For this Remembrance Day, explore what life was like for soldiers on the frontline during World War One.
This Plazoom resource pack includes information about Remembrance Day and why the poppy is used a symbol for remembrance before investigating what life must have been like for the soldiers who went to war.
Pupils will look at a variety of images that show life in the trenches during WW1 and use their inference skills to imagine what it would have been like to fight on the front line across Europe.
They will read a letter, sent from a mother to a soldier fighting in WW1. Pupils will then write a reply in role as the soldier, describing their life on the front line. The activities could be completed over a day as part of your classes work on Remembrance Day, or could be completed over a series of English lessons.
The resource will:
- Enable pupils to understand why 11th November is a day of Remembrance
- Develop pupils inference skills using images from World War One
- Give pupils the opportunity to write in role, developing their descriptions of characters and settings
This primary resource pack includes:
- Teaching slides
These can be used to guide the class through the activities and displays key information about Remembrance Day.
- Vocabulary cards
PDF cards that can be used to discuss new vocabulary and create a display in the classroom.
- Developing Inference: Using images worksheets
A collection of PDF worksheets with key questions for pupils to answer, inferring information from the images provided.
- ‘A letter from home’ text
A model text that can be used to teach key features of letter writing which pupils will write a reply to in role.
- A letter from the Front Line planning sheet
A PDF planning sheet to support pupils when planning and organising their ideas for writing.
- Themed writing paper
PDF writing paper for pupils to use to display their final draft.
- Teaching notes
Guidance on how to use the resource is given, divided into three smaller activities. Additional activities are also suggested.
When is Remembrance Day?
In the UK Remembrance Sunday falls on the second Sunday in November, as this is the Sunday nearest to Armistice Day, the 11 November).
It is a day to commemorate the contribution of British and Commonwealth military in WWI, WWII and other conflicts.
National Curriculum programme of study links
Reading
- Pupils will show understanding of what they have read (or images seen) by drawing inferences
Writing
- Pupils will plan their writing by discussing and recording ideas.
- Pupils will compose and rehearse sentences orally, progressively building a varied and rich vocabulary
- Pupils will identify the audience for and purpose of the writing, selecting the appropriate form.
- Pupils will draft and write by selecting the appropriate grammar and vocabulary, understanding how such choices can change and enhance meaning
History
- Pupils should study an aspect of or theme in British history that extends pupils chronological knowledge beyond 1066.