Remembrance Day

Today is Remembrance Day. On the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month, the country stands still and is silence for two minutes.

In this two minutes, we remember soldiers that have died in wars past and present.

Remembrance Day was first held in 1919, one year after the First World War ended. It is sometimes known as Armistice Day.

On Remembrance Day, people will lay wreaths of poppies on statues and monuments to remember all the soldiers who died for us.

Poppies are worn on Remembrance Day because they are the flowers which grew on the battlefields after the First World War ended.

In class today, we read the story Where the Poppies Now Grow by Hilary Robinson and Martin Impey.

We also watched the short video from Cbeebies – click here if you would like to watch it again.

Any money that is raised by the Royal British Legion goes to soldiers and their families if they have been hurt or injured.

LEST WE FORGET

Marvellous Medicine

Last half term, we have been learning about Florence Nightingale and Mary Seacole. They were both nurses in the Crimean War and they helped lots of soldiers to recover after they were injured in the Crimean War.

Usually to finish off our topic, we have a wonderful visitor called Candice who comes into school to run a Florence Nightingale workshop. Due to the current circumstances, this hasn’t been possible this year but we have been able to borrow some of the wonderful artefacts, props and resources to enable to carry out this workshop in school.

Just take a look at what we got up to…

Remembrance Day

At 11 o’clock, on the 11th day of the 11th month, we stopped what we were doing to had a two-minute silence to remember the soldiers who have died for our country in wars past and present.

We watched a live feed on the internet and saw that everyone around the world was silent at 11 o’clock.

People wear poppies as a mark of respect to remember all of the soldiers who have died in the first and second world war but also the fighting that is happening today. Click here to visit the Newsround website for more information.

Click here to watch a short animation from Cbeebies about Remembrance Day. It follows a young rabbit through the poppy fields.

Poppies were the only thing that grew in the fields after the fighting has stopped.

There is a famous poem by John McCrae, written in May 1915 that was inspired by all the poppies in fields. Click here to read it.

In class, we have written in our topic books about what Remembrance Day is all about and made some poppy crafts in our independent learning time.

How to continue the learning at home:

• Talk to your child about what the poppy symbolises and why people wear them.
• Watch the Remembrance Service on television on Sunday 13th November with your child.
• Visit a local cenotaph and talk about why the poppies have been laid.

Florence Nightingale Workshop

This week, we have had history come to life! As a special treat to finish the end of our topic, Florence Nightingale came to our school. It felt like we were actually in the Crimean War helping Florence Nightingale or being one of the soldiers.

We got a chance to dress up and it was so much fun. We could be Florence Nightingale, one of the nurses who helped her or we could have been one of the soldiers.

The lady brought lots of different artefacts with her so we had the opportunity to handle real-life objects like they would have had in 1854. There was even a severed hand in there too!

We had learnt that the hospitals in Scutari were disgusting. They were full of flea-ridden rats, the food was often mouldy, the water was infected and the injured soldiers often had to sleep on the floor as there were no beds left for them to rest on.

When Florence and her nurses came, she began to change all of this. Florence was using her own money to look after the soldiers and they started to get better. We have learnt that she had a nickname. The soldiers used to call her ‘The Lady with the Lamp’ because during the night, Florence would go and check up on the soldiers to make sure that they were okay with a small lamp.

Everyone had so much fun, teachers included! A massive thank you to Florence for coming to visit us.

What you can do to support your child’s learning at home:

• Ask your child if they can recall any of the facts that have learnt about Florence Nightingale.
• Click here to play a game and learn more about Florence.

Florence Nightingale Role Play Area

We  are so excited to be learning about Florence Nightingale that Miss Varley has created Scutari hospital for us to recreate what it must have been like during the Crimean War.

We have learnt that Scutari is in a place called Turkey so we have the Turkish flag up.

 

We have learnt that Florence was having to look after soldiers in disgusting conditions.

• Soldiers were having to sleep on the floor.
• There was no clean water to drink or bathe in.
• Food was often mouldy or stale.
• There were lots of rats and they were covered in disease and ran around the hospital, passing their bacteria and disease around.
• Many soldiers died from infection rather than their actual wounds.

We have also looked at a timeline of Florence Nightingale’s life to learn facts like when she was born, how old she was when she died.

We love dressing up and using our imagination to try and imagine what it must of been like for Florence, her nurses and the soldiers.

What you could do at home:

• Find out who Florence Nightingale is.
• Find out why is she important to nursing.
• Visit the library to find books about Florence.
• Use the internet to research more about the life of Florence Nightingale.