A Net in Time

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World War

Propaganda of World War 1

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My son has been LOVING doing research papers.  He’s just finished a rather significant one of poison gas, and as he finished he asked “what’s next mom?”  I mentioned we hadn’t talked about propaganda and how it was handled during the war and he was immediately intrigued.   Since it was our research week we set to. 

propaganda in world war 1

First we Watched Videos

Three types of propaganda

  1. Homefront – for people at home
  2. Front – to increase morale among your troops andweaken it in the enemy
  3. Foreign  – to counter the propaganda of the enemy

Censorship and propaganda often went hand in hand.

It was thought that film could easily be used as a method of propaganda even though it was still fairly new.  But it was very difficult to get film of war battles.  They needed permission, subject to censorship, hard to carry and set up, and light sensitive (most battles happened at night). 

Posters were most often directed at men with national emblems surrounding a healthy modern Canadian man.  Shaming posters were also used.  

We enjoyed the sheer variety in the posters. From the Victory Bond posters, to the enlist now. The different units like the Canadian Irish Rangers. We noted that some WW2 posters were slipped in as well.

You want to show the enemy as beatable, and yet you also want to show him as formidable.   Finding that balance was often difficult. 

Then we took to the books

He read selections from these books.

My goal was to have him research one of the foci of propaganda and then do up a poster showing what he learned.   He wants to do this BUT he also wants to write a paper.  I imagine it will take him two weeks to be happy with his research and the paper he comes up with. In the meantime I will learn lots about wartime propaganda! 🙂

Others in this Series

Poison Gas in World War 1

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Did you know that France was actually the first company to use poison gas in World War 1? I didn’t either. Learn more amazing facts in the video below.

Welcome to Our study of Poison Gas of World War 1.

poison Gas of world war 1

My son has been longing to tackle this topic but I deliberately held it off until the nicer weather. I’ve been imagining my son wanting to make smoke bombs and what not to test wind patterns. Nice weather makes that a whole lot easier to do eh? 🙂

BUT on to our study. We watched a number of videos. 🙂

Types of gas used

  • tear gas – not truly dangerous, more of a nuisance
  • chlorine gas – burning eyes, nose, mouth
  • phosgene gas, sometimes mixed with chlorine gas killed 85% of all gases used.
  • mustard gas – the most painful of all gases

Learning about Chlorine gas

Phosgene gas. 85% of all people who died from Chemical warfare died from this gas. Freshly mown gas smell. 80,000 people.

Mustard Gas. Though in this video the creator was wrong in stating that the Germans started the poison gas attacks. They did grab onto the idea rather firmly though. Mustard gas was named for its yellow-brown colour and mustard smell. It was a nasty gas which didn’t dissipate easily and would sink to lower levels and stuck around for years. Exposure to skin contact leads to blistering and burns. It could be very disfiguring.

Learning about the disfigurement of mustard gas led us to learn about Anna Coleman Watts/Ladd and her work making masks for these poor soldiers.

Videos My Son Picked:

This only the first half of this video is on poison gas.

The history of Fritz Haber. Haber was a Jewish German Chemist who thought that chemical warfare would end the war more quickly. Even though it didn’t. He never apologized for his work or actions. As a Jew he was later unwelcome in Hitler’s Germany. He died in Switzerland from a heart attack. He found himself unwelcome in many places due to his work in chemical warfare.

Small box Respirator. This video led us to learn more about the small box respirator through the Canadian War Museum. I think, Lieutenant Dockar, a Canadian, wrote this article. We learned a good bit reading that article. Close up’s of the SBR can be found here.

Reading

The lad did some reading from various books and downloaded product.

Other posts about world  war one

Model Airplanes, Progress

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Do you remember we’ve been studying the airplanes of world war 1? We each had planes we were interested in. My son found eindecker a curious plane, and I liked a few different ones. I asked the lad if he would like make an airplane model if we could find one. The answer came swiftly….YES!

Model Airplanes, progress

We were in London the other day and stopped in at AVF Hobbies. I wasn’t expecting a whole lot as I’ve been looking on-line for WW1 airplane models without a lot of success. My first perusal of the store met my expectations, but then I discovered their backroom and guess what!

They had TWO planes for world war one and lucky lucky lad.. they had the Eindecker! They also had a Sopwith Camel.

And herein this post you can see the difference between the lad and myself. With him, the careful reading of instructions along with “mom, isn’t that a good idea?” and me… “well, in instructions don’t say that so I should probably just go ahead” instead of listening to reason.

Sometimes I just want to rush ahead you know? My planner lad never does that. 🙂

He is taking the time to follow the instructions “Paint first, build second”. The painting takes a while to do, but he’ll get good coverage of the plastic.

Admittedly, we have old paint as well.. I have yet to buy curriculum for next year! New model plane paint isn’t in my budget. But the paint we have will do, we just need to work with it a bit.

Model Airplanes, progress

I decided to leap right in! Painting after you have a model together is a fair bit trickier I have learned. It will help me continue to develop my patience and help me listen better to my son for next time. 🙂

Model Airplanes, progress

I am pleased with the progress that we are making. It will probably be a month before we are finished. It takes time to let paint dry and to find the time we want in the evening. It’s a fun time together painting, talking, and helping each other out.

Airplanes of World War 1

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The air force was still in it’s infancy during world war one. There was still so much to learn and do. War is a good motivators. Let’s look into the Airplanes of World War 1

Airplanes of World War 1

Videos Watched

My son loves the great war channel so of course we started here. Airplanes were quite basic, but more effective aircraft were being developed.

This video introduced us to many planes and individuals. We followed up with a few of them. Those we didn’t are The Red Baron, the Sopwith Camel, the Vickers Biplane 1, Mick Mannock, .

Ansaldo (Italian plane) the best observation plane.

Which led us to this video listing the top aircraft of WW1

Handley Page was another important plane in the war. That led us on a round about search of ww1 airplanes which led us to this video.

Eindecker – machine gun synchronized to the propellor. About the five minute mark it starts to talk about the airplanes.

Ernest Udet was a German Flying Ace. We were looking for more information on him and only found long documentaries. This one intrigued us though with it’s talk of chivalry in the air.

Billy Bishop, a flying ace from Canada! William Avery Bishop, was a non-scholar who was good at shooting. His marksmanship was his saving grace. Was part of number 60 squadron.

The title of this video intrigued the lad who has an interest in physics. Airplanes plus physics… a total win!

This one popped up in my feed and was actually interesting to watch.

We learned a bit more about the triplane which was used by the Red Baron. It was neat to see the recreation of The Red Baron’s flying unit. The planes looked very neat in the air.

Reading Material

We found this fascinating website called the Military Factory. It lists the planes by name and year, and when you click on the image takes you to another pages with stats and a write up. We actually used this site to find names of airplanes and then look up videos on them. Like this Curtiss H16

Ducksters taught us what the planes were, how they were used, and what their different markings meant.

History hit told us about 12 aircraft from the war. 12 important aircraft from the First World War, including bombers, fighters and reconnaissance planes.

Ranker lists the best of the world war one airplanes. The start of the world was with clunkers and ended with powerful bombers.

1600 airmen died in the World War 1 from Canada, Veterans Affairs talked about the brilliance of Canadian airmen in the war.

My son’s project

A friend of the family gave the lad an airplane model to put together for WW2, so we thought it would be neat to have an airplane of ww1 as well. We hope to stop at a model shop and get one for him to do.

Other posts about world  war one

Submarines of WW1

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After studying the sea battles of world war 1 we thought perhaps we were done until we remembered submarines.  That deserved another week of study!  

Submarines of WW1

We started our study as always with Youtube.

We found it interesting that submarines were thought useless in battle until Kaiser Wilhelm took a ride and loved them, he ordered Germany to start building submarines. Other highlights included: The Electric Boat Company became General Dynamics a major USA based submarine company, the USA was first to use diesel engines in their submarines and Great Britain has 74 submarines built at the start of the war.

Highlights: Submarines changed the face of war. The Germans made the most use of submarines during the war. Living conditions were absolutely horrible due to the use of kerosene lamps and close quarters.

I liked how they talked about what to do with you were in the water, keeping your eyes in the Horizon looking for help.

German high command decided that risking battle with the USA, and ignoring the laws of humanity was necessary in order to win the war.

The lad did some reading in World War 1 History for kids.

His goal this week is to research the changes in submarines from the beginning of the war to the end. Lots of different advances were made. He has since expanded that project as he’s learning a ton and thoroughly enjoying the process. 🙂

Sea Blockades and Battles WW1

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This week Sea Battles!   We just finished The Eastern front and the Western Front.   This was a fascinating look at the battle on the surface.   We’ll be looking below the surface next week.   We learned a great deal about the blockades as well as some of the actual battles. 

Sea Blockades and Battles ww1

My son gravitating toward video as he does, asked me on Monday if we could watch videos rather than go to the library.  

Videos watched

The British were trying to stay the most powerful navy but the states and Germany were further ahead industrially.  As of world war 1 Britain had the best navy with Germany close behind.

Naval Blockade of Germany by the British. We love watching The Great War channel. It is so interesting. Blockades prevented food from getting in, which would weaken the enemy. It wasn’t a kind thing, but perhaps a necessary one?

We focused in a bit on the Battle of Jutland with the two videos below.   This was the biggest naval battle of world war 1.  We learned a few things about tactics, and how different builds of ships made a difference. 

We learned about the battle of Moon Sound.  This battle was fought October and November of 1917.  It was between the Germans and Russians with the Germans being successful. 

Strategy and tactics is important to the lad, so the title of this video intrigued him.  Mistakes in communication were a large part of how this battle played out.  The lad explained to me that radios weren’t very accurate during the war. 

Books Read

He read about sea battles in World War 1 for Kids. We wanted to read more but we have co-op this past two weeks and that means Fridays are too busy for lots of reading.

World War 1 for kids

A decision was made to map out where the blockages and major sea battles were. I wish he would do them in anything out than pencil so they would show up better on the map, but it’s his project and he’s happy with it.

Sea Blockades and Battles ww1

Along with mapping it out, he also printed off a key to go with it. So far we are in discussion over how to keep the key with the poster board.

Sea battles of Ww1

Other posts about world  war one

Battles of the Eastern Front, World War 1

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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

Battles of Eastern Front, WW1

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

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.

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.