Oh, What a Lovely War! LARP Trench Warfare for our World War 1 Study

I know I say this about practically everything that we do as homeschoolers, but this. THIS WAS THE BEST!!!

As part of a long unit on World War 2, we're currently completing a short unit on World War 1--we'll study it in depth another time, but right now I'm primarily interested in having the children understand how World War 1 affected World War 2, so I'm emphasizing the timeline of events (using Story of the World, maps, and plenty of ready-reference), the conduct of the war (focusing on trench warfare), and the consequences of the war (also primarily using Story of the World and maps, but we're also going to watch a documentary on Jesse Owens this weekend).

To that end, after reading about trench warfare in Eyewitness World War 1 and watching this opening scene from All Quiet on the Western Front (I'd not recommend a Google Image search on this subject, as the results would be too upsetting for elementary children)--

I set up a LARP trench warfare activity for the kids. Here's what we used:

• inverted spray paint. It paints on the ground, and we use this a TON for various yard games and projects.
• measuring tape
• two small shovels. I'd been kind of wanting child-sized, REAL shovels for a while, the better to put the children to work for me, so this was my excuse to buy them. 
• water guns
• water balloons
• bandanas.
• bicycle helmets (optional). I'd wanted to add various items of clothing to imitate soldiers' uniforms, such as bicycle helmets and vests, but the day was too hot for that. Although heat exhaustion *would* be authentic...

First, Syd and I measured out a battlefield. We needed space for two trenches, far enough apart to make hitting the other side with water balloons and water guns challenging but not impossible, with a No Man's Land in between. Syd decided on a distance of about 13 feet, and it worked great.

The kids filled up a supply of water balloons, filled up a bucket to serve as a reservoir for water gun refilling, and dragged it all out to our war zone.

I wasn't sure how much effort the kids would want to put into digging their trenches, so I simply left them to it, asking them to tell me when they were both finished. This is what it looked like while they were working, before I sneaked off to have a snack and read for a bit:

This day was the only day this week that it didn't rain (and it's raining again today, sigh...), so the ground was quite soft, which helped the kids create some truly epic trenches for themselves:

Notice the piling up of the dirt to make a barrier in front of the trench? Good form!

When the kids were finished, they each ended up with a trench and barrier deep enough to crouch behind. Pretty perfect, I think:

When the kids had filled all the water balloons, they were left with an odd number, so it was decided that I would begin the war by playing the part of terrorist Gavrilo Princip and tossing a symbolic water balloon into the air; this was done, and war had begun!

Prior to the beginning of the war, there had been much debate about who wanted to be which country; Will wanted Germany, but Syd wanted Austria. Then she wanted Russia. When you're playing war, why does everybody ALWAYS want to be the bad guys?

Finally, Syd was persuaded to play France, so safely ensconced in their trenches, France and Germany commenced their bombardment:

See the water balloon?

Germany goes over the top!

Retreat!

 France and Germany both wore bandanas around their necks. Every now and then, I would shout "Gas! Gas! Gas!" and the soldiers would have to put on their gas masks:


When someone needed to refill her water gun or rebuild her trench, she could shout, "Armistice!", and temporarily pause the war:

And then, back to war!

Of course, things got out of hand. First, France chased down Germany, knocked her down, and threw a bomb in her face. In retaliation, Germany kicked in France's trench and stole the rest of her bombs. France looked like this--

--and Germany looked like this:

Fortunately, France recovered (after I reminded her that FRANCE wins, not Germany), and all was again well:

This activity turned out WAY better than I'd hoped it would. The kids were really into it, they remembered enough from our World War 1 studies to naturally add some authenticity to their role-play, they got some great exercise and had a fabulous time, and I seriously doubt that they will ever forget the major contenders or major form of warfare of World War 1.

The kids asked to leave the trenches in place, which is fine, but I required them to pick up all water balloon shrapnel at the end of the game. Eventually, I'll have them fill their trenches back in, although if they wanted to use that space to make a couple of permanent forts...

...well, I wouldn't protest.

Building Block Candle Holders

I've been brainstorming new crafts to add to my Pumpkin+Bear etsy shop, and now I'm experimenting with candle holders!

To begin, I've got these candle holders made from vintage building blocks:

You can probably tell that I used our own candle holders, with our own monograms, as the examples in the photo, but the rest are to be drilled to order in either birthday candle, Waldorf ring candle, or taper candle sizes:

I like the look of the vintage blocks, and as candles come and go, they develop lovely layers of dripped wax to show evidence of their use:

If these work out, I've got more ideas for more types of candle holders--Waldorf rings, tree branch holders, pallet wood holders, and so on.

Now I just need to figure out candle holders that are either dinosaur- or chicken-shaped, and I'll be all set!

Compound Sentences against Humanity

After over a year and a half of constant complaining about it, I finally dropped First Language Lessons. It wasn't working for us, and by that I do not mean that it wasn't fun, because I don't personally feel that every school subject has to be the educational equivalent of a trip to the water park. No, I could handle First Language Lessons being dry and tedious.

What I couldn't handle was the eventual, slow realization that my kids weren't learning anything from it. That question and answer, rote-style, fill in the sentence diagram just wasn't getting anything into their brains. The kids weren't really able to identify or construct anything outside of FLL's scaffolding. They couldn't diagram a simple sentence of my own creation. They could barely tell the subject from the predicate! We dumped it, therefore, and I'm back to winging my own grammar curriculum. My goals are to teach grammar concepts as they come up, to continue to emphasize memorization (which FLL *was* great for, but the kids just didn't understand what they were memorizing), and to focus on identification and construction.

I want the kids to be able to identify all grammar concepts, of course, but that will eventually become pedantic. The true purpose of grammar education is gaining the ability to USE these grammar concepts, so that's what our goal should be, no matter where we are in the process.

Currently, I'm teaching compound, complex, and compound-complex sentences, beginning, of course, with compound sentences. You can learn this concept as soon as you've learned nouns, verbs, subjects, predicates, and the definition of a complete sentence, and it's actually a great place to go next, because you'll get a lot of practice in identifying and creating complete sentences, and you'll learn your conjunctions.

There's a good definition of the compound sentence here, and you'll also want to have the kids memorize the short list of coordinating conjunctions. The main point to make, however (and this is an important one, because it's both crucial to differentiating a compound sentence from a complex sentence, AND almost every other elementary resource that you'll find does not teach the correct way to identify a complex sentence, so you'll be relying on this difference when you teach it yourself the correct way), is that the two independent clauses do not rely on each other. They both have equal weight, equal importance in the sentence.

The kids won't understand that when you say it. They'll need examples--LOTS of examples. That's when you play Compound Sentences against Humanity!

Cards against Humanity is similar to Apples to Apples, but more user-generated, MUCH more irreverent, and much, MUCH more fun! I'm working on a Junior version, myself, but Cards against Humanity is otherwise very much for adults.

Compound Sentences against Humanity, however, is for everyone! This game is completely user-generated, since we're making it up, so you can include independent clauses about family members and inside jokes. Try to make all the independent clauses irreverent, as well, because that's way more fun for the kids than sentences that read, "The children pet the cat," etc. Blech!

To play this game, you'll make a set of independent clause cards and a set of coordinating conjunction cards. Make them using the Cards against Humanity template here. I did not include any "nor" cards, because the independent clause structure would have to be altered, and I also took out the "for" cards after the first game, because it was too hard for the kids to correctly structure an independent clause using it. They still memorized those coordinating conjunctions, but we'll deal with their structure another time.

Here are some of my independent clauses:

• Barack Obama is my favorite superhero.
• The Boy Scouts ate at Five Guys. (This is an inside family joke, stemming from an imaginary Boy Scout/Girl Scout rivalry that we pretend exists whenever we see Boy Scouts in uniform.)
• The Nazis invaded Poland.
• Do not swallow that magnet.
• The tiny horse loved baby carrots.
• Snakes do not fly.
• I caught fire.
• Silence is my favorite music.
• Daddy only eats "real" food. (Another inside joke, originating from the hot dog incident in Chicago)

I had some longer independent clauses that I removed after the first game, since the game requires copying them down onto your dry erase board, and it was taking forever.

This game works best with three or more players, because you'll go around the circle and have one player act as judge each time. Everyone else is a player, and everyone should have their own dry erase board and dry erase marker, with a cloth nearby to erase the boards between rounds.

The judge draws one independent clause card and one coordinating conjunction card (I marked the back of the coordinating conjunction cards with a C. Later, when we add subordinating conjunction cards, I'll mark those with an S):

Ignore the fraction on the back of that card; I'm reusing old cardstock.

 

The players will then copy that independent clause onto their dry erase board, add the comma and coordinating conjunction that are required to make a compound sentence, and then create their own independent clause to follow:

When the players are all finished, they turn their boards around and take turns reading their compound sentence:

All sentences will be admired, and the judge will award a unique prize to each sentence--Most Improbable Act to Occur Underwater, for example, or Stuffed Dinosaur the Size of Your Bedroom, etc. All prizes are, of course, imaginary. Rotate to a new judge, and play begins again:

This clause was too long, so I've since removed it from the game.

You really only need to play this game long enough for everyone to have a turn to be the judge. You don't want the kids to get tired of copying and writing, and even in three rounds, that's still two unique examples that they've created and four unique examples that they've read. But you'll want to play it again often, until you can see that it's a total no-brainer for the kids to correctly construct their compound sentences.

As extra practice, you can also have the kids work independently to write compound sentences using these cards, and then to mark nouns, verbs, subjects, predicates, and conjunctions on their sentences. They can copy just the independent clause cards and mark nouns, verbs, adjectives, adverbs, subjects, and predicates. They can diagram just the independent clause cards. They can be in charge of creating a new set of independent clause cards.

Once that's a no-brainer, AND they've memorized a textbook definition of the compound sentence AND the short list of coordinating conjunctions, you can move on to complex sentences or to diagramming compound sentences.
 

Independence Day the Girl Scout Way

Yesterday was a 4th of July celebrated Girl Scout-style! You know how much we love our town's Independence Day parade, so I was pretty excited to sign my troop up to walk in it this year.

And it WAS exciting, although of course a totally different ballgame from simply showing up with a lawn chair and sitting my butt down to spectate. First of all, I didn't sit my butt down for the entire morning. Well... I kinda did, but also not. I was on the ground, but rather than chilling out, I was doing this:

This wasn't one of my best creations. You should have seen my flag!

I'd spent the evening before Googling "patriotic face painting," and while I was NOT going to be able to paint Girl Scout faces to look like screaming eagles or fireworks skyscapes, I was pretty confident that I could do a silver star, with red and blue streamers around it. So that's what I offered, as each Girl Scout came to sit in front of me: "Would you like a star on your cheek?" I asked. The Girl Scout would nod, I'd paint her a silver star with red and blue streamers around it, I'd show her what it looked like in the mirror, she'd smile and thank me, and the next kid would sit and get her star.

Until one kid asked, "Can I have a flag instead?"

"Why not?" I decided, and attempted a flag. Blue square, red stripes, silver stripes (we're almost out of white), couple of silver dots on the blue. Flag! Add it to my specialties.

So then when a kid sat down in front of me, I asked her, "Would you like a star or a flag?" The kid would tell me which, I'd paint it, and off she'd go.

Until one kid asked, "Can I have a star AND a flag?"

"Why not?" I decided, and painted her a star on one cheek and a flag on the other. No problem.

And then kids started sitting down in front of me with a star or flag already painted on one cheek, happily ready for me to paint their other cheek. No problem.

Until one kid (MY kid!), asked, "Can I have a firework?"

Hmmmmm..... At first I thought about painting a firecracker with sparkles coming off the wick, but then instead attempted a sort of asterisk in red and blue and silver. That didn't turn out super well, but I knew what was going to happen by now, so when the next kid sat down and asked for HER firework, I refined it to a sort of asterisk in red and blue, with silver in the middle and silver sparks around it. It looked... okay. Not completely unlike a firework, I do declare.

And then, as I'm sure you've already guessed, kids started sitting down in front of me with a star and a flag already painted on their cheeks, asking for fireworks on their foreheads. No problem, except that I'm pretty sure they all kicked up a fuss about wearing their hats afterwards. Mustn't smear the fireworks, you know.

If we walk in the parade next year, I'm totally going to study up and practice. Look out for the kids with full-on screaming eagle and firework skyscape face paint!

Meanwhile, the kids who weren't getting their face painted were busy putting Girl Scout stickers on suckers--

--and cooling their heels, attempting to not get into trouble:

See me in the background? I'm painting stars and flags!

I'd also brought sidewalk chalk, and only once did a child write the word "poop" in giant letters on the sidewalk, and she happily covered it in chalked sparkles when I asked her to.

At one point, some of my troop wandered away a bit, and another troop chaperone walked over, clearly intending to ask them who on earth was supervising them. I saw this and totally sent Matt over, explaining to my friend and fellow chaperone, "They won't chastise him--he's a dad! They'll probably congratulate him for interacting with his children."

Totally stereotypical, I know, but you'd be surprised (or not, depending on how tuned in you are to sexism in parenting) how often that works!

In all the prep work for the parade, I'd kind of forgotten about, you know, the PARADE. And so when we finally were herded to our place in the line and finally began the walk, and we turned the corner onto the parade route, I audibly gasped (to be fair, so did my fellow chaperone!) at the giant crowd of people on both sides of us, all cheering and waving and LOOKING. AT. US. 

Thankfully, I had only a mild panic attack before I realized that they were, of course, actually looking at the adorable children in their Girl Scout uniforms, and at the candy that the adorable children were handing out. It was better-ish after that, although an hour after the parade was over, I looked at myself in the bathroom mirror and couldn't decide if my pink cheeks were sunburn, or if I was still blushing from the ordeal.

Little of both, I eventually decided.

The kids all had a fine time, of course, which was the point of the operation. Nobody got run over by the trailer, which was my particular worry, and I only had to save two of them from that exact thing--a chaperone win! Will, I think, had a better time than Syd--all those people!--but all my Scouts seemed happy, enjoyed the walk, didn't skin their knees or get snatched by a stranger in the crowd, waved and were cheered for, handed out candy, and can now say that they have marched in a parade!

Since our whole troop was going to be together on this day for the parade, we'd decided to convene afterwards at one family's house to have a potluck and celebrate the Bridging of three of our troop members and the Investiture of them all.

Bridging is the ceremony in which a Girl Scout officially advances from one level to the next. There are special activities that she's asked to do to help her synthesize what she's experienced and prepare her for the heightened responsibilities of her new level. There's also a lovely little ceremony involved, that involves crossing--yes, an actual bridge. Our ceremony consisted of having the kid cross to the center of the bridge while a parent spoke about the kid's accomplishments during her time at that level, then she completed the crossing, removed her old uniform vest or sash, and her troop leader (that's me!), helped her put on her new uniform vest. It was a beautiful way to honor all that each kid had done:

People were looking at her, poor kid, so she was nervously bopping that balloon.

And, of course, there's cake! Bridging has a rainbow theme, so I was able to once again trot out my favorite rainbow cake recipe--

--and the kids made a rainbow fruit and vegetable platter to share:

After the potluck, you will not be surprised to know that we went home and took a nap. Well, Matt and I took a nap--I'm pretty sure that the kids just played LEGO Jurassic World on Xbox. I checked it out for them from the library, which means that I'm having a hard time enforcing any screen time limits on it. It IS really fun, AND we only have it for three weeks...

So of course what did the kids want to do that night? 

Watch Jurassic World at the drive-in for the THIRD time.

Of course.

Just enough time for a few at-home fireworks beforehand:

This might possibly be the best 4th of July that we have spent as a family. It had all the elements that we love best--parades, friends, parties, cake, fireworks, family...

... and dinosaurs, of course. Dinosaurs and naps.