Guten Tag! Yesterday we held our exciting ‘hook’ to immerse the children into our new history-led WW2 topic, Keep Calm and Carry on! We began with a ‘slow reveal’ of the first illustration in our focus book, Rose Blanche. Piece by piece, more of the interesting illustration was uncovered and the children made brilliant predictions about what this book might be about.
Initially, many of the children thought the image showed British soldiers either about to go to war or returning, hence the happy faces. Once the Nazi flags were revealed, the children then realised that this was in fact set in Germany showing a celebration of war being announced. We gathered together as a year group to discuss the whole picture, before being rudely interrupted by the ‘fat mayor’ who can be seen in the illustration overlooking the town square below him! He gathered us all together in our very own German market square outside Year 6 where we had to put ourselves in the shoes of the German children at this time. We learnt that the idea of war and Hitler’s views would have been welcomed by many German people in order to build a stronger nation as the years between WW1 and WW2 were punitive. Although this was initially tricky for some of the Year 6 children to understand, they were able to try and empathise.
Imagining they were German children, they took part in 3 activities: learning some German numbers and phrases, looking at propaganda posters and trying some German delicacies!
We will be exploring ‘Rose Blanche’ further in our Book Club and English lessons, following Rose’s experience of WW2. As tempting as it may be, please avoid sharing this book with your children until after we have finished using it!
Of course in history lessons, the children will learn how our amazing country was able to ‘Keep Calm and Carry on’ in order to eventually win the war and shape our nation as it is today.
Our key question for this half term is “Were there any true winners from WW2?”, with a key concept of ‘peace’.
On Friday, children will come home with their knowledge organisers for them to share with you. We would love for older generations in your family to share any experience of WW2 with the children to make it even more meaningful for them. If any family members are willing to come in and share experiences with our Year 6 children in a small assembly, we would greatly appreciate it. Please let your child’s class teacher know if this is something you could offer.
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