How to Celebrate Memorial Day in Your Classroom

Celebrating special occasions or national holidays is very important for a classroom teacher. No matter what level you teach at, some form of decoration or classroom project should be done to commemorate the holiday.

Memorial Day is a wonderful time to assign classroom projects and to decorate the classroom to commemorate the special day. Memorial Day was begun after the American Civil War when people wanted to honor and remember the soldiers who were killed. Today, Memorial Day commemorates American war dead from many different wars, including the war in Iraq. There are many things you can do to celebrate Memorial Day in your classroom, but here are just a few of them.

1. Bulletin Board With Information About Past Wars. Put your students into groups and assign each group a war to do research about. The American Civil War, the First World War, Second World War, the Korean War, the Vietnam War, the Iraq war can all be assigned to different groups. Have your students find information about each war, including how many soldiers died in the war (on both sides). Then ask each group to create a bulletin board for the classroom about the war they were assigned.

2. War Heroes. Find some information about a famous war hero from each war and create a notebook about 'War Heroes'. Your students can then read personal stories about soldiers who died, which brings home the war on a more personal level.

3. Write To A Soldier in Iraq. Many soldiers would love to receive letters or parcels from people back home. There are several organizations you can contact who will assign you a soldier to write to. On Memorial Day, it would be nice to send a care package to a soldier overseas so ask each child to bring in something small to add to the package.

4. Family Members in the War. If some students have family members who are in the war in Iraq or Afghanistan, have them talk about them. Tell the class who they are, what they like to do, how long they have been in Iraq or Afghanistan and what they do there.

5. Invite a Veteran. In many instances, veterans of American wars have been forgotten. Contact a Veterans organization and invite a war veteran to come and speak to your class about what it's like being a member of the armed services during war time. (If this is for smaller kids, just make sure you check what he is going to say so that he doesn't frighten your kids too much by accident).

6. Memorial Day Field Trip. If your school allows this, arrange for the children to visit a local graveyard and leave flowers on the graves of soldiers who were killed in past wars. Graveyards are interesting, especially for older children and this activity is an actual physical commemoration of Memorial Day.

There are many things you can do for Memorial Day. These will help you celebrate Memorial Day in your classroom and allow your students to learn more about the Memorial Day holiday while doing activities they don't normally do.