Our Journey into the World of Anne Frank

Over the past few weeks, our classroom has been filled with curiosity, empathy, and powerful storytelling as we’ve been diving deep into the incredible and moving story of Anne Frank. Using the brilliant Anne Frank House website, we took a virtual tour of the secret annex in Amsterdam where Anne and her family hid during World War Two. It’s a place that holds so much history—and emotion.

As someone who’s been lucky enough to visit the museum in person, I was inspired to bring that experience into the classroom. So, I set the children a special challenge: become tour guides for a day! Using what they had learned from the virtual tour, they wrote informative and engaging speeches as if they were guiding real visitors around the annex. The results were absolutely fantastic. The children showed such resourcefulness and vivid descriptive language, painting a clear picture of the cramped living space and capturing the tension of that time. Most impressively, they expressed real empathy for Anne and her family, imagining what life must have been like behind those hidden walls.

We didn’t stop there! We also explored Anne’s relationship with Peter, the teenage boy who shared the annex with her. This part of the unit sparked some thoughtful and sensitive discussions. The children were given a set of speech bubbles and had to figure out who might have said each one—Anne or Peter? From there, they wrote short narrative pieces that included dialogue between the two. Not only did they punctuate their direct speech beautifully, but they also created some truly evocative writing that brought both characters to life.

It’s safe to say that the children have LOVED learning about Anne Frank. The story has captured their imaginations and stirred their emotions in ways that only powerful stories can. With just three lessons left in this unit before we move on to our final book-based writing topic of the year, I can hardly believe how quickly the time has flown.

When you’re busy writing and learning about history—time really does fly.