We’ve been working off and on with the Battles of the Eastern Front for the past 2-3 weeks. Our time has been scattered by snow days, sick days for the lad, and mom has no brain days (sick, tired and/or distracted). Nevertheless we did have some focused days
Last week the lad did some reading on the Eastern Front using various books from the library (which have since been returned so I don’t have a picture of them). He used many of the same books from when we learned about the Western Front.
This week we watched a number of videos.
We found the Khan one a bit dry, but it did tell us about some of the big battles of the Eastern front. We learned about Tannenburg which led us to this video. Some sites that we found helpful are
- Britannica. we learned why Germany was so effective.
- Ducksters gave us a good overview
- ThoughtCo helped us understand Russian mindset.
Then the lad brought up this one:
Looking up the battle of Galacia brought us this short clip. It left us with a few questions, but gave a glimpse of how battles affect each other.
We decided to learn a bit about the Russian army of World War 1.
We also found these websites helpful.
- Marxists.org – good overall start for us.
- Spartacus – taught us the repercussions of WW1 for Russia.
- ww2 weapons – highlighted the shortage of weapons and training in the Russian Army.
- Encyclopedia of WW1 – details of Russian war involvement.
- The history learning site – political intrigue didn’t help the Russian effort.
Research Project
So the lad chose to map out the main battles of the Eastern Front. This proved more problematic than he expected. He’s been learning some important research skills including how to ask for help when needed. Once he got that help (battles are often named after towns close by) he was off to the races. Connecting battles, finding a blurb to write about each, he was very involved in the process.
He’s written up blurbs for each of the battles he chose (Tannenburg I know was one of them) but hasn’t printed them off yet.
Next week we plan to learn about … Oh.. I’m pretty sure he said Sea Battles and he’s apparently done some research into them already.
This list is interesting. I know the next time we tackle the wars, we’ll be hunting down your resource lists.
oh, I hope you find them helpful. 🙂 when do you plan to study them?
What an interesting study! When we were growing up my brother learned everything there was to know about every single battle ever! And, he still knows it. We used him as our resource when my kids were studying various wars.
wow… that’s great that he could hold it all in. My son is enjoying his look at the war.
this would be a great resource for homeschooling families
thank you, I hope so. 🙂
This is great! My boys were just saying that it seems like almost every source we’ve used for history skips right over World War I and heads into World War II. We know so little about it and I told them I’d look for some more information on it. Pinned!
I have a bunch of posts on World War 1, I don’t know that I linked them all in this post. I may have to go back and do that. we’ve learned a lot so far.