Memorial Day Lesson Plan: Civic Ideas and Practices

*Click to open and customize your own copy of the Memorial Day Lesson Plan. 

This lesson accompanies the BrainPOP topic Memorial Day, and supports the standard of analyzing holidays and symbols of our nation. Students demonstrate understanding through a variety of projects.

Step 1: ACTIVATE PRIOR KNOWLEDGE

Ask students:

• Who do you think we honor on Memorial Day?
• Why might we honor them?

Step 2: BUILD KNOWLEDGE

• Read the description on the Memorial Day topic page.
• Play the Movie, pausing to check for understanding. 
• Have students read one of the following Related Reading articles: “Way Back When,”  “Real Life,” or “In-Depth” Partner them with someone who read a different article to share what they learned with each other.
  

Step 3: APPLY and ASSESS 

Students take the Memorial Day Challenge and Quiz, applying essential literacy skills while demonstrating what they learned about this topic.

Step 4: DEEPEN and EXTEND

Students express what they learned about Memorial Day while practicing essential literacy skills with one or more of the following activities. Differentiate by assigning ones that meet individual student needs.

• Make-a-Movie: Produce a newscast that explains how Memorial Day became a federal holiday.
• Make-a-Map: Make a concept map analyzing how the observance of Memorial Day has changed over time. 
• Creative Coding: Code a flag to honor Americans killed in combat.

More to Explore

Related BrainPOP Topics: Deepen understanding of the contributions of soldiers with these topics: Veterans Day and Armed Forces. 

Teacher Support Resources:

• Pause Point Overview: Video tutorial showing how Pause Points actively engage students to stop, think, and express ideas. 
• Learning Activities Modifications: Strategies to meet ELL and other instructional and student needs.
• Learning Activities Support: Resources for best practices using BrainPOP.