As we prepare to commemorate Veteran’s Day this Sunday, November 11th, I am reminded that today we are also voting for the Commander in Chief of the US Armed Forces.
This summer our Executive Producer, Mason, and her family visited the Normandy Beaches in France. Her three kids, typical bored teenagers, were so engaged by the visit, we knew we touched on an interesting topic that needed to be covered by Maggie’s Earth Adventures. As a result, we immediately developed an activity to help celebrate Veteran’s Day and pay tribute to our war heroes in this week’s WAP.
We did limit the WAP to three historical sites but you can easily enrich this activity by encouraging your students to study the entire area, particularly the Omaha and Utah Beaches.
Mason also discovered the day-to-day walk of life of these soldiers, many of whom were teenagers themselves, really resonated with her kids. Many soldiers of that time were so passionate about stepping up for their country they lied about their age and In fact, our own Dr Kathy’s father did the same. This angle might be the ideal way to draw your students in and urge them to start thinking about our veterans not as faceless soldiers, but as real people, boys and girls, men and women, who have made extraordinary sacrifices so that we can enjoy the freedoms we do as Americans. Encourage your students to join with us as we pay tribute to all our military personnel this weekend.
