Veteran's Day

Last week we celebrated Veteran's Day. I'm in charge of the assembly for our school. Though there were some kinks along the way (always), everything turned out great!

Our elementary runs through sixth grade. I wanted them to be a part of our assembly even though it was for all grades PK-12th. Because of our school connections, I was able to obtain real military uniforms from every war and one from someone currently serving in the mountains of Afghanistan. I was in awe of the WWI and WWII uniforms to say the least.

We chose not to use the one from Korea, but went another way instead. I chose 6 sixth graders who usually don't get to do a lot. Those students got to dress in the uniforms. One girl dressed as a nurse in the Korean War instead of a male soldier. She and her mom got her uniform together and it was perfect! I also had two girls from the same grade read various things pertaining to Veteran's Day (the history, what a veteran is/does, a poem, and several introductions). We had the kids walk in carrying the two flags (American and state). Our MS/HS band students played the National Anthem and America the Beautiful. Besides the two girls doing all the reading, the students in uniforms went individually to the mic, introduced themselves and said, "I am a Veteran. I fought in..." Once all six had done this, the band instructor played TAPS. At the end all six students walked to the front of the stage and saluted our veterans who attended the assembly. Those in the audience held up papers to make an overhead flag across the auditorium. This was done once with the elementary kids and again with the JH/HS kids.

The person snapping this picture told me the elementary kids were better at it than the junior high/high school kids. (Go elementary!) I'm so thankful to all veterans throughout history. I have a history of servicemen in my family. I cancelled elementary classroom lessons for the week. Everyone attended the assembly and those teachers covered the day more in their classrooms. I spent the rest of the week in training to prepare for the upcoming testing season and then uploading student data to the testing site. I literally locked myself in my office Friday in order to complete the upload. While waiting on some feedback, I came out once, late in the afternoon, in order to fill pantry bags. When I returned some students had left a cute (and tastey), surprise on my desk.