HISTORY
Year 3
Information
Evacuees
Objectives
•
To be aware of the effects of air raids
•
To empathise with the experiences and feelings of evacuees
•
To communicate learning in an organised and structured way
Prior learning
To benefit from this lesson, children should:
•
know how to add text to a callout box.
Vocabulary
air raid, shelter, rationing, siren, evacuee, gas mask, air raid warden
Resources
•
data projector or interactive whiteboard linked to a laptop
•
ICT suite or set of laptops
•
presentation software that can display images with some images of evacuees
(in this Example, Evacuee PowerPoint file)
•
word processing software that can display images and allows the annotation of
speech bubbles with images of evacuees (in this Example, Evacuee Word files
1, 2 and 3)
ICT skills needed by teachers
To teach this unit, teachers need to know how to:
•
use a data projector;
•
use presentation software;
•
add text to a callout box on the photographs of evacuees.
Preparation for this lesson
Set up the presentation file (Evacuee PowerPoint file) on your demonstration
computer. Place the evacuee documents (Evacuee Word files 1, 2 and 3) in a
shared area of the network or on children’s individual computers.
Lesson extract
Introduction
Use the presentation file to introduce the effects of air raids and their impact on
children.
Slide 2
Q What do you think is happening? Why are people having to do this?
People are filling sandbags to protect the windows in case of an air raid.
Slide 3
Q What do you think is happening here?
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People are sheltering in an underground station during an air raid. The air raid
warden is patrolling the platform – you can see him with his armband.
Q How do you think these people feel?
Initially this was different and quite exciting, but also scary or frightening.
Slide 4
Q What is happening here?
This is a mother with three children sheltering from an air raid in an Anderson
shelter at the bottom of their garden. The shelter is named after John Anderson,
Home Secretary at the time.
Q Who is missing?
There are no men. Can the children offer reasons why? The men may have
enlisted in the armed services or they may be working in some protected industry,
e.g. munitions, mining, etc.
Slide 5
Q What is involved in making an Anderson shelter?
The slide shows corrugated iron sheets being placed over a small excavation and
covered with earth. Quite frequently, vegetables were later planted in the earth
covering the shelter.
Q What would it be like to have to spend many nights in here?
Q How do you think your family would feel if you had to go into an air raid
shelter?
It is very small for a family. It will be dirty, cold, damp, crowded, dark. You would
need candles or lanterns, and possibly some food and drink.
Slide 6
These are just examples of gas masks. Point out to the children that everyone was
expected to carry their gas masks all the time. If you didn’t and the air raid warden
spotted you, you were in trouble.
Q How do you think these young parents felt?
Slide 7
Q What is happening here?
The slide shows children being evacuated. Explain that one of the consequences
of the air raids was that many children were evacuated to the countryside, without
their parents and in some cases for several years. It would be useful to point out
that the children were wearing labels. Note the adults supervising the evacuation;
the woman in the right foreground has a box with a gas mask – do the children
notice this?
Q What would it feel like if you were standing on this platform?
Obviously there are crowds of people, a lot of noise, confusion, etc. Children didn’t
know where they were going, what they would find, how they would be treated at
the other end.
Slide 8
The final slide of the presentation introduces the task for the main activity.
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Main activity
Explain the children’s task. They will add text to the speech bubbles in one or two
photographs of evacuees. The text should show the children’s understanding of
how the evacuees would have felt in various situations.
Demonstrate how to add text to a speech bubble. Open one of the example files
and show children how to click inside a callout box and add some text. If a child
wishes to write more text than will fit into the speech bubble, demonstrate how to
extend the bubble by grabbing the handles and dragging; alternatively the child can
be encouraged to write beneath the photograph.
Focus your interactions on ensuring that children are writing how the evacuees
would have felt, rather than describing the scene.
Right-click on any unused speech bubbles and select ‘Cut’ to remove them.
Plenary
Encourage two or three children to print out their examples. Using a flipchart,
record a list of the different emotions or feelings experienced by the evacuees.
You may wish to create a display of Second World War artefacts or photographs
that children bring from home.
Notes
Links to QCA schemes of work
The lesson links to:
QCA History Unit 9: What was it like for children in the Second World War?
Subject links
Links can be made to reading and writing activities in the literacy hour, to work on
places in geography, and to work in art and design.
Why use ICT?
The advantages of using ICT are as follows.
•
ICT allows teachers to project enlarged visual images for whole-class
demonstration and discussion.
•
ICT allows children to draft and present written and pictorial information in an
attractive format. Their work can be saved, and refined or added to later.
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