"Top Gratis Veterans Day Educational Resources and Activities"
Celebrating Veterans Day in U.S. classrooms offers an opportunity to honour and educate students about the sacrifices made by veterans. Here are some recommended resources and approaches to make the most of this special day.
The Teacher's Corner, a popular educational resource, provides a variety of lessons and activities for Veterans Day, including a printable online scavenger hunt and poetry exercises to honour our veterans.
The National Education Association (NEA) offers lesson plans, activities, games, and resources for Veterans Day, tailored to different grade levels.
PBS provides a lesson plan for middle and high school students, focusing on the meaning of sacrifice, challenges faced by veterans, and the risks and benefits of being a soldier.
Detailed lesson plans with timed activities that incorporate warm-ups, objectives reviews, videos, and hands-on practice are highly effective. For instance, a weekly lesson plan document outlines Veterans Day segments including short reviews, discussions, and creative or interactive components to deepen understanding.
Veterans storytelling sessions, where veterans share their personal experiences either in person or virtually, foster empathy and a direct connection to the meaning of the day, often sparking meaningful reflection and discussion.
Interactive activities like trivia or history quizzes about veterans, military history, and notable figures, using tools such as Kahoot! or Quizizz, can enhance student engagement and learning.
Letter-writing campaigns for veterans, where students express gratitude through notes or cards, often coordinated with organizations like Operation Gratitude, create a real impact and personal connection.
Educational platforms like Newsela and the U.S. Department of Education website also provide lesson plans and ELA/social studies activities contextualized for Veterans Day to help students understand the broader historical and social implications of military service and remembrance.
The Library of Congress' Veterans History Project, the largest oral history project in U.S. history, collects over 65,000 items from thousands of veterans since 2000. Lesson plans examining the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington D.C., significant battles in U.S. history, and firsthand stories of veterans who served despite discrimination based on race, heritage, or gender are available.
The Wounded Warrior project offers creative activities and hands-on learning experiences for kids on Veterans Day. To better understand the difficulties that veterans today face, students can listen to an NPR interview with author Tim O'Brien, conducted 20 years after the publication of The Things They Carried.
The Discovery Education virtual field trip for upper elementary and middle school students focuses on the importance of service through the stories of two U.S. Congressmen who served in the military.
Veterans Day is celebrated annually on November 11, honouring veterans, both living and dead. According to the Department of Veterans Affairs, Veterans Day doesn't belong to veterans, but instead honours them, so it should be written as "Veterans Day" without an apostrophe.
Teacher Planet offers resources for teaching Veterans Day, including lesson plans, worksheets, and activities. Originally called Armistice Day, it was renamed Veterans Day in 1954. U.S. Veterans Affairs publishes a teachers guide for Veterans Day-related classroom activities each year.
The day commemorates the end of World War I on the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month of 1918. Students can read about the end of World War I and get an immediate sense of what life and public opinion was like during past wars by exploring various digital newspaper archives.
In conclusion, these resources combine structured curriculum elements with participatory and empathetic learning approaches, making them especially effective for classroom teaching on Veterans Day. For specific downloadable lesson plans or curated activity sets, start with your local school district’s teaching resources or major educational sites like the U.S. Department of Education’s portal and Newsela for vetted content. For interactive and experiential learning, connect with veterans’ groups or nonprofit organizations that facilitate storytelling or letter-writing projects.
- A popular educational resource, The Teacher's Corner, offers interactive activities for Veterans Day, including an online scavenger hunt and poetry exercises to honor veterans.
- The National Education Association (NEA) provides lesson plans, activities, games, and resources for different grade levels to educate students about Veterans Day.
- For middle and high school students, PBS offers a lesson plan focusing on the meaning of sacrifice, challenges faced by veterans, and the risks and benefits of being a soldier.
- Detailed lesson plans that include interactive components like videos, discussions, and creative activities can deepen understanding of Veterans Day, as demonstrated in a weekly lesson plan document.
- To foster empathy and a direct connection to the meaning of Veterans Day, consider hosting veterans storytelling sessions where they share their personal experiences, either in person or virtually.
