World War 2 Y3/4 Topic - Lesson 10: WW2 | History: The Start of World War Two

This World War 2 KS2 pack provides 18 carefully researched and well-resourced lessons across a range of curriculum subjects. Each lesson comes with a detailed lesson plan, slideshow presentation and a range of activities and resources designed to build your children's knowledge, oracy and critical thinking skills.

Download this World War Two KS2 topic now to transform your class into knowledgeable historians and competent geographers as well as innovative war artists, codebreakers and composers. 

A Knowledge Organiser is available to support the learning for the History lessons in this scheme. It is included in the Complete Topic download and the 'ALL History lessons in Topic' download, or it can be purchased individually.

Encourage children to deepen their understanding with our WW2 English: Evacuee Diaries ready-to-teach lesson pack for Year 4.

In these WW2 Art lessons, your class will use visual images from the war to inspire their own creative work. They will build their understanding of tone and texture and have the opportunity to experiment with sketching and shading techniques using pencils, and blending and layering techniques using pastels.

Each of these downloadable KS2 WW2 Art lessons comes complete with a detailed lesson plan featuring a range of activities, a high-quality slideshow and printable resources to support children to improve their mastery of drawing techniques.

Transform your class into expert codemakers and codebreakers! In these lessons, your children will learn why military organisations communicated in code during the war, as well as the significance of the work undertaken by the men and women of Bletchley Park. Children will not only learn how to encode and decode messages using Morse code, but also how to create their own ciphers.

Each WW2 Computing lesson includes a detailed lesson plan featuring a range of activities to develop children's understanding of codes and ciphers, alongside an informative slideshow and printable resources.

Each of these DT lessons is ready-to-teach and includes lesson plans with activity ideas, slideshows for your teaching input, and a range of printable resources to support your class in their independent learning.

Help your class understand the global significance of the war with our WW2 Geography lessons. In these lessons, children will learn how to use atlases or geographical information systems to identify the Allied and Axis powers of WW2. They will also investigate different battlefields of WW2 and the different time zones they belong to across the globe.

Each ready-to-teach WW2 KS2 Geography lesson contains a detailed plan with differentiated activities, an engaging slideshow with modelled examples and printable resources to support the children's learning of where World War Two was played out.

This thoughtfully planned series of seven lessons will transport your children back to the time of WW2. Children will form a chronologically secure understanding of the WW2 timeline, including the events leading up to the start of the war, key turning points and factors that contributed to the end of war across the globe. Throughout the unit, your children will sharpen their historical skills by learning how to: create accurate timelines, analyse historical sources, examine cause and effect, summarise and organise historical evidence and draw informed conclusions.

Each ready-to-teach KS2 WW2 History lesson contains a detailed lesson plan with a range of supported and stretching activities, an engaging slideshow and printable resources to support the children's historical understanding and skills.

A Knowledge Organiser is available to support the learning for the History lessons in this scheme. It is included in the Complete Topic download and the 'ALL History lessons in Topic' download, or it can be purchased individually.

This WW2 Music KS2 planning pack contains two WW2 Music lessons that will help your children understand the importance of music to the morale of the British people during WW2. Using this lesson pack, you and your class can explore some of the most famous songs from the Second World War, including the songs of Vera Lynn, before composing and scoring your own Blitz soundscapes.

Each ready-to-teach WW2 KS2 Music lesson contains a detailed lesson plan with differentiated activities, an engaging slideshow with modelled examples and printable resources to support children in developing their muscial appreciation, analysis and composition skills.

This lesson gives children the opportunity to sketch an aeroplane flown in World War Two, using the grid method to ensure that their aircraft is sketched out accurately, and in proportion.

Children will experiment with a range of sketching and shading techniques to create different tones and textures before applying these skills to their own sketches.

This lesson pack comes with everything you need to support your children's learning, including a detailed lesson plan, PDF lesson slides and printable resources.

In this lesson, children learn how to use a stencil and different tones of chalk pastel to create a Blitz image - like the photograph of St. Paul’s Cathedral in London, surrounded by fire, smoke and damaged buildings.

First, children will analyse a series of photographs, discussing tone, contrast and composition. Then, they will make stencils for their building’s silhouette and discover how to layer and blend chalk pastels before creating their own image.

This lesson pack comes with everything you need to support your children's learning, including a detailed lesson plan, PDF lesson slides and printable resources.

Children will investigate the use of Morse code in World War Two and the significance of coded communications during the war.

Children will explore the difference between ‘dits’ and ‘dahs’ and use a binary code flow chart to decode different letters. They will use their understanding to create or decode Morse code messages.

This lesson pack comes with everything you need to support your children's learning, including a detailed lesson plan, PDF lesson slides and printable resources.

In this lesson, children discover why keeping information secret was crucial to the success of the Allied war effort. They will learn about the key role played by men and women of Bletchley Park in deciphering messages sent by the German forces.

Children will learn how to create a cipher and use it to encode and decode secret messages.

This lesson pack comes with everything you need to support your children's learning, including a detailed lesson plan, PDF lesson slides and printable resources.

Children will learn about the food restrictions people experienced during the war due to rationing and explore some of the recipes from the time.

They will discover just how creative people became with the ingredients they could obtain and enjoy cooking some recipes for themselves. Will they try fruity buns, carrot biscuits or beetroot pudding? Or perhaps they would like to try out some of the suggestions on the helpful ideas released by the Ministry for Food about what to serve at a wartime party!

This lesson pack comes with everything you need to support your children's learning, including a detailed lesson plan, PDF lesson slides and printable resources.

After learning about Morse code and the role it played in communications during the war, the children are challenged to construct an electrical circuit to create their own Morse code key to use when sending a message.

They will need to work out how produce the 'dits' and 'dahs' in the code as well as how to make a working switch.

This lesson pack comes with everything you need to support your children's learning, including a detailed lesson plan, PDF lesson slides and printable resources.

In this lesson, children will look further into the use of gas masks during the war and why everyone was expected to carry one at all times.

They will investigate the gas masks worn by children and are challenged to create their own using a range of different materials. Alternatively, children can follow a design brief to create bespoke masks for people with different needs.

This lesson pack comes with everything you need to support your children's learning, including a detailed lesson plan, PDF lesson slides and printable resources.

Children will learn about the countries which fought in the Allied and Axis alliances during World War Two. They will learn how to use an atlas or a geographical information system to locate these countries before applying their skills independently.

They will learn how to use an atlas or a geographical information system to locate these countries before applying their skills independently.

This lesson pack comes with everything you need to support your children's learning, including a detailed lesson plan, PDF lesson slides and printable resources.

In this lesson, children find out what time zones are, why we have them, and the role these played in planning and carrying out military operations during World War Two.

Children practise comparing and calculating the differences in the time of day and night between different key World War Two battlegrounds and locations.

This lesson pack comes with everything you need to support your children's learning, including a detailed lesson plan, PDF lesson slides and printable resources.

This initial session looks at when and where World War Two took place, who was involved and why war broke out.

Children will learn key topic vocabulary and explore the historical and global context of the war before creating their own Knowledge Organiser. Alternatively, children take part in an activity carousel.

This lesson pack comes with everything you need to support your children's learning, including a detailed lesson plan, PDF lesson slides and printable resources.

In this second lesson, children will learn about the different organisations involved in Britain’s war effort.

Children will look at case studies of people from across the British Empire who worked in the armed forces and special operations and take part in a walk and talk to find out about their different roles, backgrounds and experiences.

This lesson pack comes with everything you need to support your children's learning, including a detailed lesson plan, PDF lesson slides and printable resources.

Children move their attention to look at Britain’s home front and start by discussing what rationing was and why it was necessary.

They will investigate different historical sources to discover what was rationed and how the rationing system worked before bringing the process to life with an engaging rationing role-play activity.

This lesson pack comes with everything you need to support your children's learning, including a detailed lesson plan, PDF lesson slides and printable resources.

During this lesson, children will learn about the significance of the Blitz, including why Britain was targeted by the Luftwaffe.

Children will analyse photographs from the time to apply their learning and generate historically valid inferences and questions about the impact of the Blitz. Alternatively, children can create poems to express their understanding.

This lesson pack comes with everything you need to support your children's learning, including a detailed lesson plan, PDF lesson slides and printable resources.

During this session, children will explore a range of sources to find out about Operation Pied Piper.

Children will then analyse oral testimonies from evacuees, parents and host families to look at people’s different experiences of evacuation. Alternatively, children can deepen their understanding of the tough decisions parents had to make by taking part in a Conscience Alley.

This lesson pack comes with everything you need to support your children's learning, including a detailed lesson plan, PDF lesson slides and printable resources.

This lesson explores how Hitler’s beliefs about race led to the persecution of the Jews across Nazi Europe, culminating in the Holocaust.

Children will use the story of Anne Frank and extracts from her diary to understand the impact of the Holocaust on the Jewish people in an age-appropriate manner.

This lesson pack comes with everything you need to support your children's learning, including a detailed lesson plan, PDF lesson slides and printable resources.

In this final history lesson, children will use and apply the vocabulary, knowledge and skills they have developed during the unit to plan and carry out their own self-led research about the events leading up to the end of the war.

Alternatively, children undertake research to determine what their lives would have been like if they had lived at the time of World War Two. An End of Unit Quiz is also provided.

This lesson pack comes with everything you need to support your children's learning, including a detailed lesson plan, PDF lesson slides and printable resources.

Children will reflect on how music was used during the war to keep up morale for the soldiers and for the people at home.

They will be introduced to Vera Lynn and how her songs inspired hope for people during the war. The children have the opportunity to listen to and appraise the songs and recreate them in the classroom.

This lesson pack comes with everything you need to support your children's learning, including a detailed lesson plan, PDF lesson slides and printable resources.

Children use sound clips from the Imperial War Museum Sound Archive and photographs to inspire a Blitz soundscape.

Children experiment with altering the pitch, tempo, rhythm and dynamics of sounds using different instruments before bringing their sound layers together into a soundscape to perform. Children are encouraged to record their composition as a graphic score, marking the beats for each instrument with symbols.

This lesson pack comes with everything you need to support your children's learning, including a detailed lesson plan, PDF lesson slides and printable resources.