World War 2

When I first decided to look at WW2 with Hermione I ordered a few books from Amazon. I thought they were good, I particularly liked the Dorling Kindersley one, but it was apparent within about twenty minutes of the parcel having arrived that they were not going to spike Hermione's interest or inspire her to explore the topic.

Hermione is a very sensitive child and I started to wonder whether it was a good subject to cover right now or whether it would be best left for a couple of years. It's a fine line I feel when you try to educate and protect - all those age appropriate issues - all those factors appertaining to the individual child to be considered.

Anyway I decided in the end to give it a try with When Hitler Stole Pink Rabbit by Judith Kerr. This book tells the story of a Jewish family who fled from Germany when the Nazis rose to power. She really enjoyed it and learned lots.

Next was Twenty and Ten by William Pene Du Bois. This is the story of twenty French children who were sent to safety in the mountains during the German occupation of France. While they were there a man came to ask them to take in ten Jewish refugee children.

When we finished Twenty and Ten Hermione was keen to start a new WW2 fiction but unfortunately we didn't have any. I'm awaiting an Amazon order right now to include Number the Stars by Louis Lowry and The Amazing Story of Adolphus Tips by Michael Morpurgo.

Now that she has a feel of what happened I think we can go back to more factual issues - not so much through text book style resources but more practical exercises. I've listed a few below in case they may be of use to anyone else. I can't take credit for them all as many are from a resource a lady online kindly sent me.

Colour the countries Germany invaded on a world map.

Design a poster to warn people about the introduction of blackouts.

Design a poster to inform people of the benefits of evacuation.

Fill in a pretend evacuation tag as worn by the children being evacuated.

Listen to air raid siren clips on the Internet. How would that make us feel?

What would we have put in our air raid shelter?

Write a story about being evacuated.

Think about how different it would be in the country. Design and write a postcard home.

Visit a museum or look at pictures of gas masks.

Create a recipe using very basic store cupboard ingredients.

Devise a Clothing Ration Book and a clothes shop price list. How would we spend them?

Devise a Food Ration Book and work out how much of each rationed food we would get for a family our size.

How did life change for women? Draw a picture of the women doing jobs they had rarely done pre war.

Interview someone who lived through the war. A dictaphone could be a good idea.

I am hoping to find some suitable and educational programmes about life in Britain during this time period. One of my few clear memories of my school days is of trooping off to the assembly hall once a week to watch How We Used to Live. I loved those programmes and learned so much from them. I've looked on Amazon but most of them are unavailable now and the ones on Amazon Marketplace are really quite expensive. I'm looking for something along those lines. Any thoughts anyone?