Celebrating America {with Haley from The McGrew Crew}

Recently I did this super cute fireworks craft with my boys! We liked it so much that I wanted to share it as a fun way for you and your students to celebrate America! HERE is the original post where I found this craft, but I will give you a step-by-step of ours! Check out the end of the post for some other crafty ways to celebrate America and a FREEBIE!

Cut a toilet paper roll down the middle to open it up. Cut 1.5-2 inch slits along one edge of the roll. Next, roll it back up (smaller than the original roll) and tape closed.

Fan out the slits to create your fireworks stamper! Make several of these to use with different colors!

Click on the pictures below for more ideas:

And last but not least, click on either of the following pictures for some FREE lined writing paper to use with your students while you celebrate America!

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 {with Stephanie from The Learning Chambers}

I grew up in an extended military family.  My grandfather was in the air force, my uncle was in the air force, and my other uncle is in the army and has served two tours in Iraq and also served during Desert Storm.  I truly am so thankful for their service and also for the service of the countless men and women that have served to protect our country.  THANK YOU!

Since this time is a little busy with my second graders finishing their bird research projects and me DRA testing, I know that I definitely want integrate Memorial Day into my workstations.

WRITING CENTER
I LOVE putting little books into my writing station for my kids to put together and then read to learn more.  I found this PERFECT Memorial Day Book Freebie from Fun Fabulous Firsties.

Click on the product cover to grab this freebie.  Please make sure you leave her some feedback love!

INDEPENDENT READING

I also love updating my class library by putting out books that match either our theme or upcoming holidays.  Here is a website that shares 11 books about the USA that I can't wait to check out.

Click on the picture to visit the post from No Time for Flash Cards.

READING SMALL GROUPS

Lastly, I love to have my students work on informational texts during reading small groups to practice skills like main idea and locating facts and details.

This American Presidents pack is my FAVORITE and my kids love it too!  I mean it is so much fun to read and learn about our current president and also some of our favorite past presidents.

Here is a George Washington informational text freebie for you to try out.

Click on the product cover to grab this freebie.

Thanks for reading my post!  I hope you are able to integrate some of these into your classroom during May and June.

Celebrating America {with Stephany from Primary Possibilities}

There are a lot of important patriotic holidays coming up!  Make sure you follow all of the posts this first half of the month to grab up as many great ideas as you can!  I have a super easy and cute craft that you can use for any of the patriotic holidays!

You are going to need 7 bendable straws, a little tape, a paper plate, red/white/blue paint, and black construction paper.  Tape the straws together and then bend them outward to make a firework shape.  Pour some of the red, blue and white paint on the paper plate.  Don't worry if they get mixed, once you get started the paint will get all blended together anyway!  

Take the straws and place them on the paper.  You will want to lightly press down on the straws to make sure they make contact with the paper. 

 Dip the straws again and then press them down in the same spot but with the straws in a different spot.  This will give you a full looking firework!

I whipped up this writing paper that you can use to go with the craft!  There are two versions with different sized writing lines.   Click on the image below to go grab it up for FREE! 

Celebrating America! [with Dianna from Sassy, Savvy, Simple Teaching]

Happy May Friends~

Hi Friends it's Dianna from Sassy, Savvy, Simple Teaching here with you today! This month we are sharing ideas of how we celebrate America . We have a few holidays coming up:

1. May 16: Armed Forces Day
2. May 25: Memorial Day
3. June 14: Flag Day
4. July 4: Independence Day

I'm here today to talk to you about American Symbols.

Question: Why do we NOT just teach students what American Symbols are & mean?

In reality, they will not change. So through a child's life, in school or out of school, the meaning of these symbols will not change. JUST TEACH THEM IT! This will actually help them through their career as a scholar when they come across this information in daily reading or through types of assessments. It is very POWERFUL for students to know about these American Symbols!

You can teach your students about 4 American Symbols in my May Close Reading pack geared towards grades Second - Fifth. These passages are great to work with Informational Standards on & to teach students the meaning of a few important American Symbols. 

Click HERE to get more information about what is included in my monthly Close Reads!

Here is a few photos of my May Close Reads pack...

[click on the photo above for a direct link]

[click on the photo above for a direct link]

Celebrating America {With Mrs. Dailey's Classroom}

Happy May 2nd, Friends! This month we are sharing ideas of how we celebrate the Armed Forces with our students because there are so many holidays for these heroes which are quickly approaching:

1. May 16: Armed Forces Day

2. May 25: Memorial Day

3. June 14: Flag Day

4. July 4: Independence Day

I love celebrating these holidays with my students and teaching them about the five branches of the military. This year I started by giving my students a pre-assessment to see what they know about the American Military.

{Pre-assessment Tip: Instead of copying a worksheet, have students do this in a social studies or other notebook in their desks}

Then we looked at the five different branches of the military. We will be studying them over the next several days but I wanted to see what my students knew about these branches right now. I had them get sticky notes and tell me one thing they knew about one branch of the military.

From this activity, I saw that most of my students were familiar with, or wanted to share an idea they had about the Army.

After we completely study each branch, we will play this "I Have, Who Has The American Military" game next week.

We play the game several days in a row with a timer to see how fast we can get through the cards as a class! 

{If you are interested in this game, you can grab it in my TpT store here.}

I love using these nonfiction texts by Robin Nelson which take a close look at the different holidays honoring our American Heroes! These texts are great to use in small groups or while teaching whole group because they are small enough for the students to hold and flip the pages easily.

For a nonfiction connection, I love reading Civil War on Sunday by Mary Pope Osborne which is part of the Magic Tree House series. 

I hope you feel like you got a peek inside of my classroom and now have some tips on materials to use for anytime you would like to Celebrate America!

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.