Memorial Day Fun and Crafts

I love our preschool co-op. Yesterday I hosted and the theme was “Memorial Day.” Just in time to share some fun decorations and crafts with you.

Decorations:

I was very excited to pull out this Red, White, and Blue Felt Garland that I made last year for Fourth of July.

Attire:

Free Time/Sensory Time:

I made Star-Spangled Slime combining the idea from icanteachmychild and this helpful video from about.com.

Here’s how I made the slime:

You will need glue (clear glue for transparent slime or white glue for opaque slime), borax, water, food coloring (optional), and star confetti.

Mix 1 tsp borax in 1 cup water and stir to dissolve. In a separate bowl, combine 1 container of glue with 1/2 cup water. You can add food coloring if you want your slime to have a color. Mix the two solutions and add the confetti. HAVE FUN. Store the slime in an air tight container or zip lock bag.

Circle Time:

To introduce the theme I shared with the kids that Memorial Day is a day to honor the men and women who died serving our country. It is a day for peace and prayer. I introduced some vocabulary words about Memorial Day and had the children take turns matching the words and pictures to the words and picture on my easel.

I passed out small flags to the children and we sang two flag songs from a great pdf file I downloaded from oopseydaisyblog.

We counted to 70 using groups of 10 stars. I used simple star stickers that I purchased at JoAnn’s.

Snack:

For snack I had the kids make their own flag designs with graham crackers, blueberries, strawberries, and marshmallows.

Crafts:

1. Flags

We sang a song about the American Flag to teach the kids some facts about the flag and then they made their own. I used this craft from housingaforest.com, but modified the activity by cutting the pieces in advance.

You will need red, white, and blue construction paper, glue, scissors, q-tips, and white paint. Cut out a piece of blue paper for the flag and 7 red stripes. Glue the piece of the flag to the white paper. Use the Q-tips to stamp “stars” on the blue part of the flag.

2. Star Stamping

I did a simple stamping activity with star cookie cutters and paint.

3. Pipe Cleaner Fireworks

This craft was so simple to prepare and fun and easy to do. I found this idea from craftymorning.com. You will need black paper, red, white, and blue paint, pipe cleaners, and glitter.

I made a few different sizes of pipe cleaners with different amounts of pipe cleaners in each bunch to make different sized and shaped fireworks on the paper.

Action Time/Closing

To finish the lesson we had a great time with patriotic action cards to get the kids moving around and having some more fun together before we finished for the day. I used the patriotic action cards from the oopsydaisy printable.

What are your favorite patriotic crafts and activities?