Shapes and Veteran's Day

 Veteran's Day and Shapes!

We began the day learning about shapes with Miss Jessica! 
Each student listed their favorite shape:
Anna: heart
Lena: diamond
Eva: star
Ragean: heart
Zakai: square
Tanner: triangle
Ben: circle
Lukas: circle
Maelo: rectangle
Harris: square

We read the book Circle Song, where a dad points out all of the circles you see at night (stars, moon, face, hug, etc). We realized that you could find shapes in the objects in the world around us! We were excited to find shapes in objects around the room. The clock was a big circle, the lights were rectangles, the houses had triangles up on top, etc.

We learned about other shapes, such as an octagon (stop sign!) and pentagon. We counted the number of sides that each shape had. 

We then made shapes with our bodies. Miss Jessica would say a shape and we would try to make our bodies into that shape.

After recess we talked about Veteran's Day! Miss Julie taught us the Veteran's Day Salute song and facts about Veteran's Day.
 

 An oft forgotten holiday tucked between Halloween and Thanksgiving is:

Veterans Day originated as “Armistice Day” on Nov. 11, 1919, the first anniversary of the end of World War I. Congress passed a resolution in 1926 for an annual observance, and Nov. 11 became a national holiday beginning in 1938. Veterans Day is not to be confused with Memorial Day–a common misunderstanding, according to the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs. Memorial Day (the fourth Monday in May) honors American service members who died in service to their country or as a result of injuries incurred during battle, while Veterans Day pays tribute to all American veterans–living or dead–but especially gives thanks to living veterans who served their country honorably during war or peacetime.


Song:

Veteran’s Day Salute

Music and Lyrics Janeen Brady

On Veterans Day a tribute we pay those wonderful men who helped to defend America.

We Salute you.

On Veterans Day a "thank you" we say to those, one and all, who answered the call America gave to them.

Those military folks in uniform who left the homes they love for battle's storm.

Those veterans brave so gen'rously gave their all to defend their home and their friends. 

America, America is proud to salute its veterans this day.

  
We then had a special fieldtrip surprise! Zakai's grandpa (Joel Barlow) lives next door to the preschool and was honored to have us visit and ask him questions about being a Veteran. He is a Veteran of Vietnam. He showed us his two uniforms (Dress and Fatigues). He taught us how to salute with our right hand and we discussed what it meant to show respect. 

Some fun quotes from our talk with Mr. Barlow:
What does salute mean? "To SHOOT!" shouts Tanner and Lukas. 
They were disappointed to learn that a salute is a hand signal showing a sign of respect. 
Mr.Barlow explained that to be in the military you train using weapons but that is a very small part of what it means to SERVE our country. 

"Helping others help us be happy," Barlow continued.  Harris says, "I help my mom!"
Raegan added, "Me and my brother help mom do laundry!"

Lukas mentioned he brought guns. Sure enough, he packed toy guns  to show us in his bag from home.

Mr. Barlow continued to teach us: "Always take the opportunity to help others. Always obey your patents. In the military, we had to obey orders!"

"A salute shows respect to captains or generals or others with more authority than you.
We salute with the right hand over the right eye."

"How can we show respect? Love, obey, do things for others (serve) that brings joy."

Mr. Barlow mentioned that Vietnam is a country on the other side of the world. there is a lot of forests, jungle, and rain.  He traveled 12 hours on a plane.


We are grateful to Mr. Barlow and all of those who have served and are serving our country!