Online Learning Activities

American Home Front: A World War II Remembered Activity

Through interactive activities and gripping first-hand accounts, students learned how life changed for Americans during World War II.

  • Grades: 3–5, 6–8

In the “American Home Front” activity (grades 4-8), part of Scholastic’s "World War II Remembered" project, students have the unique opportunity to read personal accounts of the social changes America experienced during the war. Plus, interactive photos share what life was like in a typical household in the 1940s.

  • In the From Homemaker to Shipbuilder reading activity, Betty Reilly discusses how women's roles changed, getting them out of the home and into the workplace. She shares her own experience of growing up during the war, writing to soldiers overseas, and eventually working for a shipbuilder. Includes an interview with Reilly, images, and links to Web sites for further reading. Students can also click on highlighted vocabulary words for definitions.
  • In Japanese Americans: The War at Home, students meet Norman Mineta, who was 10 years old when he and his family left home in San Jose, California, for a relocation camp in Heart Mountain, Wyoming. This reading activity touches upon the racism Japanese Americans experienced at the time, and includes images, links to Web sites for further reading, and vocabulary words that students can click on for definitions.
  • In Home Life, students can click around the interactive images of a typical 1940s living room and kitchen. Pop-ups share how the war changed the food people ate, the games they played, and the clothes they wore.

Learning Objectives

In the course of participating in "American Home Front," students will:

  • Learn about World War II, its survivors, and the war's impact on daily life
  • Identify cause and effect relationships among wartime events
  • Read nonfiction stories

  • Subjects:
    World War II
  • Skills:
    Nonfiction Texts
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