Heroes ALL

It's Veterans' Day, a day set aside for us to remember and to say thank you to those heroes who have helped to keep us safe and free. How will you be celebrating today?
     Dressed in Red, White, And Blue, our first graders will be putting on a Patriotic Performance to honor their invited guests - Our Veterans - for their service and sacrifice. These little citizens study the branches of the military and gather the names and pictures of family members and friends who've served. They write notes of thanks to give to them after their Friday performance. Bulletin boards go up and the kids start practicing their songs. We set a place at the table to represent the soldier who hasn't yet returned and write HERO in salt on the plate, just like on the cover of the book America's White Table by Margot Theis Raven. We will also call the names of our fallen soldiers. It's the best and most heartwarming project that we do all year.


Thanks to Denise at Yearn To Learn, we now have another touching tribute to share and use as a resource; just listen to the children who are lifting their voices in song to let the valiant servicemen and women know that we will never forget:




Here's Part One of our program from last year.

Here's Part Two from that same program.

9 comments

  1. I'm going to have to get the book America's White Table for my next year's lessons. My library didn't have it to use this year. Glad others are finding the song link for Thank You Veterans useful. Our student chorus sang their version at our school assembly on Wednesday.

    Denise

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  2. neat. Our program was so emotional today. We had over 50 vets there. Three wives represented three vets currently deployed to Kosovo. We dressed up 6 3rd graders in mini veteran uniforms and each one said I am a veteran and then read about their war. WW1-- I fought in WW1 and on the 11th hr of the 11th day the peace treaty was signed. We now call that Veteran's Day. WW2 I fought in World War 11 which was the war that was to end all wars. They call us the greatest generation. Korea: I was a nurse in the Korean War and I took care of the wounded soldiers. Viet Nam: I was a Prisoner of War. Gulf War: I served in Operation Desert Storm; and closed with a marine who said he was serving in Afghanistan and when his service was ended he would be a veteran. Our kids sang a beautiful song to the veterans, we showed the Tundstall video and then held a tea for them. Many tears were shed but it was an amazing day as the veterans told where they served and thanked the kids for their cards and letters.

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  3. Sounds awesome, Jo - thanks for sharing! Yes, our first graders take our Veterans back to their classrooms as well for cookies and punch and to interview them. It's a special day for all of us when we're able to show our gratitude and give just a little back . . . so emotional!

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  4. Hi Barbara:
    Between the post, the comments, the song, and the comments, I'm a mess!
    As usual, your commentary affected me--and inspired me to do more for Veteran's Day next year.
    Loved the RAK idea too. We just elected Student Council officers last week.
    I think that is a great idea for one of their first projects.
    THANKS for ALL you do for me...

    Kim
    Finding JOY in 6th Grade

    PS I left you a special thanks on my Red Cup post too!

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  5. Thanks for the shout out, Kim. You are an expert bucket filler!!! Check back tomorrow to see the video clip of our award-winning band performance and a picture of my pride and joys . . . (can that word even be plural?)

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  6. Sounds like y'all had a wonderful veterans day program! I was hoping my school would have a white table set up but they didn't.

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  7. Gosh Jo's comment got me teary eyed. Glad I found your blog to read all this!

    I came here from the "Teaching Blog Addict" site because this is a great idea for our Linky Party too this week. The theme is 'Veterans Day' this time. We want to keep celebrating our Veterans!

    Would you like to add your post to our site? We're somewhat new, yet getting good traffic already and ranking very well for the search engines.

    We'd love to host your 'link' there this week too!

    Thank you for your consideration,

    Pam Hoffman
    http://conservationofeggs.blogspot.com/2011/11/5th-conservation-linky-honor-our.html

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  8. Thank you for adding your link to our link party at conservationofeggs.blogspot.com.

    I think that your followup comment deserves to be its own post. That was beautiful.

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  9. Yes, Jeff, my friend Jo is a counselor at an AMAZING School of Character in WI that is doing wonderful things with their young citizens!

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