Veterans Day Bulletin Board

Looking for a great way to honor veterans this November?  Here's a fun bulletin board that gets all your students involved plus allows the students to make a personal connection!

Our student council was hosting a bulletin board contest for Veterans Day, so after having a conversation with my homeroom class we decided to make a flag using their hands.

It took a lot of delegation to complete a bulletin board together in the limited time we had each day, which was about 20 min a day.  But, the great thing about delegating was that everyone had a job to do!

We matched up students with similarly sized hands to be the "tracers."  Their only responsibility was to keep tracing their hands on the red and white paper!  Then we had a few students volunteer to cut out the hands.

A few students worked in the hallway to lay the foundation - put up the bulletin board paper and border.  Then we had the students who were able to cut out the stars for the flag.  Each student also added their picture to one of the stars on the flag.

Students were then able to dedicate a hand in honor of a person who has served or is currently serving in the military.  Some students could name a veteran who they wished to honor right away while other students went home and talked to their parents.

It was so awesome to see the kids report back the next day with a veteran's name (or two!) to add to a hand for our bulletin board.  The accompanying stories about these individuals were very impressive.  The students had such excitement in their eyes when telling the stories!

A bulletin board competition had turned into quite a learning activity.  This holiday finally had much more meaning for these students.

This experience got me thinking about how much more students are able to learn when they have a personal connection.

I thought it might be fun to have a letter writing campaign to veterans and those currently serving.  Maybe your student already has someone in mind, but maybe not.  If not, there is a project called Operation Gratitude who will distribute the letters.  Click here to read about this blog post and scoop up a FREEBIE letter writing template!

 Have your students learn more about Veterans Day and the five branches of the armed forces with this fun, fast-paced Veterans Day QR Code Trivia Scoot Game also available in my TpT Store!