Students love an opportunity to celebrate a holiday. Unfortunately, I often forget to plan for holidays until the day before and I find myself in a last-minute pickle searching for engaging activities for my students. If you are anything like me and have yet to make plans to celebrate Veterans Day, check out some of the resources below.
Our Youngest Learners
Letter Writing
Veterans Day is a great day to have our students practice their letter writing skills Use. Consider using this free, printable thank you template if you’re looking for a simple paper-pencil activity. Here you can find it on Seesaw. It also scaffolds your students with sentence starters to help those students that may need a bit of extra structure.
Focusing on Reading
If you’re knee deep in your poetry unit, consider using some of these curated poems about Veterans day to talk about rhyme, rhythm, form, or even symbolism.
Looking for some picture books to use this Veterans Day? Check out the library for books from this Read Aloud book list. Read alouds free students from struggling with fluency and vocabulary, and allows students to simply enjoy a good story and learn from the message.
If you’d like to give your students some choice this Veterans Day, find a read aloud choice board on Seesaw here. Be sure to remind students how to turn on closed captions on YouTube videos. This activity also includes an early finisher coloring page.
Our Oldest Learners
Veteran Affairs
This PBS lesson titled Veterans Day: The Meaning of Sacrifice is a great option for our middle and high school teachers and students. Through this lesson, students will begin to understand the significance of Veterans Day and the meaning of sacrifice. Students will identify important veterans in their lives, examine an interactive timeline of military history, and study issues facing veterans today.
Examining Art
Spend time viewing and interpreting Winslow Homer’s 1865 painting The Veteran in a New Field. Teachers can download the Homer lesson as well as the “Teachers Resource Book” for Picturing America, 40 art-historic images of paintings, sculpture, drawings, decorative objects and architecture that represent several centuries of U.S. history.
Virtual Field Trip
Register for a Virtual Field Trip for November 10, at 1pm EST! This no-cost virtual field trip for upper elementary and middle school students helps teachers and students around the world learn about the importance of service through the stories of two U.S. Congressman who served in the US military.
Instructor Guide for grades 3-5
Instructor Guide for grades 6-8
How do you celebrate and honor our Veterans on Veterans day? Let us know in the comments below!
