Happy Veterans Day!

Happy Veterans Day!  I wanted to share our Veterans Day Wall that my sweet friend Lorri, who teaches first grade across the hall from me, organized. We all sent a letter home with our students asking for names of relatives who were Veterans.  They sent in the names, and we made stars to honor them on our wall.  I love how it turned out.  This was only the primary wing.  Next year, she wants to have the whole school participate. You should have heard the chatter of all the kids talking about the Veterans they knew.  It was really wonderful.  

We learned all about the National Anthem this week.  I posted about it here.

After we sing  through the book, we take one page at a time and delve into some fabulous vocabulary.  Here is a paper I made (just for me) with a quick history of the song (that I condense for my kids) and the vocabulary and phrases we discuss- dawn, twilight, hailed, broad, ramparts, gallantly, perilous, proud...  It is really amazing what they learn from this song.   If you would like a copy, just click on the picture. It's also amazing the number of "ramparts" that will be built out of blocks after they learn this word! I sent a copy home with the children, so they could amaze their parents.

The children learned the vocabulary so quickly. We review it every time we sing the song, so they really know what the song means.  I think that is important for them- and they love knowing it.

I found this AWESOME Star Spangled Banner Freebie at the Crafty Classroom blog!  It is wonderful. I laminated the pages and made a couple classroom books. The illustrations are great and really help with the vocabulary.

There is also a mini book for the children to take home. They absolutely LOVED it! I sent it home with them today, after we had sung the song all week, and they knew it pretty well.  Once they got the books, they sang it all day, as you can imagine!

After our song and vocabulary lesson, we watched lots of different versions of the song sung by different artists.  I put some different versions together on this Back to School Prezi.  Just click on the picture if you would like it. It is free at my TPT store.  It is part of my Fun in the Fall Prezi .The last four white stripes have different artists singing the National Anthem.  I sort of organized them by history, then young children singing it, then the "girls," then the "boys," as my kids call them.

Have a wonderful day!  Thank you for stopping by!