Remembering 9/11

I am linking up with Erica from Erica Bohrer's First Grade to show you an easy peasy 9/11 activity I did with my little ones.

We started off by watching this clip from brainpop.com. My little ones had tons of questions, so I did the best I could to answer them. A very difficult lesson indeed.

I became a bit choked up as I started to answer their innocent questions (every year, never fails). As they saw my eyes water they became increasingly quiet. Something inside them told them this was serious. And very real.

I didn't want to scare them or get too deep into the topic so I quickly jumped to how cool soldiers are for protecting us from something terrible like this ever happening again.

And sure enough each one of them started raising their hands saying "My daddy is a solider", "My mommy is a soldier", or "My uncle is in the Army", and "My grandpa was in the war too".

After getting them back on track we practiced singing "God Bless the USA" by Lee Greenwood for our Patriot Day Assembly. We also reviewed some flag facts using this resource. We've been working on shapes & colors so this activity tied in perfectly with our shapes unit. I gave them a rectangle pattern and had them trace and cut it onto gray paper to make the World Trade Center.

The one on the right went a little overboard there :)

We also made these simple flags. The boys used a star while the girls used a heart. I pre- cut the pieces for them and the heart & star came from this unit.