! I opened up the oreos and took off the icing so that the brim of the hat would be thin. Then used some bananas to get the height {they required a little trimming to look right} and then poured melted chocolate over them and set them in the fridge.