Tips to make Remembrance Day Meaningful for Your Students

Remembrance Day is more than just a day off school; it’s a crucial opportunity to educate students about history, sacrifice, and the importance of peace. In the classroom, Remembrance Day can be a powerful learning experience that goes beyond simply observing a moment of silence.

Understanding the Importance of Remembrance Day

Teaching students about Remembrance Day is an essential subject that we should embrace. Taking the time to teach children about the past serves as a vital marker for learning, developing compassion, and valuing peace.

Learning about Remembrance Day provides a way to understand world history. The First and Second World Wars—and other conflicts—help us grasp how today’s world was shaped. However, for students, these events can often feel distant and hard to connect to.

By teaching about Remembrance Day, we can help students see the human side of these significant wars. Instead of only learning dates and events, students discover the causes, effects, and the immense sacrifices made by individuals. This isn’t just about remembering history—it’s about ensuring we don’t forget the lessons of the past.

Remembrance Day builds empathy by honouring the real people who lived through these times: the soldiers who fought, the nurses who cared for the injured, and the families who waited at home.

Personal letters from the trenches, stories of courage, and the struggles people faced make history feel real. Students learn that those from the past weren’t just names in a book, but individuals with hopes, fears, and dreams. This understanding helps them appreciate the human cost of war and admire the bravery and strength of those who served.

Teaching about Remembrance Day is a crucial part of education. It connects students with their history, helps them grow in empathy, and inspires them to value peace. By remembering, we equip the next generation to honour the past while working toward a more peaceful tomorrow.

Engaging Lesson Plans for Grades 4, 5, and 6

How and why do we remember those who served our country?

These lesson plans help us guide students beyond simply knowing the facts of Remembrance Day. We can help students move toward a deeper, more personal understanding of remembrance, empathy, and gratitude.

By the end of this unit, students will not only be able to identify key symbols and traditions but also articulate why remembering is an important part of Canadian identity.

Comprehensive Remembrance Day Unit Pack

This Grade 4, 5, 6 Canadian Remembrance Day Unit Pack combines four of our best-selling resources to provide a complete and engaging Remembrance Day unit for your grades 4-6 classroom.

With a focus on Canadian history, this pack includes everything you need to teach about the origins of the holiday, its most powerful symbols, the stories of brave veterans, and the deep meaning behind a classic poem.

Creative Student Activity Ideas for Remembrance Day

There are many ways to engage students with the history of Remembrance Day and veterans. The following activities are designed to help students connect with the meaning of Remembrance Day in a more personal and engaging way.

By moving beyond passive learning, these ideas will allow students to apply what they've learned, fostering a deeper sense of empathy, gratitude, and historical understanding.

1. Write a Letter to a Veteran:

Collect biographies of Canadian veterans and read them to students. After reading the passages, students can write a letter to a veteran or a peacekeeping soldier.

This activity connects the historical figures in the text to real people. Students can use details from the passages to express gratitude and show that they understand the sacrifices made.

2. Create a Timeline:

Using the information from the biographies you (or students) have collected, students can create a visual timeline of Remembrance Day.

The timeline would start with the First World War in 1914 and include key dates like 1918 (the Armistice), 1919 (the first Armistice Day), and the 1920s (the poppy symbol). This helps them organize the information chronologically.

3. Poetry Analysis and Creation:

Read John McCrae's poem, In Flanders Fields. You can read this as a class or independently. Once students have read the poem, they can analyze it.

Then, they can write their own poem about Remembrance Day, incorporating the symbols and feelings they've learned about.

4. Interview a Family Member:

Students can prepare a short list of questions to interview a family member about their knowledge of Remembrance Day.

They could ask if the family member knows any veterans, what they do on November 11th, or why they think it's an important day. This brings the topic into their personal lives and strengthens communication skills.

5. Research a Conflict:

For a more advanced extension, students can choose one of the conflicts (WW1, WW2, the Korean War, or any other conflict the Canadian military has been involved in) and conduct a short research project.

Students could focus on a specific battle, a famous Canadian soldier, or the role of peacekeepers. They would then present their findings to the class.

Essential Remembrance Day Teaching Resources & Tools

• Poem Analysis In Flanders Fields and other poems help students analyze and appreciate a significant piece of Canadian literature. By breaking down In Flanders Fields, students will learn how to approach a challenging text by looking at its structure, vocabulary, and imagery.

  
  

• Online Resources: Reputable online resources for teachers or students.

  • The Canadian War Museum

  • The Canadian Encyclopedia

  • Veterans Canada

  • Veterans’ Week Posters

• Guest Speakers: Invite a local veteran or their family member to speak to the class.

  
  

Multimedia Suggestions for Enhanced Learning

Check out the following short, educational videos and documentaries.

From the National Film Board of Canada (NFB)

• Front Lines: (33 min.) Uses dramatic readings of letters and diary entries to bring the experiences of Canadians in the First World War to life.

• Return to Vimy (9 min.) A short animated film that memorializes the soldiers who fought at Vimy Ridge, based on a young woman's tribute to her great-grandfather.

  
  

From Historica Canada

• Remembrance Day | Jour du Souvenir A short, bilingual video that provides a general overview of the importance of Remembrance Day.

• The Memory Project This initiative features a number of video clips with veterans sharing their personal stories. These are often just a few minutes long and provide powerful, firsthand accounts.

  
  

Beyond November 11th: Integrating Lessons Year-Round

Teaching about Remembrance Day doesn't have to be limited to a single day. The lessons learned can be integrated into the curriculum year-round.

The ideas above offer a starting point for creating a powerful lesson that will stay with students long after the moment of silence has passed.

Share your own creative Remembrance Day lesson plan ideas in the comments below!