My grandfather was one of those who fortunately returned from the battlefields of WW1, and like many others, returned home suffering badly from the trauma of the experience, and not speaking to anyone about what happened. The only memories we have as a family of that are a couple of medals acknowledging his involvement, and the small new testament issued to him, and to all of the soldiers before they left.

That’s why today is an important day on our calendar – an opportunity to remember in silence and through the words of some of our leaders, the significance of the sacrifice and of what has happened as a consequence. The day is not only about the wars and those who fought in them, but also about what defines us as a nation.

I’m very pleased that my own children are having the opportunity through their schooling to study and think about ANZAC day. In thinking about school starting up again in a couple of days time, and with ANZAC day such a recent thought, we did a bit of a search for ANZAC resources – so I thought I’d share a few here in case they might be useful.

• ANZAC Day social studies activities, levels 4&5 – part of the NZ History website. Links to several pages of ready to use classroom activities, including questions to begin, a quiz, scavenger hunt, ideas for visits in your local area etc.
• ANZAC Classroom Acitivies – developed in Australia, so all with an Australian perspective, but some worthwhile ideas and activities that could be easily translated to suit the NZ context.
• ANZAC Day Youth Project – from Australia, that seeks to bring together and establish a positive working relationship between Australian schools and Australian WWII veterans. Great video resources,
• ANZAC Day NZ – website of the NZ RSA containing background information on the commemoration of ANZAC day in New Zealand.
• ANZAC.govt.nz – the NZ government’s official ANZAC website offering a great Virtual tour of Gallipoli through maps, images and panoramas.
• Hot Topic: ANZAC Day – TKI’s page devoted to information and links to ANZAC Day – no need for me to list any more as they’re all here! 🙂

Over the past few years I’ve been in a number of schools where they are collecting information about ANZAC veterans in their districts, gathering oral histories and recording them in a variety of ways for sharing over the web or on CD ROMs etc. It would be great to hear from anyone who can provide links to such projects to we might be able to see what has been done and share ideas that could be useful to other teachers and schools.

Lest we forget.