World War

Submarines of WW1

April 13, 2019 By Annette1 10 Comments

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!

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

March 30, 2019 By Annette1 7 Comments

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.

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.

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.

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.

Battles of the Eastern Front, World War 1

March 2, 2019 By Annette1 8 Comments

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.

Medal of Honor: Jack Montgomery

February 19, 2019 By Annette1 2 Comments

Studying the lives of real-life heroes is important for children. It gives them someone real to look up to. Role models show character qualities in real situations to help children learn how to emulate those qualities in their own lives. Michael P. Spradlin introduces us to real-life hero Meal of Honor: Jack Montgomery who fought in World War II at Anzio.

From the cover:

Jack C. Montgomery was a Cherokee from Oklahoma, and a first lieutenant with the 45th Infantry Division Thunderbirds. On February 22, 1944, near Padiglione, Italy, Montgomery’s rifle platoon was under fire by three echelons of enemy forces when he single-handedly attacked all three positions, neutralizing the German machine-gunners and taking numerous prisoners in the process. Montgomery’s actions demoralized the enemy and saved the lives of many American soldiers.

The Medal of Honor series profiles the courage and accomplishments of recipients of the highest and most prestigious personal military decoration, awarded to recognize U.S. military service members who have distinguished themselves through extraordinary acts of valor.

What You Get:

A well-written story, that speaks not only to the actual action taken, but also to the life of the man leading up to that moment. So it’s not just a story of Mr. Montgomery being a hero, but how his life made him a hero.

Interspersed between the story is material about the US Army, or it’s ordinances, or people involved during the battle. For instance, readers learn about Mussolini, why the Cherokee symbol changes from a swastika to a thunderbird, the use of deception in battle and more.

Numerous black and white images dot the pages, showing us scenes from history that the hero might have seen, or relevant to the historical period. Some of the images: Hitler reviewing his troops, soldiers manning a machine gun, Montgomery receiving his medal and many more.

My Thoughts

I’ve struggled reading this book. Part of it stemmed from I think a missing page. I reading and then the story just stopped mid-sentence and then picked up later. The other part was, the story itself kept being interrupted, so I couldn’t just read it from start to finish.

Was the story itself good? Yes! Resoundingly so. I would happily read more real-life stories like this. It was good to read. Good to know how men in the army have to take risks, and simply just do their job to the best of their abilities.

Jack Montgomery: World War II – Gallantry at Anzio
Michael P. Spradlin
Series: Medal of Honor
Farrar Straus Giroux
112 pages, paperback, 8-12 years
Military, Hero, World War 2, United States Army
Reviewed for Raincoast Books.

Battles of World War 1

January 19, 2019 By Annette1 10 Comments

I have to admit to feeling a bit surprised. I thought, battles of the war, how complicated could it be. BOY, was I wrong. Led to a rather fierce discussion between the lad and I about how I could be so wrong! But hey, we worked it through and have decided to divide this section into part.

Battles of the Western front, and the eastern front. Then battles of Africa. We’ll tackle sea battles and air battles. But last week and this week we are just going for the general approach.. just getting a bit of an overview of the battles of World War 1.

Battles of World War one. Soldier walking across a field. — Photo by Specna Arms on Unsplash

Movies Watched

To that end, we watched a few different movies. Flyboys. and The Red Baron. We tried watching The Trench (don’t recommend it). We have plans to watch Warhorse documentary and War Horse but so far we can’t get a stream that works.

Books Read

The lad read through these books below, just select pages that talked about battles of the war in generic terms, or as a broad overview.

The goal is to have him find a battle he wants to research from a Canadian point of view, but so far none of them are grabbing his attention.

We also read through a book called Vimy Oaks because I was just intensely curious. It took us a couple of nights to read through. Thoroughly enjoyed this book. We found it fascinating that the oaks from France eventually found a way back after all the destruction.

Videos Watched

Would we be us if we didn’t watch some videos as well?

Watching how the line moved so much at first and then just kind of stalled, reminded us of how HARD and kinda pointless trench warfare would have seemed to the men involved.

Resources Used

We used a variety of resources for this unit study. These include writing prompts from Bonnie Rose. Heather LeBlanc’s Major Battles and Events of WW1 and Military Geography from TOS. We used a timeline from someone but I can’t find a link to it… Might have been a free unit we picked up somewhere, I can’t truly recall.

Trench Warfare in WW1

December 14, 2018 By Annette1 4 Comments

Dry feet, new socks, dealing with gas, different trench designs, lice, rats, rain and misery. This is what made up the soldier’s life fighting in the trenches of World War One. A tough life for soldiers.

Trenches were 10 feet high with sandbags stacked around. Dug not only in dirt (like I thought) but also through rock, in sand etc. They went through coal mines, railroad tracks, streams and more.

Soldiers rotated through being in the front line to being in the support lines. Different counties had their own routine… anywhere from five days to one month.

They had a daily routine of protect the trench (stand to), hate, breakfast, weapon and foot inspection, daily chores, and a lot of boredom and at night “stand to” (protect the trench).

Life in the Trenches

Together we discovered this interactive website that taught more about life in the trenches.

Duckboard and Poetry

Duckboard was a new word to us and so we learned that it is a board consisting of a number of wooden slats joined together, placed so as to form a path over muddy ground or in a trench.

We read the poem Break of Day in the Trenches by Isaac Rosenberg.

We learned about the life of a Canadian Soldier in the trenches. It wasn’t an easy time for man or beast. A fair bit of time was spent examining the different parts to this section.

We saw photos of life in the trenches. Listening to people talk about their duties, adds realism, you know?

This video was very helpful in teaching us the terminology of the trenches.

This video taught us more about the support lines, and how the trenches were made. Explained where they were placed as well.

This video demonstrated why trench warfare was so very difficult. The armies, basically in a stalemate. Both sides got their positions and simply held them. Sometimes losing, but getting them back. Back and forth, back and forth. Not really going anywhere.

Of course battling in the trenches met fighting off pests like rats and lice (with could cause trench fever), and trench foot. We learned more about combating trench foot here.

Hands-On

We took a couple of approaches to our hands-on work for Trenches.

First we made models of trenches.

We have plans to make sample trenches of the German trenches as well. You can see what they look like on this page.

I thought it was important to truly understand what trench foot was like and how quickly it could hit the men. We took some pigs feet, one we left just in a sock, another was washed and dried with a change of socks twice a day, and another was washed, dried and had Vaseline applied twice a day. I will be writing up a post to tell you more about trench foot and our experiment.

Resources to further understanding

We made use of a couple of resources as well. Click on image to go to resource.

SchoolhouseTeachers.com has a section on World War 1 as well. It would be worth your time to check it out.

Christmas 1914

December 11, 2018 By Annette1 6 Comments

In the middle of November, my son, host son and myself took in Christmas 1914 at Fanshawe Village. We had a fantastic time and learned ever so much. As it drawing nearer to Christmas I thought I would tell you all about it! 🙂

Our visit started with a reenactment of the Christmas Truce of 1914. First they walked us through a trench with men telling us about their experiences, the cold, the hunger, the muck and the constant threat surrounding them.

I mentioned to one fellow that it was cold. He said “yes, it is truly miserable”. This portion of the program wasn’t very long but it gave us a glimpse into what it would have been like for these soldiers. Living within all that and then learning to trust the men in the other trenches, at least enough on Christmas to greet each other. A tough call.

After we saw the re-enactment we were able to go around and visit the various buildings which reflected different aspects of World War 1.

Our first stop was at the church were we listened to a girl choir. Some aspects were not period (like the Santa hats and the organ) but that wasn’t completely the point. 🙂 The point was music was still part of that time period and we got to listen to songs about the time period as well.

Church

We sat through part of the program, but the boys were feeling antsy so we headed out to get some hot chocolate and have an impromptu snow ball fight. It was good to see the boys having fun together (until they ganged up on me). I ran quickly into the building with the hot chocolate. 🙂

The lady working this house helped us to understand how the French boys and the boys from other countries were treated.

Once done here we headed back to finish listening to the girls choir. They did an excellent job. I wish I had the recording from Christmas in the Trenches. The one young lady did an excellent job singing an excellent alto.

Red Cross Booth

We also stopped at the Red Cross booth. Here we learned about how the soldiers received care packages. There we could light a candle to remember those who had gone on before. It was great to write a Christmas card to a Canadian soldier currently serving.

Christmas 1914 re-enactment, writing letter to a soldier

Period House

We spent some time at a home set up for the 1900’s. We saw a pamphlet to help people adjust to living during the war. It was full of practical advice.

In this house we were walked through how people would have lived, and the story of one family. We learned the best way to string popcorn and saw period Christmas decorations.

Guard house

Our last stop was the guard house. Each of us got a period Christmas card, much like the boys would have received in the war. We learned abit about how injured soldiers were cared for. I have to admit, the fire was cozy warm. The men inside the building also educated the boys are terminology use, and many other items. Other than the hot chocolate I probably enjoyed this station the most.

Artifacts

Not to be forgotten was the artifact set up in the main building. This was a treasure trove of information. From the lady who had a display of period Christmas Cards, and an obvious love of communicating what was special about them. I never knew one could learn so much from an old card!

The boys were most interested in checking out the equipment the soldiers used and the weapons they carried. The person manning the both was very knowledgeable and from him we learned that most of the soldiers that participated in the 1914 truce died as a result of their actions. Their commanding officers for the most part transferred them to areas with active fighting. Their actions were firmly frowned upon, and thereafter in the war, some of the heaviest fighting was on Christmas day.

We learned a lot about gas masks, how they progressed over the years. What the gas did. Some gas dissipated easily, other gas settled in down lying areas and just stayed there. The lad tried on a gas mask and said “it’s hard to breathe’. Our instructor said “Now try running with that, carrying all your gear, in the mud”. My son’s face when he took off the mask said it all. Imagine how hard that would have been. The soldiers needed to carry them at all times.

This was an incredibly informative evening and I highly recommend if you have a chance to go, that you do so.

Want to Know More?

Some songs were written about this series of events.

Articles about it

Some books to check out.

World War

Submarines of WW1