Veteran's Day

Today and Friday of last week we spent some time learning about Veteran's Day. Friday we spent just 30 minutes discussing what Veteran's Day is through use of a Scholastic News article. We read through the article together and talked about some ways that we can thank Veterans for their service and bravery. The number one way students came up with was to write letters. Today we did just that!

Before getting into the letter writing though, we learned a bit more background information about Veteran's Day. We read a short blurb and discussed what Veteran's Day is, when it is, the difference between Veteran's Day and Memorial Day, why and how we celebrate Veteran's Day, etc. We also used this time to discuss features of non-fiction text and to review capital letters. Students took the page about Veteran's Day back to their tables and worked independently to highlight all of the capital letters they could find.

Finally it was time to write our letters to Veterans! We began by discussing reasons we are thankful for Veterans. Students brainstormed and we wrote down the reasons we could think of. Next we read a sample letter together and reviewed the features of a letter. Students each worked independently after this to write a letter to a veteran. Here are some of our finished products!

To end our day students completed a brief word work activity with some vocabulary words related to Veteran's Day such as: thank, country, and veteran. Further vocabulary discussions also took place to help us as we learned about this important holiday.