Soldier Craft for Veterans Day

To go along with all of our patriotic activities this week, we made a very simple Veterans Day craft. I love that the kids did almost all of it by themselves, and they had a lot of fun playing with their mini veterans when they were done.

Beforehand I cut a 9 x 12 inch piece of brown construction paper in half. One half was enough paper for each child. I drew lines as shown below so that the kids could cut only a few lines to make their veterans.

For each child I also cut out one large circle for the head, two small ovals for the hands, and two small ovals for the boots.

Before making the craft, we read Hero Dad and discussed:

• the characteristics of a hero,
• what it means to be a soldier,
• what it is like for kids of soldiers,
• veterans that we know, and
• how we can show respect for veterans.

Then we got started on our craft. My kids love dot painting, so I thought it would be a great way to make the camouflage for our veteran craft. We used bingo dotters from the Dollar Tree, but Do-A-Dot markers would be an excellent choice. They tend not to splatter.

Once the paint dried, we turned over the paper and the kids began cutting. After cutting along the lines the kids ended up with one large rectangle, four small rectangles, one trapezoid, and two small triangles. The two small triangles can be recycled. This worked out very well, and didn’t result in a lot of waste.

Then the kids glued the pieces on and added facial features to finish up our veterans.

Soon those mini veterans were marching around in parades and parachuting out of planes. I loved to see the kids remembering and acting out parts of our story discussion.

Continue your Veterans’ Day lessons with this free printable Veteran’s Day easy reader.