The students of Myers Elementary in Bellwood participated in a week long string of activities this past week in honor of Veterans Day. The kindergarten through fourth grade students finished their activities today with a field trip to the Veterans Home in Altoona, where they delivered cards to 500 veterans thanking them for their efforts in the Armed Forces.
\nThe students who traveled to the Veterans Home were winners and honorable mention selections who entered a voluntary and independent student poster and essay contest. There were over 20 students, with a winner selected from each class from kindergarten through fourth grade.
\nThe vets at the Veterans Home will have their eyes flooded with red, white, and blue because Tuesday at Myers Elementary was a special day where students were asked to wear red, white, and blue clothing in celebration of Veterans Day.
\nThe theme of the contest was \u2018Why Veterans are Special,\u2019 and the projects were judged by the Veterans Day Committee and any other staff member who wished to participate. Principal Terri Harpster felt the activity was something the school needed to do.
\n\u201cWe need to educate students on what veterans are,\u201d said Harpster. \u201cMany students believe that veterans are only people who fought for our country and died, they don\u2019t realize that veterans are actually anyone who was in the military, whether or not they were involved in a war, dead or alive.\u201d
\nHarpster added, \u201cWe want to educate our students about veterans and why they are so special. We get caught up in the airplanes and the bombs and ships, and we forget the human element.\u201d
\nStudents at Myers Elementary also participated in a project where each student traced three hands in the colors of red, white, and blue, which were used to create a gigantic flag that is currently on display in the lobby entrance of the school building. The reason for the project developed from how we cross our hearts with our hands when we say \u2018The Pledge of Allegiance.\u2019
\nTeacher at Myers, Mrs. Lee Hoffman, created two Power Point Programs illustrating the meaning and importance of Veterans Day, highlighting what a veteran is and a program on American symbols. Hoffman is a volunteer at the Veterans Home and her husband is a disabled veteran.
\n\u201cParticularly for the students, I don\u2019t think they have the appreciation of our freedom and the fact that people lost lives for our freedom, as maybe some of our older people do who were around during W.W.I and W.W.II,\u201d said Harpster.
\nTo extend the students knowledge of Veterans Day, there is a library showcase full of Armed Forces and patriotic items. There are also pictures of veterans that were donated by relatives on display. Cathy Moriarity, Barb Middleton, Jane Burget and Lee Hoffman were the people who collected the items that are on display. The display will remain through parent\/teacher conferences for those interested in looking at it.
\nAccording to Harpster, the students really enjoyed the week of activities and learned a great deal about our veterans and why they are so special to America.
\n\u201cThey really got into it because we had the poster and essay contest, the kids just get into contests,\u201d said Harpster. \u201cWe have a lot of people here on staff who have relatives, particularly parents, who were veterans.\u201d
\nEven the young people in this great nation have the urge to learn how our freedom is sustained, and it\u2019s nice to see that our educators in the area our willing to teach our children about our veterans.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The students of Myers Elementary in Bellwood participated in a week long string of activities this past week in honor of Veterans Day. The kindergarten through fourth grade students finished their activities today with a field trip to the Veterans Home in Altoona, where they delivered cards to 500 veterans thanking them for their efforts […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-47832","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-local-news-in-the-tyrone-pennsylvania-area"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tyronepa.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47832","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/tyronepa.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/tyronepa.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tyronepa.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tyronepa.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=47832"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/tyronepa.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47832\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tyronepa.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=47832"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tyronepa.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=47832"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tyronepa.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=47832"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}