Monteagle Primary School, Group 1, Barking and Dagenham

I learnt that some of the people that went to war were very frightened and they knew what it was going to be like but they had to be strong.

We learned about those soldiers affected by war. Getting to act out roles of soldiers in the trenches. Holding a badge that was from World War One. It was interesting seeing what the soldier’s in the Indian army wore. We enjoyed the role playing and marching we were involved in.

Making the song, the singing, creating the tune/melody, part of my letter was used and it was very creative and unstructured, and the teachers listened to our ideas.

What I learnt from this activity is that you can make a puppet from every day objects and I was amazed about that I couldn’t believe that everyday objects turn into amazing puppets.

Children got opportunities to work with a number of professionals in the art world to be a part of something very special. This project helped visualise the context topic for the children in a way that we couldn’t have asked for.

It is hard to make music and write a song. We learned what a composer is and their role and learned some good singing techniques from the session.

I learnt that you really don’t have to go to the shop and buy things and some things you can make with the things in your house.

One boy never speaks about what he has done at home. His mother said that he couldn’t stop talking about how much he has learned and who came in to work with them.

What I learned from this activity is that soldiers had a life I could not imagine possible! It seemed like a terrible life, seriously how could you survive things like that?!?

[I learned] how to make our song come to life using emotions and feelings.

I learnt that you can get disease in the trenches and they would have to get injections in their arms.

The best thing about the activity was the weapons they used and we got to hold the actual weapons in our hands. There were a rifle, a sword to put on your rifle there were grenades.

[We learned that] every soldier had the same outfit, nearly every [BWIR] soldier had brown eyes, how to make a puppet, how to be more creative and learned new skills. Its’ not that easy to make a detailed puppet, it takes a lot of time to make a puppet. We learned from any mistakes we made, learned to persevere and the fun sides of subjects.

You have to practise a lot to make a show as good as you want it to be. It’s really hard for actors to act. You have to concentrate on what you’re doing and not what the crowd is doing.