explaining rememberence day

[superbagpuss]

my DT are 5 and have picked up on remrmberence day this year for the first time, especially as it was covered in an appropriate way at their Sunday school today

however they have lots of questions and a morbid fascination of death so any ideas how I can answer their questions?

100 years doesn't seem to mean much to them ( but I tried talking about my and dh grandfather's who were in the 2nd works war) and the sheer numbers who died is too big a number for them to get

also I have the why question about war - how do I answer that appropriately?

My Dd is 6 and her paternal grandfather was a casulty of the Iraq war so I have had to explain war to her. She knows that governments are kinda like headteachers who decide what the whole country is going to do. Sometimes goverments think that another goverment is making bad rules so they send soliders to protect people from bad rules. Its really hard one to explain as I don't want her seeing things in terms of goodies Vs badies as it is rarely that black and white.

With time i found drawing out a physical timelime including reference points like great grannys bday, grannys bday etc helped as she knows how old they are.