Veterans Day: Easy Activities to Celebrate in the Classroom

Veterans Day: Easy Activities to Celebrate in the Classroom

As we know, Veterans day is such an important holiday in the United States. This is a day we celebrate and honor all of those who have served in the military. My school has this day off, but I will do these activities with my class the day before.

It can be a whole day celebration if you have time to devote to that. My schedule this year doesn’t allow it, so we will be doing a read aloud and spending time during reading rotations to learn about Veterans Day.

What is Veterans Day?

I will be having students work on this Google Slides activity during reading. They will be able to read (or listen to) articles about Veterans Day and learn who is a veteran and about the history of the holiday. They will also watch one video.

Then, students will answer comprehension questions from the articles they read. Such easy reading practice! Then, we will go through the questions together and have a class discussion about Veterans Day.

If there’s time, students can complete the extra activities linked at the end of the Google Slides activity. This includes read aloud videos, informative websites, and other ways to celebrate Veterans day.

Click here to check out this resource!

Video

This video is a great overview of Veterans Day and is entertaining for kids. You could show this during your morning meeting or any other time during the day.

Click here to see the video.

Read Alouds

Here are some great titles for Veterans Day read alouds. If you don’t have time to read these out loud, consider finding some Veterans Day titles in your library and checking them out for students to read during independent reading time.

• America’s White Table by Margot Theis Raven

• Veterans: Heroes in Our Neighborhoods by Valerie Pfundstein

• Hero Dad by Melinda Hardin

• H is for Honor: A Military Family Alphabet by Devin Scillian

Write to a Veteran

This may seem simple, but spending time to have your class write a letter or make a card for a Veteran is such a meaningful activity.

Reach out to the families in your class. Many of them may have Veterans in the family or may know a Veteran.

Another way to deliver letters/cards is to check with local nursing homes. The Veterans who reside there would probably be so delighted to receive a card or a letter thanking them for their service.

Which of these ideas will you do with your class? Let me know in the comments below!