Roller skating ice skating look up the biggest aquarium stores in town and take them to those stores. The kid I mentor loved those and we spent probably an hour or more in each store. Take some bread and go feed ducks at a pond.
Take some peanuts and go feed squirrels in a park. Go to a fish hatchery (find out when the fish are running) and watch them go up the ladders etc. bike riding. Check out the animals for adoption at petCo and petsMart on weekends.
Coloring, play doh, easy board games a place where you can make something out of pottery and fire it check out the websites of all local radio stations because usually one of them lists things to do with kids or family activities.
I cant really gove you an answer,but what I can give you is a way to a solution, that is you have to find the anglde that you relate to or peaks your interest. A good paper is one that people get drawn into because it reaches them ln some way.As for me WW11 to me, I think of the holocaust and the effect it had on the survivors, their families and those who stood by and did nothing until it was too late.