31 Fun President Facts for Kids to Use in Your Elementary Classroom

Whether Presidents’ Day is coming up on the calendar, or you’re trying to get your 2nd- and 3rd-graders more excited to learn about past presidents, there’s just something hauling out some fun president facts for kids that tends to make students sit up and pay attention. Maybe it’s because they humanize our commander-in-chief, or maybe it’s because kids love packing away factoids to show off to family and friends.

Either way, the social studies teachers on the team at Teach Starter have put our US history know-how together to create this comprehensive list of presidential facts for kids to spark discussion in your morning meeting or to use when you’re crafting lesson plans about the executive branch of the American government. Explore the whole list to find just the right factoid to drop into classroom conversation, including some presidential firsts that might just surprise your students.

Teach Starter Teacher Tip: Click on the blue words to find activities and resources to go with the facts!

Fun President Facts for Kids

1. President John Tyler is the president who had the most children with 15.
2. President James Madison was the fourth president and is known as the “Father of the Constitution.”
3. President Warren G. Harding was the 29th in history and the very first to make an address on the radio in 1922.
4. The first president to appear on television was President Franklin Delano Roosevelt (FDR) in 1939.
5. FDR is known for being related to 11 other presidents, including his cousin President Theodore “Teddy” Roosevelt who served as our nation’s 26th president. FDR was related to five other presidents by blood and six due to his marriage to First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt.
6. President Bill Clinton was the first commander-in-chief to send an email while he was in office in 1994.
7. President John F. Kennedy was the first to appear on television to address the American people live without a delay or editing.
8. There have been two times in history that a father and his son have both been elected president. The two father/son pairs were John Adams and son John Quincy Adams and George H.W. Bush and son George W. Bush.
9. Congress bought President William Taft a car in 1908, making him the first president to have one while in office.
10. Ulysses S. Grant, our 18th president, was given a $20 speeding ticket for riding his horse and buggy too quickly in Washington D.C.
11. Martin Van Buren was the eighth president, but he was the first president to be born as a US citizen.
12. Rutherford B. Hayes was the 19th president, and he was the first president to have a telephone in the White House.
13. The president who served the shortest time in office was President William Henry Harrison who died just 31 days after his inauguration in 1841.
14. He might not have spent much time in office, but President William Henry Harrison was there just long enough to be the first president ever photographed while in office.
15. The oldest-ever person to be elected president is President Joe Biden who was 78 years and 61 days old on Inauguration Day.
16. The youngest-ever person to be elected president was President John F. Kennedy. JFK was 43 on Inauguration Day.
17. The youngest-ever person to assume the presidency was Theodore Roosevelt, who was 42 when President William McKinley was assassinated. As the sitting vice president, Roosevelt took over the role.
18. Our 16th president, Abraham Lincoln, was the first to be born outside of the 13 original colonies. Lincoln was born in the state of Kentucky.
19. James Buchanan was the 15th president and was the only president who never got married.
20. The first (and so far only) president to get married in office was Grover Cleveland. The 22nd president married Frances Folsom, the daughter of his former law partner, in the White House’s Blue Room back in 1886.
21. Jimmy Carter’s retirement has been the longest in American presidential history. He has been out of office for 42 years.
22. President Calvin Coolidge was our nation’s 30th president and the first to be born on Independence Day! Coolidge was born on July 4, 1872.
23. Three American presidents have died on our nation’s birthday including Thomas Jefferson, John Adams, and James Monroe. Jefferson and Adams died on the date in the same year.
24. Andrew Johnson was the 17th president and was the first president to be impeached.
25. President James K. Polk had the shortest retirement of any president, dying three months after leaving office at age 53.
26. Every single president has had a family pet while in office, except for three — James K. Polk, Andrew Johnson, and Donald Trump did not have any presidential pets.
27. John Adams was the second president, but he was the first to live in the White House.
28. Adams may have lived in the White House before any other president, but the house best known for housing our country’s top executive didn’t get the name “the White House” until President Teddy Roosevelt made an executive order that made the name official.
29. Fans of the famous White House Easter Egg Roll held annually at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue can thank President Rutherford B. Hayes for helping to get the ball, er, egg rolling by sponsoring the first event in 1876.
30. Left-handed students have a compatriot in President James Garfield, the 20th president and the first to be left-handed.
31. It might be America’s pastime, but the first president to take in a Major League Baseball game while in office was Benjamin Harrison in 1892.

Teaching about the presidency? Take a peek at our teachers’ favorite Presidents’ Day printables and activities for kids!

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