Kirsten 0:00
This is the social studies teacher podcast a show for busy elementary teachers looking for fun and engaging ways to easily add social studies into their classroom schedule without feeling overwhelmed or pressed for time. I'm curious to know if you southern teach an educator and mom who is passionate about all things social studies, I love sharing ideas and strategies that are low prep and easy to implement. So let's dive in together.
Hey there and welcome to another episode of the social studies teacher podcast. This episode is all about for low prep and engaging veterans day activities for your students. While I am not a veteran, I do have many family members, including my dad, both of my grandpa's uncles. We are a military family, for sure. And I applaud all those veterans who have served our country, they have so much bravery. And I think it's so important to make sure we expend some time incorporating the holiday with our students. And I know that of course, sometimes we're not really able to because there's not enough time to incorporate social studies in the first place. But these activities that I share with you are really going to take no more than 20 to 30 minutes, it definitely can be done under 30 minutes, it can be integrated into your ELA block or your science blog, just taking some time to really actually talk about Veterans Day, I think is so important and necessary.
So the first really cool engaging way would be to conduct a Nearpod lesson with your class. I did mention a previous episode about how Nearpod is so awesome. They have Nearpod lessons for pretty much anything you can think about. But there are some veteran stay lessons just for grades three through five, but they also have six through eight nine through 12. And it's just an easy slideshow lesson that can be done with their devices, your students devices, you can either assign for them to work on it independently or you can do it as a whole group. So there's two options. So I mean, you can really have it as even as homework or something like that. But definitely recommend doing the whole group version where you have your projector on the screen with the teacher slides. But then also there's the students have their own devices out and they get to answer the prompts and the questions and look through all of the activities on their own device. So Nearpod is super cool to utilize with Veterans Day, there's pretty much a topic on anything under the sun.
The second really cool activity is super simple is just to write and send a letter to a veteran, you can take the time to discuss the main parts of a friendly letter with the class. Then after that, give them some notebook paper. Or you can have you know, a set paper that you make copies of so that they can write and illustrate a letter and just have students write a positive and meaningful letter to a veteran, they can send it home, and maybe you know, if they have veteran at home that they'd like to give it to, or you can send them to a local veterans organization. There's also a website called a million things.org forward slash letter where you can ship your letters to that organization, and they will distribute it to military members. So there's three different options that you can do. But definitely, writing and sending a letter after talking about veterans day talking about the parts of a friend letter can be very beneficial, great activity for students.
A third activity would be to have students complete a Veterans Day WebQuest activity with a partner. So this is something that I do offer MIT PT store, among other holidays, got a whole bunch of different web quests activities. But the Veterans Day web quests can be done easily, they just go to a website that's in the actual worksheet, and then they can fill in the blanks to learn about what Veterans Day is why it's important how people celebrate it. And there's also an extension activity that students can do as like a fast finisher activity or just as an extra activity.
And then the fourth way to have students engaged and learn about Veterans Day would just be to compare and contrast that are in stay with another similar but different holiday Memorial Day on anchor chart paper. So you can search BrainPOP videos or YouTube videos on Veterans Day and Memorial Day, just simple five minute video for each of those holidays. And then as a class, create a Venn diagram and compare and contrast Veterans Day and memorial day thinking about what's similar about those holidays, putting that in the middle of the Venn diagram, and then having the differences on the outer circles. This can be something that you can do as a whole group. Or you can have students even do it, as you know, like in pairs or in smaller groups, and they can work around the room and share their findings as a whole group giving them about 10 minutes, 15 minutes to compare and contrast, and then coming together as a whole group and talking about. So that's something that you can do that's easily done in under 30 minutes.
So let me recap those four different ways you can incorporate fun and low prep, but still engaging activities about Veterans Day, just do a Nearpod I totally recommend you get an account, it's for free, you can sign up for free as a teacher. Another one would be to have students write a friendly letter to a veteran. The third way would be to complete a Veterans Day WebQuest. And the fourth way would be to watch a couple of BrainPOP videos or super short videos about Veterans Day and Memorial Day and compare and contrast them so they can see what's similar and different about these holidays.
All right, well, hopefully these ideas helped you out and get your brain thinking about different ways you can incorporate it, it's super easy to do in the time you have. It's just a matter of really getting that chance to implement it. Alright, well that's it for today. I hope you have a wonderful rest of your week. Thanks for listening to the social studies teacher podcast. If you enjoyed listening to this episode, hit that subscribe button and leave a review. I would love to hear your thoughts. You can also find me on Instagram at the southern teach. I can't wait for you to join me in the next episode for more teacher tips and strategies.
