My students need period correct costume items to represent a Civil War soldier for the Veterans Day assemblies and parades we participate in each year.
As a US history teacher I'm responsible for teaching not only the facts about what happened in our past, but for creating a pride in America that will last my students a lifetime. For the last five years I've had up to 15 students prepare impressions for assemblies and parades honoring Veterans Day
Our school is in rural Washington State.
We have an agricultural base, and are geographically removed from major metropolitan areas of our state. My students do not have the opportunity to visit large museums or participate in historical events that usually happen in urban areas. We've created not only a learning experience for my students with our Veterans Day displays, but a learning experience for the younger kids in our district who we present to. My students pick a time period to represent, do research and write articles for our school paper about that period, and wear a military uniform from that time to represent the men and women who served our country in that era. We hope to add the US Civil war to our collection this year. Right now my students represent military personnel from World War I to the Gulf War. We had 15 students in uniforms of all branches last year. We need you to help us expand and add another student to our time-line of history veterans assembly.
My Project
As we approach Veterans Day I pass out applications to the students at my school, and they write a short essay describing why they want to participate in the historical timeline. We look for enthusiasm and commitment, not just the "best writing." It's about spirit~ the same spirit that makes American great today, and the same spirit that compelled Americans to military service throughout the ages. Our selected students are fitted for the uniforms, we have 15 uniforms from WWI to the 1991 Gulf War, and then they spend about a month researching and writing about that period of time for our school historical weekly paper Years of War. The students then prepare the veterans assemblies for our middle school and the intermediate school, and we also march in the parade on November 11 in the nearby large city, down main street, to the local VFW.
For participants and spectators (students, parents, teachers) seeing a time-line of history come alive is really impressive.
We realize, looking at the WWI uniform, that there are no veterans alive today to say thank-you to from that conflict. That compels us to thank our veterans who are still with us today, and somehow seeing these students in uniforms representing days gone by, gives young people a strong and lasting feeling of patriotism a book alone can't give. History builds our future.
DonorsChoose is the most trusted classroom funding site for teachers.
As a teacher-founded nonprofit, we're trusted by thousands of teachers and supporters across the country. This classroom request for funding was created by Mr. Dibble and reviewed by the DonorsChoose team.