WW2 Challenge
Notes for teachers
You will need one challenge leaflet per smaller group and a ‘modern
kitchen gadgets’ worksheet for each pupil. Begin by reading out the
letter from the Women’s Voluntary Service to the children. Instructions
for each challenge are then given. The Museum staff will be able to help
you if you get stuck – just ask. Bits to read out to the children are in
black and instructions for you are in blue.
The challenges can be done in any order to try and easy gallery
congestion. Most of the Museum is covered during the trail and the
challenges are a mix of games, observation, drawing, physical activities
and things to talk about. Depending on your group you might want to
spend more or less time on a challenge.
Have Fun!
WW2 at the Folk Museum – Challenge
Dear Evacuees,
Welcome to Gloucester Folk Museum. I hope that your journeys to us
were not too long and the trains and buses were not too crowded. Oh you walked! Just
what I like to hear – no point in wasting petrol when we might need it for our tanks.
While you are waiting for your new foster families to take you to your new
homes we have a series of challenges for you to do to discover more about the
Second World War and what life will be like after it. Some you’ll do in your groups
and some you will do in pairs, so you’ll need that community wartime spirit.
Good Luck and remember – It’ll all be over by Christmas!
Best Wishes,
Sarah
Women’s Voluntary Service
Retro room challenge – Ground floor
After the war is over your family kitchens will eventually look much different. This
kitchen has some ‘modern’ gadgets in it, like washing machines and fridges. On the
paper provided pick a new gadget to draw and answer the questions about. Do a sheet
each.
See ‘Modern kitchen gadgets’ worksheet.
Folk Tearooms Challenge – Ground Floor
During WW2 and for a long time afterwards people had food rationing. This meant
that you needed coupons from your ration book as well as money to get food from the
local shop. Only a limited amount of food was allowed. Mums had to be especially
inventive when it came to making meals as things like meat, cheese, eggs and sugar
were in short supply. Things like carrots were used to make fudge and potatoes were
used instead of flour.
Fruit and vegetables were not rationed, although some exotic fruits like bananas were
almost impossible to get hold of. People were encouraged to grow their own fruit and
vegetables in their gardens in a campaign called ‘Dig for Victory’. Other people k ept
hens and even pigs to help feed their family.
Have a look at the menu in the café or if the café is busy borrow one of the table
menus. Can you guess what foods were rationed and which were not?
What foods would you try to grow or keep in your garden?
Can you name one rationed and one un-rationed food that you like?
Can you name one rationed and one un-rationed food that you don’t like?
Details for foods that are served in the cafe: (average rationed amounts for adults)
Rationed –
Meat: - Equivalent of 6oz / 150g a week 9=4oz / 100g of bacon. Today a portion of
meat is usually at least 100g) meat was rationed by price rather than weight so you
could have more of cheaper cuts of meat, or less of better quality meat. Butchers
became very important in helping people make good decisions about how to make their
meat ration last and passing on recipes and tips.
Milk: 3 pints. Some people kept goats to supplement this ration.
Cheese; 4oz / 100g. Vegetarians got a bigger cheese ration but no meat ration.
Tea: 20z / 50g. People used loose leaf tea not tea bags. Tea leaves would be re -used
until they made very weak tea.
Sugar: 8oz / 200g People often saved up their sugar ration to use for jams.
Chocolate and Sweets: 2oz / 50g per week. Most people would give their sweet ration
to their children.
Butter (margarine & lard) 4oz / 100g per week. This may seem a lot but remember
people would do their own baking and make things from scratch, so this ration was not
just for sandwiches but also for making pastry and other things too.
Eggs: 1 per week. If you kept hens you were not allowed this ration, but you would
usually get more than 1 egg per week from the hens anyway.
Un-rationed – Apples, Potatoes, Carrots, Runner beans – These were all things you
were encouraged to grow in your garden. Can you think of any more fruit and
vegetables you could grow? Which fruits and vegetables would be most useful and
versatile? Which vegetables need most space? Some are easier to grow than others.
What do you think is easier to grow?
Fish: Tinned fish was on a points system. Adults got 16 spare points to spend as they
wished on things liked tinned fish and fruit, rice and cereal.
Bread: Not rationed although white flour was in short supply so it could be difficult
to get hold of bread sometimes. The government added vitamins and minerals to the
flour and produced ‘the National loaf’. While it was very good for you, it had a slightly
grey colour.
Oranges: Not rationed but as they came from overseas if was very difficult to find
them in the shops.
Coffee: Again very hard to find real coffee in the shops. There was a version of
coffee produced called ‘camp coffee’ that wasn’t real coffee at all but just tasted a
little bit like it.
You could also talk about the amounts for rationed foods and how far they would go,
how to grow vegetables and about having to eat the pig that you’d spent time
fattening up!
Garden Challenge – Outside.
Toys were in short supply during the War but children still played together and
invented games. In the green shed you will find some equipment to play games with.
Why don’t you try.
Juggling (with the coloured balls)
Playing catch in a circle
Hoola hoping.
Can you find something in the garden that would be very useful in a bombing raid?
What is it?
(Air raid shelter)
How many people can you get in it? Is it very comfortable?
People would have been very scared during a bombing raid. People would play games,
and tell stories and jokes to try and keep their mind off the bombs. Can you all think
of your favourite joke to tell? Who told the best joke? Perhaps you could tell one of
our Museum Assistants the best joke before you leave today.
Toy Gallery challenge – First Floor
Petrol was rationed during the War, so few people travelled by car. In fact after the
war there had to be a campaign to remind people about road safety. Can you think of
some road safety rules? Can you think of some good mottos to help you remember
them?
Talk about some road safety rules.
Our toy gallery has lots of toy cars. How many toy cars can you find?
Weights and Measures gallery challenge 1 – 1st floor
Bombing raids could mean long nights spent in the Anderson shelter. To pass the time
people would often make up and tell stories. On the wall there is a black and white
Tudor painting with dragons and faces. This is going to be your inspiration for a
story.
Discuss what can be seen in the painting with your group. What do they think is
happening? What do they think the characters in the painting are? The group should
then try to tell a story using the painting as inspiration. Each child takes it in turns to
tell a little bit of the story.
Eg. Once upon a time there was a dragon that was famous for …
Growing the most beautiful flowers in his garden. However, he had a problem…
The dragon had terrible hayfever and everytime he sneezed ….
Weights and Measures gallery challenge 2 – 1st floor
A good memory is very important for people living through World War Two. All the
signposts in villages and towns were painted over so you had to remember different
routes to places. Paper was also in short supply so if you could remember your
shopping lists that was better than writing it down. Look at the desk case by the
staircase. Try to remember as many items as possible. Then turn away from the case.
How many items can your group remember?
(Discuss what it in the case to help fix the objects in the children’s minds. You might
have to give some prompts to help them remember when they are listing them.)
Civil War gallery Challenge – 1st floor
Staying safe in wartime meant that you had to remember lots of new rules, like
always carrying your gas mask and ID card. A good way to improve your memory is to
practice. Our big civil war case has lots of objects in it. We’d like you to use these
objects for a ‘Grandma went to market game.’
The game is basically a listing one. One child starts with ‘Grandma went to market and
bought’ … (a plate.) The next child then lists any objects that have gone before plus a
new object (eg. ‘Grandma went to market and bought … a plate and a spoon.’)
Pupils can face the case to help them make their list and remember objects that have
gone before.
Well done! You have made a very positive
contribution to the war effort. Listen carefully - can
you hear those church bells ring? That’s because it is
VE Day and the War is over!
Name ……………………………………………………………………………….
WW2 Challenge – Modern kitchen gadgets
Pick a ‘modern kitchen gadget’ from the Retro room to draw in the box below.
Remember to colour it in.
My gadget is a ………………………………………………………………………………………
It is used to …………………………………………………………………………………………..
If we didn’t have this gadget then life would be more difficult. We would have to
………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….