Theme Week: Celebrating Memorial Day by Learning About Our Military
In a few weeks, the United States will celebrate Memorial Day. For many, this means a weekend at the lake, barbeques, or placing flowers on the graves of our loved ones. Originally, however, the day was to remember the men and women who died while protecting and serving our country. So while many Memorial Day activities for children revolve around the red, white, and blue flag of our country, I decided to do something a little different.
For this Memorial Day lesson theme, we learned about the five different branches of the
UNITED STATES ARMED FORCES
The five main branches of the military are the Army, Navy, Air Force, Marines, and Coast Guard. Since our themes are for one week, I went over one branch per day.
Air Force
To begin our military week, we started by learning about the Air Force. Now, every job within the entire Armed Forces has multiple duties. They use different tools, weapons, and vehicles. So to keep the description of the Air Force simple enough for kids, I explained that they fight in the air.
For our lesson, I went with a favorite of children everywhere. We made paper airplanes and raced them through the air! One of the kids made the initial fold along the shorter edge rather than the longer, and she quickly learned that it wouldn’t fly nearly as well. So she made a second that could keep up with the others.
After several rounds of races, the kiddos decided to pretend they were flying in the Air Force. This led to them throwing their planes at each other as if “fighting” the enemy. They played this game for almost thirty minutes and even added in throwing pretend bombs and missiles.
ARMY
The Army is perhaps the most commonly talked about branch of the U.S. military, especially to children. Many little ones dress up as soldiers for Halloween or pretend play. When they play any “war” games, it’s usually with roles assigned to Army soldiers. And when I, personally, think of the Army, I think of the tough places they have to go when serving our country.
So for this lesson, I created an obstacle course that simplified the physical aspects of a soldier’s job. It included crawling through “mud,” running, balancing, and of course, an Army crawl. We had to do it inside, so furniture made for acceptable obstacles.
I used a bean bag for the “mud” that he had to crawl through. He made it entertaining by throwing himself face-first into the overly soft cushion and then getting stuck. He had to roll himself off of it.
For the balancing, there weren’t many choices that he could do safely. The bench seating for the dining table worked fine, though he ran across it easily.
I had him Army crawl in two different places. The first was under the dining chairs. He had to do this without touching the bottom of the chair seats. The second was a blanket I stretched over the couch that he had to crawl under without pulling the blanket down. He made it through the blanket crawl with minimal trouble. The chairs, however, proved difficult. He kept pulling his knees up under himself and touching his lower back to the chairs.
NAVY
Another popular military position kids tend to hear about are Navy SEALS. Obviously SEALS are not the only specialty in the military, and they go places that Navy sailors do not. To keep the lesson at the level my 4-year-old can understand, I taught him that people who serve in the Navy work on the water. I know they do so much more, and if you teach your child the many jobs sailors have, that’s great. Make sure to customize the lesson to your child’s level.
One of my favorite games to play as a child was Battleship. So, of course, I used the game for this lesson. There is no way he could play the game the way it’s supposed to, but I was able to turn it into an educational activity. I placed a number of ships on the board, sometimes just one, sometimes two or three. He had to place the pegs in the ships and count the “people” that would fit. He tends to count too fast when counting objects, so this was a great way to get him to slow down and count correctly.
Coast Guard
Often when the different branches of the Armed Forces are represented, such as on merchandise or pictures, the Coast Guard gets left out. I’m not sure why this happens, but fortunately this issue seems to happen less often lately. For our lesson, I explained that the Coast Guard keeps the bad guys from getting into our country by boat and that they also search for people who get lost in the water. Again, like with the other branches, this is a broad explanation that he understood.
For the activity, I focused more on the search and rescue aspect. I also incorporated recognizing the alphabet by printing pictures of people holding signs with each letter. I then hid the pictures around the room. We added a little pretend play by saying that he was in the Coast Guard and had to find all the people that fell off a boat before they drowned.
Unfortunately, the little one was not into it. He excitedly found the first few, but he did not want to tell me what letter each person held. While he doesn’t recognize every letter, usually games like this work great. But as all parents and caregivers know, some days there just will not be any learning. Which is perfectly fine.
If you would like to try this activity with your kiddo, you can download the pictures below. I also created a version using numbers 1-20.
(Coast Guard People Alphabet Download)
(Coast Guard People Number Download)
Marine Corp
The final military branch that we covered is the Marines. Now, this branch is a bit confusing when teaching young children. Unlike the other branches that tend to work in a specific place – on land, in the air, or in the water – the Marines do a bit of all of it. For my preschooler, I explained that they work with and help the rest of the Armed Forces. They basically go wherever additional or specialized troops need to go.
This lesson was difficult to come up with. I couldn’t find any activities specific to the Marines, so I decided to encompass the land, air, and sea since they don’t work in any area primarily. I printed out pictures of things that we see in each location. He then glued the pictures to a piece of green paper for land, light blue paper for air, or dark blue paper for the water. In one activity, he was able to practice sorting, cutting, gluing, and learned about the different things Marines might see.
The U.S. Armed Forces are important for children to learn about as they are a big part of our country. They protect us, help us, and keep our country’s freedom. My little one enjoyed learning about the different branches and jobs. I hope yours does, too!
Know of any other fun ways to teach our kiddos about the military? Post them in the comments below!
