Once you get past World War 2, all of the wars the United States are involved in become much less clear cut (I’d also say that about the wars we were involved in prior to World War 2, cough Spanish-American War, cough cough, World War 1)……….. But when going through your history lessons it is helpful to stop and think about why did we get involved with a war or should we have gotten involved. This Korean War lesson plan lets kids start to think through these ideas.
If you ask most people about the Korean War, the first response will be, along the lines of “What’s that?” Then you’ll get, “Ohhhh, wait, wasn’t MASH about that?” If you get even that much of a response. Let’s face it, it was overshadowed by the Vietnam War.
The plan for our Korean War lesson plan
But, it lays some important groundwork so I wanted to make sure my kids understood it, and I wanted to make sure I understood it.
After searching for a good hour googling “Korean war lesson plan for elementary,” and finding NOTHING, I found this website for high school, EDSITEment!, and picked out their timeline events (activity 1). I printed off the first 5 or so pages, the timeline of events.
Convince the president of your sides’ argument, should we intervene in the Korean War?
Then we split the kids into two groups, one to convince the president we needed to intervene, and another to convince the president it was a terrible idea to intervene. Because there are valid arguments for either side. It was not clear-cut.
They spent 30 minutes coming up with their reasons why we should or should not go to war. At the end of that time, they needed a visual (the poster board) and a well-explained presentation that everyone would participate in. I wanted even the youngest kid to have a part of the presentation. (Future Ticia 2026 wants to complain about Past Ticia 2013 not keeping a copy of that picture, so I only have that really jenky bad resolution image to show you their brainstorming with my son sitting on the table).
The presentations on helping South Korea
In the end, there wasn’t a clear-cut way to decide. This group is pro-intervention. They had great information.
Why should we intervene in Korea?
We should help South Korea, the “shining light and beacon to the rest of the world, they are surrounded by Socialists and Communists on all sides.” They presented a good oral argument, but their visuals were muddy and not well-defined. It lacked color and ideas to draw you in.
Why shouldn’t we help Korea?
Our army is tired; they might bomb us, and we might not be able to stand up against the combined might of all the communist countries.
This group had well-thought-out reasons and a great visual for conveying their reasons, but they did not come up with a great presentation. Princess was silly and dancing off, and the boys were silly.
If President Truman (me) had gone solely on these presentations, then we would not have intervened in Korea. As it was, we did intervene, and that may or may not be the subject of another post.
At the end of both presentations, we discussed how each side did, and I warned them that we would repeat this activity when we reached the Vietnam War, and to prepare for presenting better.
If you want the rubric I used to grade them, click on the picture below:
For more US history ideas check out my pinterest board:
Don’t you just hate it when you have the feeling there’s something you’re missing? I’ve read this post through 3 times, and I can’t figure out what it is………
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