World War 1
As I may have mentioned before, M has a definite interest in both the world wars, any sort of military stuff, guns, fighting you name it. I decided it might be an idea to get a few books on the subject and let him educate himself on it. Actually he’s been educating me mostly!!
Last week I got The First World War Usborne book which I’d been eyeing up for a while (still would like to get the 2nd WW book). Wasn’t sure whether M would go for it as it’s a bit hit and miss with him when I get books, however he loved it and spent a good half hour at least looking through it with me, telling me all the bits he knew about etc. Now, I know *nothing* about the 1st world war excpet a bit about trenches so this is all new to me. M wanted me to try and find a WW1 game that he could play. he really likes Medal of Honour on the Wii (I know not really appropriate for his age!) and wants a WW1 game. Doesn’t seem to be much there, apparantly due to the boring-ness of the fights but looks like there might be some plane games about I said I’d look into.
Anyway, today I spent a good while reading up the book so that I’d have a bit better grounding in the subject. I managed to also find a couple of free online games for M which he really enjoyed - here and here for anyone else interested (and for me to find when I lose them). We had a bit of discussion about the planes and I told M I had found out what Aces were (was one of his questions the other day) and so we talked about that.
I realised I had enough in various survey accounts to get an amazon voucher so spent some of it on various WW1 books. A horrible histories audio book and a couple of those My Story books. Hoping they won’t be too harrowing though.
Am going to try and take the kids to the Imperial War Museum as there is a Frightful First World War Exhibition on there. No rush though, it’s on till the beginning of next year.
Bedtime story was the first from the War Stories book I’d also bought. I wasn’t planning on these being bedtime stories, but M insisted. The first was a very long winded overview of the war, how it started, ended and the main bits inbetween. Anyway, they said they enjoyed it 
They were looking through some horrible histories cards (from the magazine) at the time, and managed to pick out some WW1 cards which we read afterwards. There were quizzes on the back which we did too and not just about WW1 so lots of history done!
We’ve been talking about ww1 a bit recently, having read several books set in ww2. There are a couple of Michael Morpurgo novels set in WW1 - War Horse and Private Peaceful. If you come across any other good books I’d love to hear about them.
Comment by Jan — May 27, 2008 @ 9:02 pm
ooh thanks for that Jan, will add those to my amazon basket.
Comment by Administrator — May 27, 2008 @ 9:07 pm
Sounds great - lovely to hear about an interest being explored in so many different ways - lots of different things being offered for M.
Comment by Ali — May 28, 2008 @ 9:17 am
we’ve been largely WW2 focussed. Shopuld try and do some WW1 stuff (don’t forget the trenches experience at FoH! Plan it!)
Comment by Michelle — May 28, 2008 @ 8:09 pm
Michael Morpurgos Butterfly Lion has trench info as set partly during WW1. Really good read as well.
Comment by Michelle — May 29, 2008 @ 10:30 am
WW2 Morpurgo - The Amazing Story of Adolphus Tipps, and Billy the Kid.
When we were kids, we LOVED escape stories. We have the Pat Reid Colditz books - one of them signed by him
Comment by Alison — June 4, 2008 @ 10:40 am
Btw, if anyone’s interested, War Horse is on again at the National this autumn. It’s supposed to be an amazing production - Gwenny & Ernest went with my inlaws last year, and we’re all going in September. Think general booking opens this week.
Comment by Alison — June 4, 2008 @ 10:42 am