DDay AnyDay Main Image SSW

Today marks the anniversary of one of the most significant events in American history. On June 6, 1944 the Allied forces stormed the beaches of Normandy thus causing the tide to turn in the European theater. This invasion was the beginning of the end for the Germans in WWII. I feel the best way to teach about American history is through of lens of those people who were there. Eyewitnesses and first-hand accounts are naturally your best primary source. Analyzing historical events so easily lends itself to embedding literacy standards involving credible sources, first and second-hand accounts, point of view, and bias. You can bet a diary entry written by a French civilian would have a completely different slant than a letter to a loved one back home penned by a soldier about to rally straight off a boat onto the shores of Omaha Beach.

*Disclaimer, normally I advocate using movie trailers from IMDB.com as a lesson hook. Please be extremely cautious when showing clips of D-Day. I would never show clips from Saving Private Ryan to students because while the movie is extremely well-done, it is entirely too graphic for children of any age. I have shown interviews from Discovery Education and those are rather intense but not too much so for upper elementary. ALWAYS preview video clips, YouTube clips, etc. before showing no matter whether you have used them for 5 years in a row or your BFF recommended it. Take it from someone who has learned the hard way! Ok, now that I’ve gotten my P.S.A. over with, let’s dig in to some resources!

 Digital Delights

1) Eyewitness to History is a very helpful website when it comes to a multitude of historical events. There are many other sites specifically devoted to D-Day as well. WWII is probably my favorite era so I have an abundance of pins on this Pinterest board: Check out the D-Day by the numbers InfoGraphic I repinned from History.com! WWII Board

2) I definitely recommend using the National WWII Museum site. I ordered a D-Day map from the online store amongst a lot of other stuff including a WWII Monopoly game!

3) The Presidential Libraries are an under-utilized jackpot. Any time you are studying an important historical event, search for the library of the man who was in the Oval Office at the time (or just the prez if it was during the early years haha). Do you know who was president during WWII? Well, there are 2 answers to that question. FDR at the beginning and Harry Truman after President Roosevelt’s untimely passing. Truth be told I literally just googled to find out exactly which gent was in office on D-Day. I’m bad with details people. It was FDR and the unique feature of his library website is the day-to-day timeline. It is fascinating!! Check out my Pearl Harbor posts and Primary Source Periscope series posts for more info about that specifically. 

4) Here is a link to the Truman library: http://trumanlibrary.org/. FDR died just shy of a year after D-Day and Truman was faced with the grueling decision of whether or not to drop the atomic bomb on Japan. The Allies had already claimed victory in Europe but WWII was different because of the various theaters, or fronts. That dilemma as to the best way to force the Japanese to surrender plays out here. Would You Drop It?  I’m a www.flocabulary.com “superfan” as you may know, so naturally I incorporate their resources. This is a paid subscription site that does offer a generous free trial. The chorus in this rap is “Would You Drop It?” Talk about the makings of the perfect opinion writing piece! Discuss the pros and cons and then have your students state their claim and back it up with evidence and reasoning!

Books on Books on Books

There are many amazing biographies and non-fiction books revolving around WWII and D-Day at a variety of grade levels. Here’s a snapshot of a few I own. Love the “I Survived” series and sure wish they had one about D-Day!! They do have one about Pearl Harbor. Hit up a Scholastic Warehouse sale. I spent an obscene amount of money on history related books last winter! Do you have any favorite read-alouds for D-Day?

D Day Books SSW

Integrated Literacy Idea

You are going to be impressed with the MEGA-literacy content in this lesson!! This year I wasn’t able to do this lesson because I was only teaching Science and Social Studies but I promise I used it 2 years ago! D-Day became a springboard for teaching point-of-view, paired passages, and getting information from multiple sources.

I started with the basics because you know how it is. You can’t assume upper elementary kids remember what 1st person is and 2nd person, forget it! Flocabulary to the rescue again!! This one really resonates with my ELLs! We came up with hand motions to go along with the  Flocabulary Point-of-View clip! I always make sure I give my students a reference sheet about POV to glue in their Readers’ Notebook or Social Studies interactive notebook. There are several great freebies on Teachers Pay Teachers. You could also print out the Flocab lyrics as notes, too. I have some resources pinned here (yes, I love Pinterest): Authors’ Purpose/POV Pinterest board.

POV, BOOM. On to the next one! So standardized testing now requires students to read paired passages and compare and contrast them. I really upped the ante and found 3 different passages about D-Day to give to students the next day. Depending on the level of your kiddos, you could totally do this as a partner activity. First things first, students did a quick read to get the gist. Then I had students write a quick response as to the genre of each piece and what else they observed. We also watched the Flocabulary POV clip again. The next day they did a second read along with annotations. Then I gave them this graphic organizer to complete. Follow the link if you would like to use it. It is in word so would be fully editable. You could use any three passages you want. You could also turn this into an extended response writing assignment. I just had students complete the graphic organizer. 

POV Activity SSW

Passage Nitty Gritty

One was a firsthand account that I cut/pasted into a word document because I wanted my students to work to figure out more info about the passage!! Obviously this was first-person. Passage 1

The second piece was from a book from the school library called D-Day (A Day That Changed America). I made copies of a page out of the book on the copy machine. I made sure to label each passage with 1, 2, and 3. You could use any third person account telling about someone who was there. I wanted students to see the difference between a first-hand account and second-hand account. Here is another D-Day book on Amazon.

The last passage was almost like an encyclopedia entry, with a map. Obviously this was informational and told from a third person point of view. There was a map and sub-headings so students noted the text features. I told you MEGA literacy!! Passage 3

I realize as I conclude this that the 72nd anniversary of this monumental day is coming to a close. I encourage you to appreciate the survivors’ tales while this generation is still with us. It saddens me to think about how few members of what has been called “The Greatest Generation” are still living. Their bravery, tenacity, and will to fight for what they believed in are traits to be admired. Find out if any of your students or coworkers have relatives who fought during WWII. That personal connection to history is so meaningful. I’d love to know if you have family members who served in the military during WWII, especially if they were one of those daring paratroopers or “aqua men” sacrificing their lives on this day in 1944.