Celebrating America! [ with Stephanie from Mrs. D's Corner ]

It's no secret that I am an Air Force Sister and Daughter. My dad served in the AF and my brother recently just finished up his 4 years, so when the additional opportunity (I say additional because our troops should be celebrated and praised EVERY day) comes for us to give our thanks and remember, I go all out.

When my brother went through Basic, I had my students create cards and write letters for me to send to him. I have always taught 2- or 3-week units about our past, present, and future soldiers on Veteran's Day and Memorial Day. These days are so much more important than an extra weekend day or a BBQ, and it's important to me that I share this with my students. So much so that we started our remembrance celebrations this week.

I saw this pin on Pinterest and decided that this was how we would start off our unit. First, let me show you what we made, and then I'll show you how!

Isn't it just the most adorable poppy craft you've ever seen? And it's super simple! All you need to make these adorable poppies is paper plates, black construction paper, and red paint. It's the simplest craftivity, so let me know you how:

Obviously, you start with a paper plate.

Then (and it's hard to see the pencil lines), you draw lines on the paper plate to create the petals.

Once your student cuts on the lines, it will look something like this. It's okay if it's a little off-sided (unless you have OCD like me... but I keep telling myself it's okay!).

I cut random sized rectangles of black construction paper out for my students ahead of time.

Have your students rip the black construction paper into pieces. It doesn't matter how big or small the pieces are.

Time to paint!

Have your friends paint the entire plate red.

I used our special glitter glue to put some glue in the center of each plate. Students then add their ripped up black construction paper pieces.

Once it dries, you end up with this :) I used them to create a mini bulletin display outside of our classroom, that way the entire school can enjoy what we made for Memorial Day.

How do you celebrate Memorial Day?

Celebrating America with Enchanted Kinder Garden

It's MAY! Can you believe it? Well, I'm (Keri) here today to talk about how I celebrate America with my kinders.

I don't have any family in the military, but I have a lot of friends that currently are or have been in the past. I'm very thankful for ALL that the men and women who choose this path do for us. They are so selfless that it's AMAZING.

With that said, I like to read books to my kids. Sometimes it's hard to explain holidays such as Veteran's Day and Memorial Day to little learners. I try my best to make them understand that our lives could be totally different if we didn't have all these wonderful people working hard for us each and EVERY single day. How do you tell children that we need to honor those who lost their lives for us?

We're usually out of school before Memorial Day, but I've got a few book ideas for either Veteran's Day or Memorial Day. I always have to hunt out the good books from the library. I don't have many in my class for these holidays.

Memorial Day Surprise is very appropriate for kindergarten. It's about a little boy that accidentally thinks Memorial Day is Memory Day. His mother tells him that she has a surprise for him. There is a series of things that could be surprises, but the biggest surprise of all is seeing his grandfather in the parade. This book shows a great love and appreciation.

Here's a super quick craft that my kinders have made before.

You just need white, blue, and red paint,  clothespins with small pom poms on the end, and white cardstock or construction paper. That's it!

First, let the kids make the blue part. I just tell them to make a rectangle in the corner. Let that dry.

Then, you can either make the red stripes or make dots in the blue area where the stars are. We just made dots with our pom poms. We also just went straight across to make the red lines.

Super easy! It takes about 10 minutes or LESS. It depends on how fast your blue dries. You could always cut stars and glue those on instead of making white dots.

We've done different writing activities to go with this craft, but here's one for you!

Celebrating America {Handprint Flag}

Can you believe it is MAY!!! I hope that means your school year is finally winding down and you're getting the chance to have some fun with your kiddos to end the year.  Our next theme here on The Elementary Entourage is meant to bring you some ideas for celebrating any and all patriotic holidays. Coming up in May we have Armed Forces Day (5/16) and Memorial Day (5/25). Then there's Flag Day (6/14) and Independence Day (7/4) not too long after that. 

With a hubby in the military anything patriotic is pretty near and dear to my heart, so I always take time to celebrate these holidays in my classroom as well as Veterans Day in November and Presidents Day in February.

One of my favorite projects to do with my class is to create a hand print flag. It always makes a beautiful display and I usually change it up a little bit from year to year (or holiday to holiday) by asking students to respond to a different question.

Here is how it works:

You can't see in this picture but I also print the prompt out and display it near the flag. Here are just a few examples.

Just because I love our Elementary Entourage followers so much, you can grab this little project and all the printables above for FREE here!

If you are looking for even more ideas, find these posters are from my Celebrating America pack along with 90 pages of printables and ideas for celebrating patriotic holidays all year long.