A Memorial Day Poem

I hope everyone is having a wonderful Memorial Day! This is a day of great significance for my family as my husband's father was a green beret killed in duty serving during the Vietnam War. My husband was only 6 at the time and ended up fatherless at this tender young age. We are fortunate to live just an hour from Washington DC and have visited the Wall and his grave site at  Arlington Cemetery with our children.
  Because of all the SOL testing last week, I did not get a chance to focus on this national holiday with my students. I will be doing it tomorrow and will begin by reading aloud two of my favorites on this topic.  This first one is an informational book about the holiday and why we celebrate it.  

The Wall by Eve Bunting is a beautiful, touching book about a family visiting the Vietnam Memorial.  It can be hard for me to read without Kleenex handy.  We have the pencil rubbing of my father in law's name that I bring in to show my kids.  This is a must read for this holiday and is  Eve Bunting at her finest!

Now I must share a wonderful site I discovered this weekend.  It is called

http://www.poemfarm.amylv.com/   

Amy writes her own poems and shares them on her blog.  I asked permission to use her Memorial Day poem with my children and to post it on my blog.  She was gracious enough to say yes.

So here is the poem I plan to use tomorrow.  It is  full of feeling and deep meaning. I just love it!

My students will cut out the poem to add to their poetry journals and will complete the follow up as a language arts review.  I like doing the search and finds because it forces the students to keep rereading the poem to find the words.  A great fluency practice!

Poem Memorial Day