Roles of women in WW2

Today we looked at the roles of women in WW2, a lesson we really enjoyed 🙂 First of all we started to think about the expectation of women before WW2. We realised that women were seen as ‘housewives’ and looked after the family. We explored a variety of pictures which showed this. The activate part of our lesson was watching a video clip, which we all enjoyed. There were a few shoulders bopping up and down as we watched! We thought about notices and wonders the first time we watched then the second time, we used our whiteboards to record some of the jobs women had before the war then during the war. We shared our ideas in mini crews and built a whole class anchor chart. We then took part in a collaborative task, a mini reading comprehension based on the clip! There was even some grammar in there on the subject! We then moved onto watching another two clips, again thinking about the roles of women but then thinking about how the war actually changed women’s lives. We demonstrated our learning through a venn diagram task, working in mini crews to sort the jobs of women before and during the war. Our exit ticket will come in tomorrows lesson where we will complete a piece of writing to explain how the experiences of women changed because of WW2. This will also help us to answer our guiding question.

Building on evacuation in MI

Yesterday we continued our expeditionary learning on evacuation where we built on the knowledge we already had. We imagined we were a parent of two small children living in London’s docklands. We had to decide whether or not to evacuate our children. We considered the factor cards in front of us, reading them aloud with our partner. If we thought the factor card was a reason for evacuation we moved our counter forward on our board. If we thought it was against evacuation we moved it backwards. After doing this, we reviewed the cards again, this time ranking the cards by how important they are to us. We then explained our decision using the sentence starter, “If I were a parent, I would/would not not evacuate my children because… We worked really well in mini-crews, discussing our thoughts and ideas together.

Becoming Gardners

Today we became Gardners for our fifth castle job. We learnt about how important Gardners were as they planted fruits and vegetables for the kings, queens, lords and ladies to eat at their banquets.

We planted our very own seeds and have taken them home to look after.

Blitz poetry in MI

Today we used all the knowledge we have gained over our last few expeditionary lessons to create poems on the Blitz. First of all we created an anchor chart together with lots of different language on the Blitz, some examples included damage, emotional, community and homes. We then looked at different nouns that linked to the Blitz. From here we added a verb to each of our nouns. Some of the crew then looked at prepositional phrases and added an example to further develop our sentence. We then went a step further adding some different similes to our poems. There were some fantastic ideas today, great work MI 🙂

Wartime Food – Cauliflower Pie

Last week, we made Cauliflower pie using basic ingredients. This was an opportunity for us to get a feel for what it was like during the war and the challenges there would have been due to rationing. Everyone pushed the self out if their comfort zone and tried it. There were mixed reviews. Some enjoyed the crunchy top while others preferred the soft inside. Some were pleasantly surprised to discover that they actually really enjoyed it and had seconds.

Biscuits fit for a banquet

Today we became bakers for our next castle job. We were given the task of designing and making biscuits for the King and Queens Friday Night Banquet.

We took time to design our biscuits and then made them. They looked so delicious that we decided to eat them, hopefully the queen wont be too upset!

We were peasants and candlemakers

For our second case study we are exploring what life was like in a castle during medieval times. We learn about the Feudal System and how the higher up the feudal system you were the more power and money you had. We began by experiencing life as a peasant by doing lots of hard jobs such as cleaning and sweeping.

For our next job we became candle makers. We talked about how there was no iPads, phones, TVs or electricity in a castle during the 12th Century so children had to find other ways to entertain themselves. No electricity also meant no lights so candles were essential.

I wonder what jobs we will experience next!

WW2 Wartime Food in Crew Godley

Today we discussed the need for making rations spread further and creating meals from the foods people had available, including those they had grown in the ‘Grow for Victory’ campaign. We explored a range of recipes, looking at the ingredients needed and the method involved. We discussed that as ingredients were rationed, this made the recipes really simple. We worked together to make a wartime foods – carrot cookies, carrot fudge, sweet potato chocolate spread and cauliflower pie. Once we had created our wartime food we discussed how the dishes in WW2 were different to our favourite meals today. The sweet potato chocolate spread certainly didn’t taste as sweet as it does today!

The Blitz continues in MI

Today we continued to explore a range of pictures focusing on The Blitz. Todays activity built on our learning yesterday but allowed us to record some of our own thoughts and ideas. We explored a picture then recorded the things we could see. We used the sentence stem I think… to generate our own ideas then wrote down some of our wonders. We then looked closely at 2 pictures where we summarised what we could see, what we thought was happening and what they made us wonder. From here we compared each picture thinking about similarities and differences.