History at key stages 1 and 2    (Year 3/4)

Establish what children already know about the war. Use their responses, or provide a brief narrative, to introduce key information, including when the war took place, the main countries involved, why it started (Hitler's invasion of other countries and why Britain tried to stop him), how it was fought (invasion of other countries, mass bombings, sinking of ships using submarines), the names of leaders (such as Hitler and Churchill), and the defeat of Germany and Japan by the allied nations.

Use maps to establish why it was a 'world' war and a time line to locate when it happened.
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Section 2: What was the Blitz?

Use selected sources, eg photographs, a gas mask, to tell the children about the mass bombing of cities. Discuss why Germany and Britain decided to bomb cities. Use maps, eg of London or Liverpool, or children's knowledge, to establish the main targets. Discuss what could be done to stop the bombers, eg anti-aircraft fire, blackout.
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Section 3: Why were children evacuated?

Discuss with the children the ways families could protect themselves. Show them pictures of shelters, dugouts, the underground, gas masks, etc. Discuss the advantages and disadvantages of each method.

Show children pictures of bomb damage, and newspaper accounts of the results of air raids. Ask the children to fill in a two-column grid with the headings 'What happened when the bomb landed?' and 'How were people who lived there affected?'

Introduce the idea of evacuation.
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Section 4: What was it like to be an evacuee?

With the children's help, produce a list of questions about evacuees. Ask the children to answer the questions using selected sources, eg photographs, extracts from novels, oral accounts, letters, memoirs.

Ask the children to imagine they are evacuees and to write a letter home or diary extracts. Ask them to consider why they might want to be evacuated and why not, what is happening to them and how they feel about it. Encourage the children to use their knowledge of evacuation and appropriate terms, eg billeting officer, host family, evacuation, evacuee.
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Section 5: What did people eat during the war?

Discuss with the children why some types of food were in short supply. Provide descriptions of typical meals and ask them to compare these with what they eat today.

Introduce the idea of rationing. Show the children ration books, or pictures of them. Ask them to calculate how much sugar, eggs, meat, sweets, etc their family would have been able to buy. How could they have supplemented their rations?

Give the children selected sources, eg photographs of soldiers, women at work, the home guard, a funeral, newspaper headlines.

Work with the children to list what the pictures show. Consider what can be inferred about the effects of the war on people's lives, and about the qualities people needed to survive.

Ask the children to write captions for one or more of the pictures.
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Section 7: What were children's experiences of the war?

Discuss with the children factors that might affect children's experiences of the war, eg where they lived, their nationality. Explain that children in many countries were bombed. Locate areas of heavy bombing on the world map.

Establish the idea of refugees having to leave their homes. Refer to the many children and their parents, who were imprisoned and killed because they were Jewish. Read extracts from the story of Anne Frank. Ask children to retell the story in their own words.
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Section 8: What it was like to be a child living in this area in World War II?

Recap, through question and answer, what the children have learned so far about the war's impact on people of the time.

Help the children to devise a list of questions they would ask someone who was a child in the area during the war, eg Where did you live? What did you eat? Did you experience bombing or evacuation? How much did you know about what was happening in the war? How did you find out?

Arrange for someone who was a child during the war to visit the class. Encourage the children to ask the questions on the list. Record the interview. Replay the tape and discuss with the children what they have learned about the history of their area during the war. Help them to identify on a map, local places mentioned by the visitor. Mark the map with a description of what happened there during the war years.
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Section 9: How did the Second World War affect children who lived in this locality?

Assemble selected sources to show the impact of the war locally.

Ask the children to complete a two-column grid with the headings: 'What does the picture show?' and 'What can we learn about the war in the locality?'

Drawing on the knowledge they have gained from the unit, ask the children to suggest some similarities and differences between the local and national experience.
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Section 10: What has been done since to prevent another world war?

Discuss with the children areas of conflict in the world today. Tell them about the United Nations and their role in peacekeeping. Discuss whether there is peace in the world today and whether things are better today than they were at the time of the Second World War.
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