This year my little Princess is going to be in a Veteran’s Day parade with her American Heritage Girls troop. She’ll march with them and get to honor the veterans in our area.
Because of that I want them to learn what a veteran is, and I figured I’d share our plans with you.
First we’re going to read a wonderful book from our library, “Proud as a Peacock, Brave as a Lion
After reading the book, we’re going to create our own simile: “I’m as ________ as a ______________.”
Next we’ll visit one of the local War Memorials here. We live right next to the capitol of Texas, so there are several different ones to choose from. Also, Texas likes it’s historical markers, so we can find quite a few in the area. We’ll probably go to the Confederate War Memorial for sure, because we just finished studying the Civil War, and that will mean the most to my kids.
I highly recommend checking to see if your area has any special museums or memorials. Two of my favorite museums on our last few trips have been small museums run by veterans. They were collections of all of their war memorabilia, and I couldn’t get my kids out of those museums for over an hour.
While we’re there we’ll bring our sketch books and some colored pencils and draw the memorial. After drawing it, we’ll write a few sentences about the memorial. I will probably also let the kids use one of my old cameras and take pictures. I’ve discovered they learn so much more if they can be engaged and taking pictures.
Also, we’ll take advantage of the people we know. A friend of our is a Iraq War veteran, he just came back a year or so ago. I’ll have them think up questions to ask about being in war, and get a chance to interview a “real soldier,” that will impress them. Especially since it’s the dad of one of their friends.
After all of that, I think Princess will be truly ready for her parade. What do you think? Do you have any study plans for Veteran’s Day?
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