We Will Never Forget...America, the Beautiful Freebie

We Will Never Forget…

It’s true. Forever and always we believe most of us will wake up on this day remembering exactly where we were. What we were doing. Who we were with. It is a day we saw horrific tragedy no matter how close or far we were, but from it came incredible strength and courage and triumph.

Each year that passes, we realize our little friends were less a twinkle in their parents eyes than the year before, yet it is something we must discuss. It has become history to them, but to us it was real. It is something we feel obligated to share with even our littlest learners.

We always ask what they know. We want to gauge our conversation. As the years are passing, less hands are being raised. They know little. This makes us sad. So, we share. We know a few know the details, but we do not focus on those. Instead, we talk about America…and Americans…and heroes. How heroes come in all shapes and sizes. They are not always caped crusaders or star athletes. They can be people. Like you and me. Those are the true heroes. They walk amongst us. We tell them to keep their eyes open because heroes can be walking next to them anytime, anywhere. It could even be them one day! Their eyes are wide and we’ve got their attention…

With this, we smoothly sail into our first social studies unit! We find this week especially timely to kick off our America, the Beautiful Unit. We will spend the next two weeks learning about a few of our most famous American Symbols.

In honor of our beautiful country and its symbols, we came up with a few *FREE* activities that we’d love to share with you today!

We know there are so many symbols to choose from, but these are the ones we’re focusing on this year. We’ll use these word cards in the pocket chart and up on the board. We like to print and laminate several sets and use them in centers too. We cut the picture part away from the word to make an instant matching game!

We’ll have our friends work through this little book over the course of the next two weeks. As we learn about each symbol, we will fill in the letters and words to complete our book. We will have them color where they can, then try their hand at a little free drawing in the box above. The rhyming was sorta an accident, but then it became a challenge! So, in the end it all rhymes…It’s a total teacher curse!!! Please tell us you have it too?

We love word building! It is so good for them and such a great way to get them using those letters and sounds! We use it whenever we can in class.

So, this week they will see how many words they can make with the letters in the word

AMERICA.

We’ll print, laminate and chop these letter cards up for them to use in the pocket chart. Then, we’ll make a few extra sets and offer it as a small group activity with the worksheet below.