Veterans Day in the Music Room

I love Veterans Day! I love the music, the colors, the energy. As an Air Force brat, it's important to get the kids excited about singing about our country, saying thanks to our veterans, and expanding their performance experience in the meantime.

How do you celebrate Veterans Day at your school? Here are some of my favorite tips and tricks and songs!

Favorite Songs

You're a Grand Old Flag - with ribbon dancers in the front.
I use the version that comes in the Spotlight on Music (McGraw Hill) textbook series. Figure 8's for the first verse, Circle & "lassos" for the second verse (instruments only) and figure 8's for the final verse. End with a snap down. This is a great opening number! (Usually sung after Star Spangled Banner or America the Beautiful.)

I get these from Oriental Trading - 

you can trim them shorter if needed.

This is My Country - super short song that affords a great opportunity for solo singing.

Motions:
Beginning - bounce soft claps side to side & bounce knees for the first section;
"I pledge thee my allegiance" - hand over heart;
America the "bold" - make muscle man pose, bend knees for bigger impact;
Ending - bounce soft claps side to side & bounce knees
"Have and to hold" - grab hands with a person next to you and raise into the air

Oh I Love America - I have a bittersweet relationship with this Music K8 song. The words are super easy, fun and repetitive. The "heart dance" that I came up with is surprisingly tricky. During the chorus, I have students broken into three groups; red, white or blue hearts. The phrase repeats three times, so we do a contagion with the hearts.

Students hold their paper heart props at their side until it is their turn to bounce the heart - red, then white, then blue - and wow that's hard! We spend most of our time working on the movements to this - but when we finish it looks so good!! Variant: Have the red-white-and-blue hearts all move at the same time; I've done this successfully with students as young as Kindergarten.

At the end of this song, they turn around their hearts to reveal a "surprise" flag on the back. So cute! Grab this flag heart printable in my TPT shop!

Yankee Doodle - our textbook recording offers three verses, so it's a great song to feature some tambourine "dancers" in the front. The tambourine team copies the hand motions of the entire group, but with a tambourine in their hand.

What was Yankee Doodle's horse's name? Macaroni! (just seeing if you're paying attention!)

Fifty Nifty United States - I sang this when I was in 5th grade and I still love this song! When I first started doing this song, I had a parent cut out the shapes of the states and glue them to paper. Now, I use a set of State Cards that I had printed in color on card stock, and laminated. Each student is assigned to a state and raises their card when they hear their state.

I blogged about it here! I shared tips for how to teach this song with my State Cards resource and how to do a surprise on the back and a Fifty Nifty Club!

We Will Not Forget - very short and repetitive song. For this song, I have students hold a photo of their favorite veteran. Not a dry eye. After years of requesting, it's finally available on a separate CD from Music K-8 - no subscription required! Woo!

or

I'm Proud to Be an American - emotional and powerful! There's a great version by Jump Five that's kid-appropriate, and a little jazzy. I've seen the hardest of students sing this song with great emotion and tears in their eyes.

American Every Day - This is a great crowd stopper and a good finale for your Veterans Day program! I teach it to the whole school and we all stand (either on risers or in their places in the audience) to sing this at the very end.

Motions: 

We are American every day - Both thumbs pointing to self, bounce 4 beats

Livin' we are livin' the American way - Hands on hips and nod head 4 beats

If you listen, you can hear it - one hand cupped around ear

All around us, there's a spirit - switch hands, other hand cupped around other ear

It's the freedom we are living - arms crossed over heart

And the blessings we are given - spread out arms towards ground

For the days of the week, I have seven students hold cards that say the day of the week. They hold them up when we call out the day of the week. On the back, there's a surprise - we spell out A-M-E-R-I-C-A at the end for the last repeat of "America!"

Bonus: If you have a super responsible group, you can add a stomp-clap during one of the last choruses, when the brass drops out and it's only voices and percussion. For my students, a pretend stomp works best; they lean to the side and do a pretend step, then do a soft clap.

Tip: I learned a long time ago that when students clap at a program, they rush. Any time I want the students to clap during a song, we talk about how clapping is loud. If we clap louder than the music, we can't hear the music! (It's a shock, I know!) We listen to how loud 25-30 people sound when they clap and then talk about how many kids are in the grade level that is performing. The kids generally understand that we have to almost "pretend-clap" when we have such a large group.

Logistics

I start practicing songs with my students about 8 weeks ahead of time. After learning the songs in class, I send home packets to each student. I hold "auditions" in class several weeks out. I have interested students do group auditions (I use a simple rubric to give a score) in class and they get a note to go home if they get a part.

Most of the students who audition get some kind of special part - I write up extra speaking parts and buy extra ribbons, borrow extra tambourines to cover all the kids that want a part. I try to find a way to make it special for each student! Can they hold up a picture of the Statue of Liberty? Can they hold up a letter to spell out America? What about passing out programs or getting people at the door? Passing out flowers is another job to fill, as well as passing out tambourines, cards, or ribbons.

Finishing Touches

Local Veterans, Scouts:
In addition to inviting local veterans (we send home an invitation to each family to invite a local veteran friend or family member), I invite the local Boy Scout troop to do a flag ceremony, and recently, I had a Girl Scout troop serve cookies and welcome the veterans as the entered our school.

Make sure to label the space where you want the veterans so that they feel comfortable as guests at your school.

Thank You Flower and/or Note/Poem:
I usually reserve the tear jerker song for my oldest/best group. Either before or after their song, I have each student who brought a veteran come to the stage and get a flower to take to their veteran.

It's a touching moment when the students take their veteran a flower, shake their hand, and say, "Thank you for your service." (We practice that in class!)

Decorate:
Off course you want to make it look festive, but it doesn't have to break the bank! Once I started doing this vertical flag design, I've never looked back! Trust me when I say hanging sheets of paper vertically is much easier than horizontally! Ha!

Wall of Honor:
One of my absolute favorite additions to the Veterans Day programs that I've done is the Wall of Honor. Every student in the whole school is encouraged to create a "brick" for a veteran friend or family member. This is a sample of the note I send home. Grab it here in my TPT shop!

My mom and I pointing out some of our favorite veterans!

   

The start of the Wall of Honor

By the end of Veterans Day, this wall was completely covered as people added their own "bricks" to the wall with their loved ones. I made some bricks for the U.S. Presidents that were veterans as well!

How do you celebrate Veterans Day at your school? Connect with Sweet Sounds on Facebook and share your favorite Veterans Day songs!

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