42 Fun President Facts for Kids to Share With Your Students

Written by Jeanne Sager

Updated 2 years ago | 6 min read

Are you looking for some fun president facts for kids to make your students sit up and pay attention during your Presidents’ Day lessons this year? Or maybe you’re just trying to humanize our commander in chief as you introduce your 2nd or 3rd grade students to the different branches of the US government?

Our students love packing away fun and interesting facts about the topics they’re learning in school to show off to their family and friends, and we can’t say we blame them. It’s always handy to have an odd and interesting fact to share to break the ice at a dinner party!

With Presidents’ Day on the calendar for February and plenty of social studies lessons on the agenda, the teachers on the Teach Starter team have put together some of our favorite facts about American presidents that you can use as you plan lessons about the executive branch of the American government.

Read on to answer some of your curious students’ burning questions from “who was the youngest American president” to “who is the tallest American president,” plus some interesting presidential firsts that might surprise even you!

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

Fun President Facts for Kids

This list of fun and interesting facts covers the 46 presidents of the United States, and there are plenty of options to spark conversation in the classroom.

Abraham Lincoln was the very first president to be featured on a United States coin! The penny was redesigned in 1909 to celebrate the 100th birthday of the man who steered America through the Civil War and gave us the Emancipation Proclamation.
The first president ever born in a hospital was President Jimmy Carter in 1924. Carter’s mother Lillian was a nurse, and he was born right where she worked at the Wise Sanitarium in Plains, Ga.
Who was the tallest president? If you’ve shared photos of Abraham Lincoln with your students, they likely won’t be surprised to learn that the 16th president was also the tallest at 6’4″ tall!
The first president to have a child born while he was living in the White House was President Grover Cleveland. Cleveland’s daughter Esther was born on September 9, 1893.
The presidential home in Washington D.C. is known as the White House, but do you know which president gave the building its name? That was President Theodore Roosevelt in 1901.
Fifteen vice presidents have gone on to become the president of the United States.
Two vice presidents have held the office under two different presidents. George Clinton served as vice president under President Thomas Jefferson and President James Madison. Later John C. Calhoun served as the vice president to presidents John Quincy Adams and Andrew Jackson.
The first president to visit all 50 states while in office was the 37th president, Richard Nixon. Since then, presidents Bill Clinton, George H.W. Bush and Barack Obama have also done so.
The president’s office is known as the Oval Office because of its unique shape. So, who was the first president to use the Oval Office? That honor went to President William Howard Taft in 1909.
President John Tyler is the president who had the most children with 15.
President Tyler was also the first president to ever get married while serving as president. He married his second wife, Julia Gardiner, in 1844 which was near the end of his term as the 10th American president.
President James Madison was the fourth president, and he is known as the “Father of the Constitution.”
President Warren G. Harding was the 29th in history and the very first to make an address on the radio in 1922.
The first president to appear on television was President Franklin Delano Roosevelt (FDR) in 1939.
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.
President Bill Clinton was the first commander-in-chief to send an email while he was in office in 1994. The email was sent to John Glenn, a NASA astronaut who was in space at the time!
President John F. Kennedy was the first American president to appear on television to address the American people live without a delay or editing.
Two times in history, 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.
Congress bought President William Taft a car in 1908, making him the first president to have one while in office.
Ulysses S. Grant, our 18th president, was once given a $20 speeding ticket for riding his horse and buggy too quickly in Washington D.C.
Martin Van Buren was the eighth president, but he was the first president to be born as a US citizen. Van Buren was born in 1837 in Kinderhook, New York.
Rutherford B. Hayes was the 19th president, and he was the first president to have a telephone in the White House.
The president who served the shortest time in office was President William Henry Harrison who died just 31 days after his inauguration in 1841.
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.
The oldest-ever person to be elected president is President Joe Biden who was 78 years and 61 days old on his Inauguration Day in 2021.
The youngest-ever person to be elected president was President John F. Kennedy. JFK was 43 on Inauguration Day in 1961.
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.
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.
James Buchanan was the 15th president, and he was the only president who never got married.
The first (and so far only) president to get married in the White House 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.
Jimmy Carter’s retirement has been the longest in American presidential history. He has been out of office since January 1981 — that was 43 years ago.
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.
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.
Andrew Johnson was the 17th president and was the first president to be impeached.
President James K. Polk had the shortest retirement of any president, dying three months after leaving office at age 53.
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.
John Adams was the second president, but he was the first to live in the White House.
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.
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.
Left-handed students have a compatriot in President James Garfield. He was the nation’s 20th president and the first to be left-handed.
Baseball is considered America’s pastime, and for decades it was common for a president to throw out a first pitch at the former Griffith Stadium in Washington, DC. The first president to throw out the first pitch at a game was William Howard Taft in 1910.
The first president to take in a Major League Baseball game while in office was Benjamin Harrison in 1892.