ANZAC Day

This Saturday, 25 April,  is ANZAC day. Usually it falls in the holidays and we don't do much about it at school, so I thought what an excellent opportunity to teach you this year.

You will be busy with this one, but you can spread it out over a few days so you're ready before dawn on Saturday morning.

First of all, what is ANZAC day? No- it doesn't just mean eating yummy biscuits.

ANZAC stands for Australian and New Zealand Army Corps. 

Learn more in this video

On Saturday, we will be remembering all those people who made a sacrifice. Thanks to them, we now live in a free world. Okay, a locked down free world at the moment, but still.

Do you have any whanau members who were involved?

Have you ever been to the Dawn Parade?

Here's what I would like you to do: make poppy lanterns like below in the photo. You'll need some clean empty milk bottles (hey- more recycling art!), red, black and green felt pens/ markers, paint or crayons, tealights and some sand or earth to weigh the lanterns down.

You could also make the poppies with transparent paper if you do not have felt pens or paints, the way we have made lanterns at school.

Cut off the tops of your milk bottles (you might need to ask an adult for help) and decorate them like this:

You could make a template first, especially for the crosses, so they are nice and straight.Tape them on the inside of the milk bottle and trace the template. Then move it on to the next panel.

On Monday, just before Dawn, put them out by your letterbox. on your fence or anywhere else where they can be seen from the road and light the candles. In the evening when dusk comes in, light the candles again.

We will create a chain of light right through the city!

A bit like our Lantern Festival, Lock Down style

You can make more poppies so your Team Lock Down can wear them. Or maybe put some in letterboxes of people you know. Write little messages of hope on them. 

Drawing a poppy is a bit like a form drawing to begin with.

If you have origami paper, make origami poppies

You could give them to your bear in the window to hold them.

While you are all busy creating gorgeous poppies, listen to this beautiful story.

For your journal, pretend you are Tim from the story. You are still at the field hospital, writing a letter to your parents. Write to them what happened to you. Make it look like a real letter, dates and everything. You can go for gold and first dunk the paper and en envelope in black tea to make it look old. Then you glue the envelope into our journal with the letter in it.

Do you know that Janice has real letters which her Dad wrote when he was in the war?

Tomorrow there'll be another ANZAC activity.

Happy Lantern Making Class 4- do send me photos or bring them in when school's back to normal again.