Teaching your kids about Memorial Day is an important aspect of life, but it’s quite a complicated adventure. The freedom from school, the warm weather, swimming pools, the beautiful colors of the holiday, and the incredible parades, perhaps there’s no better time to be a child. While you should let them enjoy the excitement, you should take this opportunity to teach your kids the relevance of this holiday.
Here Are a Few incredible Strategies You Should Try
Start With the Basics
To teach your kids anything, you have to start with the small stuff and let their minds get the grasp of it. You can begin with a little ceremony in your home by reciting the Pledge of Allegiance, holding a prayer or having a moment of silence. Since the kids are inquisitive, when they ask why you are doing that give them a brief history Memorial Day. You might describe the origins of the occasion and the fact that many families are still honoring a loved one who lost their lives defending this nation.
If you have military members in your family, ask them to come around in uniform or send pictures. You could also use a photo editor to create an educative collage of military personnel in your family and tell them stories of their achievements. If you don’t have military members in your family, gather images of military personnel from different military groups and use Adobe Express picture editor free to highlight their duties. Also, let them watch a few fun videos and explain the importance of the colors and flowers. Also, let them watch a couple of videos about its origins if you need a little help getting the topic started.
Observe Traditions
Memorial Day consists of traditions that people have observed for many years. Encourage your kids to participate in these customs by doing them at home. Try teaching them the Pledge of Allegiance by reciting it regularly at home. Hold prayers and moments of silence in commemoration with the fallen heroes. Tell them that many families in America are honoring the heroes who gave their life in service of their country. Describe the origins of the occasion and the fact that many families are still honoring a loved one who lost their lives defending this nation.
Decorate Your Home with Themes
Memorial Day was originally called Decoration Day since the main point of the commemoration was decorating the graves of the fallen heroes with flowers. You can honor this action by decorating your home with blue, white and red flowers and flags. You can involve your kids in this activity explaining the purpose of each color why you are doing it. You could also teach them how to arrange a bouquet of flowers and small gifts so they can have something personal to give veterans and Golden Star families.
You could also take them to a local military cemetery to place flowers on the graves of the fallen. It would also help to encourage them to do some volunteer work around the graves, like removing dead flower and clearing the grass. After the activity, give them small rewards to make them love the day even more.
Attend or Join a Parade
There’s something about the matching band, many colors, and costumes that makes kids so happy. As such, ensure that your kids attend or join a Memorial Day parade. Tell the kids purpose of the parade and point out the different military vehicles, floats and marching units. Remember to capture the excitement on their little faces and better yet use a free online photo editor to create a picture video to make a wall paper.
If your city doesn’t have a parade, you could take them to the nearby town or organize with the local community to create a kid’s parade. Find a wagon and ask the locals to bring their bikes, cars and scooters and decorate them in blue, white and red. Organizing a small parade will be quite exciting for your kids as they will be honoring the fallen heroes instead of watching on the sidelines.
Create a Scrapbook
This day offers the perfect time to create new memories and piece your favorite moments together, quite literally in a scrapbook. Gather your kids and provide them with scissors, glue and ribbons in blue, red and white colors. Guide them to cut the ribbons in strips and attach them with glue on the scrapbook pages.
Gather photos of your kids may have taken previously during celebration, parade, or volunteer work. You can use pic editors like Adobe Express to enhance them, add captions, or create a collage. Print out the photos and stick them on the scrap book in a way that tells a story. For instance, you could start with picture taken during morning hours and end with those taken during the final activities.
To make the scrap book have more impact, it would help to add photos of military member in the scrap book. Ideally, begin with the pictures of a grandfather or uncle who served in the military previous, adding their name on the pics with a photo editor, and follow the generations. You can add a Memorial Day picture of your kid’s picture as part of the military generation to make them little heroes.
Key Takeaways
Teaching your kids about the importance of Memorial Day is a fantastic way to pay homage to the fallen soldiers. It is one of the best gifts you can give these heroes and their families, since you will be passing down generational memories to ensure their contributions are never forgotten. While teaching them, don’t forget to take pictures and use appropriate photo editors to save these memories. Who knows, they could use them to encourage your grand kids to honor the fallen.