Remembrance Day/Memorial Day in the Classroom

On November 11th we are going to be honoring all those who have fought (and are currently fighting) for our country.  On November 10th schools across this great country will hold a service to remember those same people.  I've always struggled with what I can do with my students to honor this day and to make sure they recognize what an important sacrifice these people made.  Here are a few ideas that I've found though

Once again, everything is free...

This anyone can easily do and shouldn't really require a link but I just put in Remembrance Day into a search on teachers pay teachers and then organized it all by price... there were quite a few free things that I think you should check out.

I was subbing in a grade 5 classroom this past week and the teacher didn't leave much of a sub plan.  Luckily, I had an EA in my room who was happy to go and find supplies that I needed for an art project and I knew I had done one a couple of years ago when I taught grade 4.  Unfortunately, they didn't have paint so I altered my Poppy Art Project just a little and I think they turned out quite good.

I searched on the Canadian Government site and came across all of these resources

I was also subbing in a grade 4 class this past week and the teacher asked me if we could create a poppy wreath (for this schools Remembrance Day service a representative from each class walks in carrying the wreath.

  In that same grade 4 classroom the teacher had left a book for us to "read" I put read in quotation marks because this was a wordless picture book.  But the message was a strong one (I wonder if she choose it for now because of the message... she probably did).  Anyways, I took a picture of one of the first pages and the last page.  Basically, it appears that the mouse starts a fight with the frog because he has a flower.  It turned into both of them gathering up all their friends and starting a big fight (one might even say war).  You can tell that a lot happened just by looking at the first and last pages... the first page looks beautiful and green and a fantastic place to live.  Whereas the last page looks dirty and ruined and desolate and a not so great place to live.  We talked about how war can do more than just take lives... it ruins the places that it takes place too.  We talked about how the tiniest of things can blow up into something much bigger. We talked about how war and fighting is not the answer or the way to solve problems.  The book was titled "Why" by Nikolai Popov if you are interested in seeing if your library has it (or if you want to quickly run out and buy it).

Activity Village has more activities to do for Remembrance Day (colouring pages, worksheets, word searches, information, and poems).

Also, in that grade 4 class (this teacher had it together for Remembrance Day stuff!) we read Bunny the Brave War Horse by Elizabeth Macleod.  The students loved this book!  It was a bit of different spin on regular talks about Remembrance Day because it was about an animal.  I really liked the part in the book where it talked about how animals didn't get the choice but to be in the war.  It also gives facts throughout it and at the end.  But I think what really drew the students in was that it was based on a true story.

And finally, here are a couple of videos you could show your students

This first one is by poppy Scotland but I showed it to a class of grade 5 students and they enjoyed it.

This one is a song and photos.  I like that there are more current photos and ones from a long time ago.

What activities are you doing with your class this Remembrance or Memorial Day?