WW1 activities and a polar bear!

We had our home ed group session this morning and continued from last week thinking about World War 1. We don't stop our home ed activities for half term unless any families are planning to be away.

We listened to BBC schools radio dance activities. It was movement rather than traditional dance. We had to tiptoe through trenches, be a factory production line, pose in battle scenes and dance American ragtime. It was great fun and the children all joined in. It was very informative too and I think it was a great way to absorb some facts about life in WW1.

The children are posing as a war memorial here, with a battle scene on a plinth.

We also looked at some pictures from WW1, which I printed from the internet. We thought about three themes - the role of women, aircraft and communication and discussed how the war changed these aspects of life and how different they are today, compared to 100 years ago.

Peter did some activities with another mum and her 3 year old too. He cut out fish for a fish tank and counted them. He was really proud showing Harry and me what he had done! 

We took advantage of one of the special half term activities at the Hancock Museum in Newcastle this afternoon with some friends. Bjorn the polar bear is a life-size, walking, sniffing, grunting bear which is very realistic! The 'handler' gave a talk about polar bear habitat and characteristics and the bear came round the children to be patted and to smell them! We didn't do much at the museum after this show as we were all tired after our group morning and it was very busy - we will go back in term time!