Veteran's Day/Remembrance Day Lesson Plan

[theYoungerMrsWarde]

What are you doing to teach your kids about Veteran's Day/Remembrance Day? I learned a lot preparing our lesson plan for today! I never knew the reason for the poppies that the veteran's sold before I started preparing for today. How do you explain war/the "need" for war to young, sensitive kids?

 

(Here's the blog post link for the lesson plan if you're interested.)

[theYoungerMrsWarde]

And thank you to all our board veterans and spouses of veterans!

[Kerileanne99]

What are you doing to teach your kids about Veteran's Day/Remembrance Day? I learned a lot preparing our lesson plan for today! I never knew the reason for the poppies that the veteran's sold before I started preparing for today. How do you explain war/the "need" for war to young, sensitive kids?

 

(Here's the blog post link for the lesson plan if you're interested.)

I love what you have put together! As a veteran with a young child I have been looking for more age appropriate ideas...thanks, and I left a comment on your blog:)

[theYoungerMrsWarde]

I love what you have put together! As a veteran with a young child I have been looking for more age appropriate ideas...thanks, and I left a comment on your blog:)

 

Thank you so much for your service! Thank you for keeping us free. :patriot:  :gnorsi:

 

[theYoungerMrsWarde]

DO you know this one?

http://www.amazon.com/Flanders-Fields-Norman-Jorgenson/dp/1894965833/ref=sr_1_5?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1384190897&sr=1-5&keywords=in+flanders+fields

 

It was our first introduction in WWI

 

Thank you for this resource! I'm putting it on my list.

[swellmomma]

When the kids were small we enjoyed the book "A poppy is to remember"  We also always read In Flanders Field.  This year my teens were marching with the cadets in the ceremonies and laying wreaths at the cenotaph as well as sitting through the main ceremony here, Friday they marched in and were part of 3 other ceremonies (1 at each school in the next town over).  I opted not to do much as far as a lesson plan this year as a result.  Instead my teens have spent hours each friday and today talking to veterans and learning their stories.  Ds10 spent time this weekend checking out his great grandfather's medals (my grandfather left them to my father when he died) and hearing stories from both my parents about growing up with fathers in the military(my mom's father was navy, my dad's was army). 

 

 

As for how to explain to young sensitive kids,I never told them there was a need for war.  Rather I told them that there is good and evil in this world and that sometimes our men and women choose to stand up for what is right, and that sometimes that means war, and those people feel so strongly about what is right and wanting to keep the world safe for everyone, especially those who can not stand up for it themselves like little children that they go to heaven instead of coming home to their families.  And that is what makes them heroes, that they give it all for what is good and to protect us all from evil. 

I never focused on war itself but on the courage of those who chose to stand up and defend what was right.  I focused on the bravery and not the devestation kwim.  Now that the bigger kids are teens they are studying more about the causes of war, the evils that happen during them, the fear faced by those soldiers etc.  But when small it was all about the brave heros.  Perhaps that is part of why both of them plan to enlist when they graduate, both have said they want to protect us all like their great grandparents, paternal grandfather, and father.