3 Easy Veterans Day Activities for Elementary Students
Veterans Day is such a special holiday for us and our students. There are so many easy Veterans Day activities you can incorporate into your classroom. One of my favorite assemblies of the year is our Veterans Day assembly. Veterans and family members of students are welcomed into our school for a very special celebration. Whether your school does something school wide or not, it is important to teach students the significance of this special day.
I’ve put together ideas for quick and easy Veterans Day activities, read alouds, and projects that you could incorporate into any elementary classroom.
1. Veterans Day Read Aloud Books for Kids!
These are a couple of my favorite kid appropriate books to introduce Veterans Day and get students talking about honoring our heroes. Both of these books can be found for free on YouTube or through the Amazon affiliate links below.
Hero Mom by Melinda Hardin is a great picture book for teaching younger students that both women and men can serve our country. All humans can be heroes. Hero Mom is a great read aloud for discussing how families and friends communicate by letters and phone calls.
The Poppy Lady by Barbara E. Walsh is the story of a school teacher, Moina Belle Michael. Moina turned the poppy flower into a symbol that would honor and remember soldiers. This book is great for teaching higher level vocabulary to any age student. I also love that it has a prologue and epilogue which allows you to introduce those concepts to students!
2. Veterans Day Activities: Research Flip Flaps!
After researching Veterans Day, have students create a Veterans Day Research Flip Flap. This one teaches students the branches of government and helps kids to creatively express what they’ve learned in something more engaging than a typical worksheet.
Students get to write a poem about veterans, discuss character traits, and really show what they’ve learned! Plus, I like that the Veterans Day Flip Flap only requires one page for each student, making it super easy to prep for the teacher. These also make the perfect Veterans Day bulletin board!
3. Write Letters to Veterans!
It is extremely important to create meaning in our lessons and give students a purpose for writing. Writing a letter to a veteran gives your students motivation to write because there is an actual reader.
Writing letters to veterans is also the perfect way to incorporate addressing letters and letter format. Students retain this information better when they practice in context! I used the letter writing paper that came in the Veterans Day Research Flip Flap Activity!
Here are a couple places you can send your Veterans Day letters:
– OPERATION GRATITUDE sends letters to troops, new recruits, veterans, wounded heroes, etc.
– AMillionThanks.org sends letters to veterans and active troops as well.
It is so important that we teach our students the importance of honoring our veterans. I hope you found these easy Veterans Day activities helpful as you incorporate research into your classroom!
Ps. If you loved these tips, be sure to screenshot and share these on Instagram! Tag me @TheSprinkleToppedTeacher so I can reshare it out to the world!