"It's All Over Over There!"

Finally!  The end of World War Two!  Yikes!  When we began this journey, we had no idea where it would take us.  Because I took on the whole war at once, we merely scratched the surface.  If you choose to do a unit study on World War II, I suggest breaking it up.... study the homefront, rationing, a few battles, a single country... there is so much to this subject that taking it on in bits and pieces is more effective than trying to digest the whole!

props for the presentation

To do this unit study, we did a half hour activity (or active learning) first thing and then 30 more minutes of me reading aloud to the kids.  We decided to read "Anne Frank, Diary of a Young Girl" during this time.  While I read the kids worked on the timeline (more on that later) or drew pictures of what they were hearing me read.  It was tough getting a lot of reading done in that half hour with a three year old and and infant demanding attention.  We found the book to be interesting and boring all at the same time.  It was interesting how they were forced to live during their time of hiding, but naturally repetitious.  Because it became a bit of a drudge and because the kids had watched a movie based on the book, we settled for reading only half the book and then the epilogue.  We spent an hour one morning whispering to see how difficult it must've been for the residents of the Secret Annex on a daily basis to protect themselves from discovery.  In retrospect, I would've tried "The Hiding Place" by Corrie Ten Boom instead.  Actually, I've never read that book but I was disappointed that Anne Frank made little or no reference to her faith in her diary.  It was sad to me that they hid, suffered and died because of their religious beliefs and yet it did not seem to play a pivotal role in their daily life.
Alright, beyond Anne Frank, we learned a lot through a movie that we watched called "The 1940s House".  The movie was a bit of a documentary that chose a modern family to place in a house and situations fashioned exactly like one would find in England in the 1940s.  It's about a three hour movie but well worth the time.  We also watched "D-day to Berlin".  This is a much shorter documentary that moved along rather quickly and showed real and up-close footage of the war.  It certainly made an impact with the children.
Aside from movies and books, the kids did a trivia game, made yellow Stars of David out of popsicle sticks, a model of a bomb shelter and made a rather impressive timeline!  During the presentation, Mitch did a sock puppet show that was the fastest summary of the war ever given!  Janie did a detailed report on Anne Frank.  Her read aloud was excellent!  That was super exciting for me since reading aloud is really far out of her comfort zone.  Mitch figured out how to drop a "bomb" on his shelter with a straight pin and grenade shaped balloons with a couple of beans in them for weight... that was a big hit with Josiah and Hailey who were here as guests!
We learned a lot, but I have to say that I'm totally burned out!  Maybe next year we'll take on just a portion of the war, but it's gonna be awhile before I have the energy to invest in this subject again!