montessori presidents day & money sorting work

Presidents Day is coming up this Monday, traditionally, it is a day to celebrate Lincoln’s and Washington’s birthdays, however, this year I decided to celebrate it in a more inclusive way by focusing on all the Presidents that appear on common coins and bills.

I prefer my works to start at a very concrete (real) place. Children are familiar with money, it is common and known to them. We build on this concrete foundation by providing a range of images, concrete to abstract – pictures of money, real photographs of the Presidents, paintings of the Presidents, statues, and monuments. Since many of these paintings and statues are not familiar to the children in our class, I have color-coded the cards so it is a self-correcting and independent work.

The work is more about creating an impression that these are important figures in the history of our country and that we celebrate and recognize them. The 3 to 6 year-old child is just starting to see beyond themselves, their world view is beginning to open. Materials like these, and other cultural works, fit into the Montessori Cosmic Curriculum and help the child see connections between themselves and others, whether those others are historical or current.

To assemble the work first I collected pictures and photos of the Presidents, the different monuments, and any important symbols that appear on the back of the coins.

You can download a copy of the cards I made by clicking here: President-Money Sorting Work (PDF). All photos are in the public domain, or have a free license. The last page lists all the sources for the photos. Please only use these cards in your class or at home.

I added the following information to the back of the cards:

• Abraham Lincoln Photograph by Alexander Gardner.  The 16th President, photo taken 1863
• Lincoln by George P.A. Healy, 1869
• Abraham Lincoln, by Daniel Chester French. Statue located inside the Lincoln Memorial
• The Lincoln Memorial, in Washington D.C.  Depicted on  the back of the penny.
• Thomas Jefferson by Rembrandt Peale, 1800
• Thomas Jefferson Memorial, in Washington D.C.
• Monticello, home of Thomas Jefferson. Located in Charlottesville, Va. Depicted on the back of the nickel.
• Franklin Delano Roosevelt Portrait, by Frank O. Salisbury, 1947
• Franklin Delano Roosevelt Photo, 1933
• Franklin Delano Roosevelt Statue at FDR Memorial. Statue of FDR’s dog Fala is also depicted.
• Franklin Delano Roosevelt Photo with girl and Fala.
• Portrait of George Washington by Stuart Gilbert
• Lieutenant General George Washington statue by Clark Mills, in Washington D.C.
• Washington Monument stands 555 ft 51/8 inches tall. It is the world’s tallest obelisk and tallest stone structure. It was completed in 1884 and is located in Washington D.C.
• Photo of the torch from the Statue of Liberty. Similar to the torch on the back of the dime.
• Picture of an eagle, there is an eagle on the back of the quarter, and it is the national bird of the United States.

In a small box in the work I included the following coins, 1 penny, 2 nickels (an older one with Jefferson in profile and a 2006 nickel with a 3/4 profile), 1 dime, 2 quarters (an older quarter with an eagle on the back and a state quarter). I also included $1, $2, and a $5 bill.

Finally, the best part was the magnifying glass.  It started as a way to see the statue of Lincoln inside the Lincoln Memorial on the penny and the $5, but the children loved to look at all the details on the bills (and the floor mat, and their hands, and their friends hands) with the magnifying glass.

The work is a simple sorting work. We start by placing the coins at the top of the floor mat, and then sorted the bills underneath. I name all the Presidents as we do this. I tried to pull out a photo or painting of each President as the first card we sorted. Then we continued sorting the cards and I simply said, “This is a painting of George Washington” or “This is a photo of Monticello, where Thomas Jefferson lived.” Once the child caught on to the color-coded aspect of the work, I leave them to continue to sort.

After the sorting you need to gauge the child’s interest level. They might be done, they might be ready to write a story about an eagle, you never know. With my older children, I have asked them “Why do you think I put an eagle with the George Washington pictures?” or we flipped over the nickel and I asked the child to match the picture on the back of the nickel to the correct picture. It is a very open-ended and adaptable work.

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