Showing posts with label patriotic. Show all posts
Showing posts with label patriotic. Show all posts
Happy Veteran's Day!  We had a busy day in first grade celebrating our Veterans!

Tuesday, we read a Pebble Go article about veterans to build our background knowledge.

Today, it was all about honoring our Veterans.  I had 2 things I wanted to accomplish today...and we made it...by the hair on our chiny, chin, chin! {Ever had one of THOSE days???  Yep, that was me today!}


Last week, I sent an email to parents asking for any Veterans in our first graders' immediate family.  We spent the morning writing thank you letters {on this Veteran's Day paper!} to the 4 Veterans that were sent to me.  The kids really took a lot of pride in this and so it was a more time consuming project than I thought it would be!

Since we had 4 veterans to write about, each table group was assigned a vet to write to.  And I divided my extra groups up so that about 6 kids wrote for each person.  After we finished the letters, they worked in their group of 6 to make book covers for the letters.  I gave them the green construction paper with a military hat outline on it.  They used tear art to create a camo hat and fancy title letters for their cover!


We also made poppy pins to wear in honor of the sacrifices our Veteran's make for us every day.  We read the history of Flanders Field.  We watched the short video clip of Linus reading the Flanders Field poem. {And by the way, if you've never been to the WWI Museum in Kansas City to see the poppy field display, you've missed out.  One of the more moving things I've seen.}

Then, we made our own poppies!  Here's how...

You will need:
*2 red cupcake wrappers per child
*1-2 inch strips of green construction paper
*paper clip or clothespin
*black crayon

Steps:
1.  Flatten both wrappers.  Cut about 1/2 inch off of one of the wrappers.
2.  Add black "seeds" in the middle of the smaller wrapper.

3.  Glue smaller wrapper to the middle of the larger, uncut wrapper.
4.  Twist the green strip to make a stem.

5.  Hot glue the stem to the back.
6.  Hot glue the paperclip or clothespin on top of the stem.
7.  Attach the pin to your shirt!

So fun and the kids absolutely LOVED wearing these today!  Such a beautiful reminder of the sacrifices that are made each day!  Thank you Veterans!
September 11th can be a scary topic for little learners.  It's easy to say "they are too young for this," or "they don't need to know this yet," but history is doomed to repeat ourselves if we don't educate--even our youngest--about events in our past.  Let's take a look at ways to learn about and remember 9/11 in a developmentally appropriate way for K-2 students.

Has it really been 13 years since 9/11?  Has it really been 13 years since I was sitting in a psychology class as a senior in high school when we heard a kid running down the hall screaming, "Turn on the TV! It's awful!"  ...and has it really been 7 years since I've had a class of first graders that was even alive during that awful event?  Un.Be.Lievable.

We honored September 11th this week and today in our classroom.  First, I should add that I always send an email to my parents before our talk letting them know what we will discuss and when and to let me know if they have any problems with that.  In ten years, I've never had a parent complain.  And year after year, I get thank you notes from parents about how thankful they are that their kids are learning our history so young.

Friday, we talked about what it means to be a good citizen in our classroom, community and country.
This is all part of our first Unit on Responsibilities.  We read this book about being a good citizen.

We charted our "research" on our flag anchor chart.

Then, we wrote an opinion piece on why they are good citizens.  We made American flags to display with them.  They have been a beautiful patriotic reminder of the pride we have in our country!  Especially this week!
 {{Ummm...yeah, we did these on September 5th...and yeah, my August calendar was still up and I didn't realize it until I saw these pics...It's been busy in my world and my brain is FRIED, can you tell??}}




This morning, we read one of my favorite "9/11" books, The Man Who Walked Between the Towers. It's based on a true story about a man who actually walked across the Twin Towers on a tight rope back in 1974.  And the end always gets me choked up talking about the towers not being there anymore.

I also showed just a few select pictures of the twin towers after they were hit using this photographic slideshow...
Here's a sample page from the powerpoint "book..."

The kids naturally asked lots of questions...and I tried to answer them all as factually {because I think that's super important}, but as simply as possible.  After much discussion about "Who did this?" and "Why did this happen?" and "Where did the towers go?" I had one little sweetheart who, after looking at the picture, said, "That's really cool, but sad at the same time."

Stop. My. Heart.

Ya'll, I felt like my grandparents at that moment in time. I have vivid memories of my grandfather trying to relay the gravity of his World War II experiences to me and just not getting it. I didn't ever make fun of it, but it was always just "an event in history that I didn't experience."

And that is exactly what 9/11 is to my firsties.  And that kinda breaks my heart.  So, yes, I went on a mini-soap box with my first graders about how "not cool about 9/11" I felt as I was watching, and the tears that flowed in my senior psych class and the shakiness in Matt Lauer and Katie Couric's voices as we all watched together.  And I felt like my grandfather must have when I was little.   Oh, my heavens, did I have a lesson on perspective today!

Check out this slideshow along with an easy booklet for young readers on September 11th!
We ended our discussion with the flag's symbol of pride and how no matter what happens, America will still survive because of the good citizens we have in our country!  I feel proud and blessed to be an American...and as long as I'm teaching, I'll be doing my part to pass along that pride to my little first grade citizens!

Happy Memorial Day, everyone!

Friday I posted about a few of the reasons we've been celebrating at school.  But this weekend, we've been celebrating with family! {{Personal Post Alert!!}}

My parents came up from Conway for...wait for it...the ENTIRE weekend!!  Anyone who knows my parents knows that they enjoy coming up to visit, but usually only spend one night up here because they hate missing all of their church commitments.  But this weekend they came up early Saturday and stayed all the way through Monday afternoon!!  I absolutely loved spending the extra time with them and Cooper ate.it.up!  At almost 20 months, Cooper is getting to that age where he remembers people a lot better and gets excited about seeing people he knows!

Saturday, Justin smoked ribs {{way yummy!}} and the family ate at our house!  Since we are getting ready to start packing our house to move, I haven't really kept up with our seasonal decorations like I normally do.  As of Friday {May 23rd} I still had Easter decorations out....*insert sad trombone here*

So Saturday morning I decided I might need to replace easter eggs with patriotic decorations.  With no time to buy anything {and no desire to since I'll have a new table in my new house to decorate}, I got out last year's Fourth of July decorations....

...and did the best kind of "re"decorating...FREE!  I really think I need to try this more often because it was a lot of fun trying to figure out how to take what I already had and make it in to something new and different.  I think it turned out alright for no money!

I reused the burlap ribbon {and some I had left over} that I got last year at Hobby Lobby.  I doubled up the blue to make it wider and ran the red striped ribbon down the middle to cover the crease.  No gluing, no taping, just cutting and placing it in its spot!

I used star cookie cutters I bought last year to trace stars for my "USA" display.  The "scrunchy" stuff as I call it, was left over from Easter decorations!  And I used the red, silver, and blue paint pins I bought to paint Cooper's Easter basket, to make the USA.

I also used the left over scrapbook paper to make some double-sided pennants and stars.  Used left over kabob sticks and stuck them in mason jars with some raffia!  I love how they turned out!

Thanks to the Mr. the ribs were *fantastic* and we had a great meal with family!

Sunday was church.  My parents got to come to church with us on a Sunday which {I think} was the only time they've come to church with us since they moved to Conway 6 years ago besides Cooper's dedication!  Cooper loved having Mimi and PoppaDoc with him at church Sunday...he just kept giggling about it!

On Memorial Day, we continued our celebrations and grilled at my brother and sister-in-law's house {aka Uncle Ty-Ty and Aunt Lo-Lo as Cooper calls them!}  My brother, Tyler, grilled chicken and veggie kabobs and my sis-in-law, Loren, made cilantro lime brown rice, pasta salad, and strawberry shortcake...all so yummy!

Uncle Ty-Ty has a golden retriever named Lexi and even though Cooper has met her several times, we are never sure quite how he will do each time.  It took a while, and lots of coaxing, but they FINALLY became friends...but not until many tears were shed!

These next few pictures pretty much sum up our weekend...

Silly fun with PoppaDoc!


Having too much fun with Uncle Ty-Ty and Aunt Lo-Lo to smile at the camera!

 ...and it seems like Mommy got the short end of the deal with smiles...this seems to be his game these days...smile as crazy and not-normal as possible!

But I sure do love my crazy, grown up looking, baby boy!

Here's to a FULL weekend of family fun!  We are even heading to dinner with Nana and Pops {who live in town, but have been away celebrating their 35th anniversary} after Cooper wakes up from his nap this afternoon!

Tomorrow, we will be hitting it hard at school again and making our final preparations for our Fairytale Ball which will be Thursday! {I'll be blogging through it all so be sure and check back in or click the links at the top to follow me on Facebook or BlogLovin.}  It was nice to take a long lazy weekend break with family from the "busies" at school and work!  So, so thankful we have family that we *enjoy* being around to celebrate holidays like these!



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