Memorial Day Ideas

Are you looking for ideas on how to incorporate Memorial Day into your plans? If so, I highly suggest having your students watch the Reading Rainbow episode The Wall. In this episode, the book The Wall (by Eve Bunting) is read and LeVar visits the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington DC.  CLICK HERE to watch the episode (it's 27 minutes long -- whoop whoop).

After the video we'll discuss the overall tone of the story and provide reasons for our answer.  We'll also take out our United States maps and find where Washington DC is and compare the location to where we live (this will reinforce the map skills we've already learned this year). 

I also checked out all of Eve Bunting's other books from our school library. I'll show each book and read its title, then I'll tell my kiddos that if they enjoyed this book, they'll probably enjoy her other books as well.  I'll set the additional books in a basket and let them read the books when they get time. This is a simple way to expose your students to a wide variety of texts.  

I also think it's important to review Veteran's Day and discuss the similarities/differences between the two holidays. CLICK HERE for a worksheet that compares the two holidays -- this worksheet is actually found within my product Spend  a Day Teaching About Veterans Day.  

And last but not least, Super Teacher Worksheets has a FREE reading passage with questions available for download. CLICK HERE to get it.  They have it marked at a 4th grade reading level, so I plan on reading it with my 2nd graders.  Not that you can read the text from the picture, but this is what it looks like:

At some point, we'll also discuss what our traditions are for Memorial Day and we might write a letter to a member of the military thanking them for their service. I'll also encourage my kiddos to teach their family about the true meaning of Memorial Day.

Do you know of any other great Memorial Day resources? I'd love to hear about them.