World War II ~ England

We had a great time studying how World War II affected England. We kicked off our study of England by watching 1940's House. This is an awesome PBS special. From the show, we were able to decide on the things we wanted to learn the most about England.

One thing that fascinated the kids was incendiary bombs. It is hard to imagine that everyone was trained how to remove them from their homes and workplace in the event of one crashing through the roof. We studied how they removed the incendiary bomb and put it out. Then, we replicated this lesson using a smoke bomb. The kids found it much harder to pick up than they expected it to be. Realizing that the real thing would have caught on fire within a minute or two was a frightening thought!

We then practiced using a fire extinguisher. I had one that had been left outside in very cold temperatures this winter. I just didn't feel confident that it would still work properly and figured it was better to practice with it instead of just throwing it away. The kids enjoyed this activity. Sure hope they never have to use one for real!

We also learned about some of the games and activities people did during World War II to pass the time. We tried our hands at Tiddlywinks. This game is much harder than it looks (at least for those of us who lack eye hand coordination). We only learned the simple rules which is to take a squidger and propel the winks into a cup before your opponent squops your winks. I just love English words. They crack me up!

We also tried SPAM. Yes, I managed to get to 41 years of age without having had it. But Spam was a real lifesaver to the British during the war years. It was a popular food during the ration years and even up to current times. We fried our Spam and ate it with noodles. It was salty and I will probably not race out to buy it again. However, it was not at all as bad as I expected it to be. But it sure isn't the grass-fed meat we usually put into our mouths.

We also made a model of an Anderson bomb shelter in lieu of the real thing. I just wasn't willing to dig a deep hole in the back yard. What kind of a homeschool mother am I anyway? LOL!! This was a much easier way to learn about how a shelter was constructed and then we bombed it with rocks. The kids had a fun time bombing it while it lasted.

We are done with school for five weeks so I will pick up on our studies of World War II when we return to school. We still have the home front (America) and Japan to go. I also may do a bit more with the African countries that were involved. So far, we only listened to an audio tape that was set in Africa. 

Blessings, Dawn

World War II ~France and Norway

We continued our studies of World War II with our exploration of how France and Norway were affected by war. We started off by reading The Journey that Saved Curious George: The True Wartime Escape of Margret and H.A. Rey. What a great story and wonderful introduction to how hard it was to escape from France, even if you had some money and resources. It was also a good introduction to the geography of France.

We also made a salt clay map of France and then painted the countries and bodies of water that touch France. The kids labeled the map. This activity was great and the kids really enjoyed it. I will definitely use this kind of hands-on approach again.

We also read The Grand Mosque of Paris. I had no idea that the Muslim community worked so hard in the underground to hide Jewish people. This was an interesting and adventurous book.

We completed our study with a fondue night at home and a lunch out at the local crepe shop. Both were fun and tasty.

Our study of Norway consisted of reading the book, Snow Treasure. I have been waiting since my children were infants and toddlers to read this book to them. I loved it when I read it to their older brother and now they enjoyed it also. What a fantastic story about a group of children in Norway carrying thousands of pounds of gold on their sleds right past the Germans and safely out of the country!

Next up ~ England!

Blessings, Dawn

World War II Holland

Although we have continued our study of World War II, life got crazy and I have fallen behind in posting. I will be trying to catch up over the next few weeks. We have "travelled" through WWII by country. If you would like to see the countries we have already studied, their posts are listed below.
My post on Russia and Poland is here. 
My post about Germany.
My post about Austria and Hungary.

This post will be about Holland and Anne Frank. We decided to watch the movie, The Diary of Anne Frank, (1959 version) instead of reading the book. I didn't read the book until high school and it seemed like a bit too much for my crew. The movie was excellent. We also found the Anne Frank House museum website to be a wealth of information. We especially enjoyed the virtual tour of the rooms where her family hid for many months. In contrast to life in Amsterdam, we read the book, The Winged Watchman, to get a feel for WWII in the countryside of Holland. This was a very enjoyable book.

We also listened to the audio book, The Hiding Place. This wonderful story is about two Christian sisters in Holland who became part of the Underground Resistance and hid Jews who couldn't be moved out of the city because of their health or because they looked too Jewish to be disguised. Eventually, the sisters were captured and sent to a concentration camp in which one of them died. The people they hid survived the war.

We decided to make our own hiding place under our stairs. The kids added their snap circuit radio, pillows, water and a blanket.

Can you find the entrance to our hideout?

Oh, the entrance is behind the sofa and poster.

Here they are inside their hideout.

Next up is France and Norway. Once again, I'll be raiding the library for books!

Blessings, Dawn

World War II ~ Poland and Russia

On our journey through World War II history, we moved on to Poland and Russia this week. For this leg of the journey, our chapter book this week has been The Endless Steppe, one of my favorite books since I was a child. It is about a Jewish family from Poland who is deported to Siberia during the war. The story is told from the eyes of a girl who grows from a shy 10 year old to a resilient 13 year old girl. This book covers the experiences of traveling in a cattle car, living in a labor camp, severe hunger, coming of age under hard circumstances, exile, going to a Siberian school, life in Siberia, the loss of wealth, choices in life that seem right at the time but don't turn out well, and returning to Poland after the war. What makes this story even better is that it is a true story written by the person who went through this experience.

We watched several YouTube videos about the Steppes and Siberia. We also had a lovely Russian meal for lunch. I took the kids to an inexpensive little hole in the wall restaurant that makes Russian and Ukrainian food. The owner talked to us for a while about her grandmother's experience during World War II in Russia. She was a wealth of information. We took the food home since we had one sick child this week and needed to get home. We had stuffed cabbage, Russian potatoes, and mini latkes.

With Easter on the horizon, I thought that learning about Faberge and Ukrainian eggs would be fun and tie in well to our studies. We watched some short documentaries about Faberge eggs. The kids loved them. We then tried our hand at making our own eggs. We painted plastic eggs with acrylic paint and then decorated them with as much detail as we could. For the "jeweled" eggs, we covered plastic eggs with glue and put them in a plastic bag with glitter. Then we glued beads from a broken necklace onto the glitter.

We  read about the Warsaw Ghetto and learned about the terrible suffering that took place. The books we read for this part of the study were Irena's Jars of Secrets, Irena Sendler and the Children of the Warsaw Ghetto, and Child of the Warsaw Ghetto.

We also had a wonderful time making a snap circuit radio this week. It gets about 10 radio stations. Tom Sawyer loves it. We will be adding it to our World War II hideout that I will be showing with our next World War II installment.

We finished off our week study of Poland and Russia with a Polish dinner. We had Polish sausage, carrots, and pierogies.

We will be studying the Netherlands and the life of Anne Frank next!

Blessings, Dawn

World War II Finishing Germany, Hungary and Austria

I explained how we were going to study World War II  here.

We found a little more that I wanted to share with the kids about Germany so we slowed down a bit. I love that about homeschooling. We are not tied to someone else's schedule.

A Bit More Learning with Germany ~ The kids and I read two books about the Kinder Transport. This was a wonderfully executed plan to rescue Jewish children from Austria, Germany and Czechoslovakia. Children were transported to Great Britain where they were placed in homes and later reunited with their families after the war . Unfortunately, since so many parents died in concentration camps, only one in three of the children were reunited with their parents. We then watched the movie, Kinder Transport Into the Arms of Strangers. This movie was not very popular with my students because it kept jumping back and forth from the past to present. The Kinder Transport saved 10,000 Jewish children.

We watched and read World War II with Live Footage.  This was a great book and the DVD was excellent. As books I have on hold at the library become available, we will touch on Germany some more.

Austria ~ Germany took over Austria in 1938. We watched The Sound of Music and then a documentary about the real Von Trapp family and their escape from Austria. The true events and the story have many differences, but who can give up a chance to watch the movie again? We also bought Linzer cookies from a little European bakery in our city, since we weren't up to making them ourselves. They were delicious!

Hungary ~ Hungary joined the Axis powers in 1940. We studied Hungary a little bit out of order because our DVD arrived early from Netflix. Our hero this week was Raol Wallenberg. We watched the made for TV movie, Wallenberg: A Hero's Story. Raol Wallenberg is credited with saving 100,000 Hungarian Jews.

Next week we'll study Poland and Russia. I did not get to any activities during the last 2 weeks of history, but we do have some activities coming up with Poland and Russia.

Blessings, Dawn

The First Two Weeks of World War II

For the remainder of the school year, we will be studying World War II. This is a very complicated and all encompassing subject. I decided to divide our study of World War II by country and by how the war progressed. There are some main goals I have while teaching World War II to the children. I want them to have a working knowledge of the war, be able to understand the vocabulary (Axis, Nazis, Allies, Holocaust, etc.) and to really get a feel of the times. However, my most important goal to impart to the children is the realization that there were good people in all of these countries who were trying to help the oppressed. Wars start with ruling bodies and the common people get swept up into war.
The first week of our study, we concentrated on an overview of World War II. I taught them that over 50 countries were involved in this war and there were two "theaters", the European and the Pacific. We started learning about the new, modern weapons of war and what a soldier's life was like. Part of this huge war included a terrible genocide which was called the Holocaust and 11 million men, women and
children were killed because they were not the "popular" people.

Our first project was the mortar game. We learned about the use of anti-aircraft guns versus mortars. The kids lay on a blanket and threw a tennis ball (mortar) at a balloon. The were not able to hit it. Then they stood up and threw the tennis ball (anti-aircraft bullets) at the balloon. Standing up, they had a much easier time hitting it.

Our second project was making a ration kit for our "soldier". We used only the non-perishable food we had on hand so this project was probably harder than it needed to be. We had the kids try to get as close as possible to the requisite 1800 calories, 50 grams of fat, 40 grams of protein and less than 2000 mg of sodium. We decided the project was hard enough without paying attention to the weight and size of the package. We went a little over on calories, but the kids were pretty pleased with the food for the day.

The third project we did this week was a camouflage activity in which the kids hid a bike from view. I think they did a great job. Can you see the pink bike in there?

We are trying to watch a movie each week of our study. The first week we watched The Story of Us and Crash Course History WWII. The kids far preferred The Story of Us, which explained the war at a slower speed and in more of a movie form. We also read several books which I will list at the bottom.

Week 2 found us in Germany. I decided to start in the European theater. We learned about the Rise of Hitler and why it was that such a man could gain power in Germany at that time. We reviewed that many Germans wanted nothing to do with all of the fear and hatred that Hitler encouraged. Our main audiobook this week was Bonhoeffer: The Cost of Freedom. If you have not studied Bonhoeffer, he deserves a look. He was a German Lutheran minister who did a great deal of work to protect the Jewish community in Germany. After a long internal struggle, he decided to join an underground group that attempted to stop Hitler by any means possible (including assassination attempts). This audiobook did a wonderful job of explaining the mood in Germany that led up to the war and the struggle many had (including Bonhoeffer) between choosing loyalty to their country or devotion to Jesus' teachings. I won't spoil the end for those who do not know it, but the story is heart breaking.

The movie we watched for the second week was Paper Clips. This is a special movie about a middle school in Tennessee. About 10 years ago, they were teaching their students about the Holocaust and wanted to figure out a way to show what 11 million people looked like. They decided to collect paper clips, because wearing a paper clip during World War II was a way of showing solidarity to the Jewish community. The project spanned 4 years and brought them in contact with survivors and relatives of survivors from all around the world. They even ended up with an authentic box car  to store their paper clips. They now have a museum that we hope to visit one day. It is located about 5 hours from us.
Since we were studying Germany, we had to have some German food. We made chicken schnitzel, potato noodles, and German apple cake. The meal was delicious! The kids loved making noodles from scratch. They were stiffer than wheat noodles, but tasted great.

The first two weeks of books ~

• World War II for Kids A History with 21 Activities
• One More Border The True Story of One Family's Escape from War-Torn Europe
• You Wouldn't Want to Be a Secret Agent During World War II!
• You Wouldn't Want to Be a World War II Pilot!
• Bonhoeffer The Cost of Freedom

Next week we are off to Austria (figuratively speaking). We did not get to learning about codes and code breaking this week. I hope to include that next week.

Blessings, Dawn