Poppies for Remembrance

Monday is Remembrance Day here in Australia.  It is a day we stop for a minutes silence to honour and remember those who have served their country in the military and those who did not return from conflicts. As some of you may know it is something that I take seriously and I feel it is important to pass on to the younger generation just how important these people are to us and our history.

I am a proud military wife and daughter and I know how important it is to those military men and women to have the public recognise their sacrifice.  On Remembrance Day I show photos of men and women in the military helping people in their various roles and we talk about conflicts past and present.

Poppies are worn because after some of the bloodiest battles in World War 1 and 2 red poppies sprang forth from the soil in Spring, the poppy seeds had been churned up by the soldiers boots and fertilised from the bodies of the soldiers.  They were also immortalised in the poem Flanders Fields written by John McCrae.

Every year in my class we make poppies  as part of these commemorations, this year I was inspired by this pin, click on the pic to go to the source.

So this is how we did it!

I was going to use coffee filters (but didn't have any) so this is paper towel, we painted it with a red watercolour.

We used a grey watercolour wash on a small piece of paper, A5 size ( half a letter sized paper)

When it was dry we cut out the petals and arranged them on our paper, then glued them down.

Cut out stems and leaves!

To make the black center in the poppy we lightly touched it with some black watercolour on the end of a paintbrush.  If you press too hard the black will spread across the petals because the paper towel sucks up the watercolour.  Small, small dab only.

Here they all are together!  I love how they all look a little different!  On Monday they will be displayed with some writing about Remembrance Day.

   

What will you do for Remembrance Day?