Veterans Day Craft

Being the wife of a United States veteran, and having taught so many students from military families, it has always been important to me to include a Veterans Day craft in my lesson plans each November.

Here's what we used for our hallway bulletin boards:

(1) large 12 X 18 inch piece of light gray construction paper (cut as shown for body)

(1) 3 X 18 inch rectangle of light gray construction paper (arms)

(1) 5 X 8 inch rectangle of light gray construction paper (curved at top for helmet)

(1) 7 X 7 square of light gray construction paper (curved at bottom) 

(1) 6 X 6 square of skin colored construction paper (for face; curved at bottom; will be glued to 7 X 7 gray square)

(2) 3 X 4 rectangles in dark brown (to be cut into boot shapes)

(2) 3 X 3 squares in skin colored construction paper (for hands)

(1) 7 X 1 and 1/2 inch strip of red, brown, yellow, or black paper (for hair)

(2)  2 X 2 white squares (for eyes)

Red, white, and blue construction paper hearts (we layered ours)

(1) 1 X 4 strip of black construction paper (my students wrote their veterans' names on them and then glued them onto the hearts)

(2) shades of gray paint, one lighter than the other

(1) sponge, cut into smaller rectangles

Before working with the skin colored construction paper, my kindergartners glued the long rectangular gray strip across the back of the torso portion of the body piece.  Then they applied two different shades of gray paint with sponges, to mimic the digital camouflage pattern on modern Army uniforms, onto the body, arms, and smaller helmet piece.

Then the Stars glued the skin color piece onto the remaining gray piece, making sure the curved corners matched up.  The gray peeking around the face looks like the helmet's strap.  Then the kindergartners chose their soldier's hair color and glued it above the face:

After the paint had dried, the Stars completed the assembly of their veteran soldiers by gluing the helmet to the top of the head (leaving some hair peeking out), eyes onto the face, hands onto the end of each arm, and boots at the end of each leg. They used crayons to color in the eyes, and add mouths and cheeks. Then our red and white hearts were layered on top of the blue heart, and each student wrote his or her last name across the thin black rectangle, to mimic a soldier's name tag.

We hope visitors to our school enjoy our Veterans Day bulletin board during Open House later this month.

Thank you, Veterans!