Celebrating Veteran's Day (Freebies, Too!)

If you're anything like me, you are always looking for more ideas and resources to add to your ever growing collection.  I do this for EVERYTHING.  Constantly looking for new ideas...more resources...and more time.  If anybody can tell me where I can find more time, I'd really appreciate it ;)  

That to be said, I want to share with you a few ideas to help you get ready for Veterans Day {next week...ALREADY!!!! Gah!!!}  

I absolutely LOVE teaching my kids about veterans and the sacrifices they make for our freedom.  At my old school, veterans related to the students were invited to an assembly and honored with speeches and songs and we finished it all off with a parade around the school.  It was so cool.   The assembly was streamed in all the classrooms so that everyone could watch. At my current school, we celebrate by inviting veterans to lunch...tables are decorated and the walls in the cafeteria and the hallways are, too.  It's such a sweet day.

We read several books leading up to and on Veterans Day to help teach the kids about this holiday.

These are some of my personal favorites...

I keep these books in our library center through the month of November.  My kids read them during their read to self/someone block of time and they also use these books to write some pretty great stories.  "Hero Dad" is such a sweet book and "The Wall" always makes me cry.  Make sure your tissues are nearby if you read that one aloud.

After reading a few of  our nonfiction books, we create anchor charts to display.  These are a few examples of anchor charts I created with my class the last few years.

I like to display the kids' Veterans Day writing around the anchor charts to tie everything together. 

Last year we read the book, "My Hero", and I had the kids write a text to self connection with this little writing activity...

I mean, seriously.

"My hero is my mom because she takes care of me."  

Can my boys please write something like this for me?! I MELT!!!!

In addition to our text to self writing, we also wrote what we LEARNED about Veterans and Veterans Day.  I loved displaying this in the hallways!  

I included the writing & craftivity templates in my Veterans Day mini pack.

This year I'm adding something new to the mix with this writing craftivity.  It's a great way to incorporate our theme based vocabulary, too!  

I love adding poetry and music to every theme/unit.  I made up this one and my boys are already humming the tune to themselves.  I can't get it out of my head, either!  HA!!! 

We always add a printable version of our songs and poems to our poetry folders.  I like to write the words on sentence strips, too...then I add them to my pocket chart center and encourage the kids to assemble them in sequential order, practice one-to-one matching, etc.  We use the printable version for highlighting sight words, spelling patterns, etc.  The printable version of this song is in my Veterans Day mini pack.

My boys always get excited when I create new things for my teacher friends.  I was printing a few things out the other day and they insisted on trying it all out.  It sparked a really great discussion about Veterans Day, too.  I promised them I'd pull out my Veterans Day books for bedtime stories this week.  Their favorite activity was this little Roll and Color Word Family printable.  They, of course, turn everything into a race so they were determined to see who could color the soldier first and fastest!  When I told them the prize was a kiss from mommy, they seemed less than excited to finish the race first...hahahaha!  They begged for candy kisses instead.  Oh, BOYS!!!

They also loved these little math booklets.  I included two different versions in my Veterans Day mini pack to target differing ability levels.  Landon zipped through the Armed Forces Addition...very sloppily {little toot!!!}, my poor lefty...and Grant loved his "jutht-right-for-me-book, right-mom?!?!" version.  They boys are enamored with soldiers so these were right up their alley.

You can check out my "Patriotic Holidays" board on Pinterest for some more GREAT ideas and links to some really neat resources {videos, online stories, freebies, craft ideas, etc.}.

Here are a few FREE printables for you to add to your ever growing collection of "stuff".    Hopefully they'll help you out when you're planning for your Veterans Day festivities, too!

Now it's your turn.  What do you do to help your kids learn about Veterans Day?  Does your school do anything special to celebrate?!  I'd love to hear more!