Explore the trenches of World War 1 with this activity

One of the things I want my kids to understand when we study wars is war is sometimes necessary, but it is not glorious.  That is a hard thing to teach to young boys.  Young boys see glory and adventure, but that’s not what the trenches were like in World War 1.  So I create a trench simulation for World War 1 Unit for our history lessons.

Hi, This is Future Ticia 2025, I just copied that from ANOTHER World War 1 Trenches lesson post, because that’s right I did this lesson TWICE with my kids, and wrote about it twice, but I want to combine these two posts into one, so that’s what I’m about to do. You’ll get to see two different ways to teach this lesson depending on what your weather is like, or how brave you’re feeling.

When we talk about World War 1, the most iconic and remembered idea is the trenches.  We’ve heard about trench warfare and the months it took to move the lines even a few feet.  It’s hard to fully understand how difficult this time was without a true understanding of trench warfare.  I set out to give the kids an idea of what trench warfare was like for our history lesson with this trench warfare simulation.

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 Inspiration book for our Trench Warfare Simulation: Once a Shepherd

I will tell you right now, Once a Shepherd is the hardest to read, and every time I’ve read it, I get to the end and bawl like a baby.  It’s also fictional, which in some small way helps.

Once a Shepherd follows a shepherd as his new wife makes him a coat from the wool he’s sheared, and the letters he writes as he’s at war, and what it’s like in the trenches.

It’s very simple, with only a sentence or two on every page, and the illustrations are gorgeous watercolors, but the ending is sad.

*****It is very important you read this book before you read it to your kids.*****

Supplies needed for trench warfare simulation outside

Giant tub of water, unsweetened Kool-aid packets*, sponges*, super soakers* (we were short on weapons because for some strange reason, no one sells squirt guns in January and I forgot to order early enough to get them in the mail), cardboard boxes (the people at Sams thought we were quite hilarious grabbing all of the boxes that would even somewhat fit in our cart)

*******Very important, wear clothes you are okay with them being stained because that is very likely to happen********

 

Trench Warfare Simulation

We ran through this several times because everyone wanted to be in the trenches, and someone had to be the attacker.

First, fill a giant tub full of water, and then dump in your Kool-Aid packets.  I know people who have used this method to dye fabric, so I am quite serious when I say wear clothes you can get stained.

 Dump your sponges into the tub of dyed water, and fill your super soaker.

 Now set up some ground rules:

1. NO headshots. I got a face full of the dye and it was quite painful.  We had to call a temporary truce while I washed my eyes out.
2. Once you’ve been hit by a sponge or a gun you are out. You cannot keep attacking.
3. Set a time limit for each round so everyone can have a turn to be the defender or the attacker.

Once you’ve set up your ground rules, it pretty much becomes a free-for-all.  There’s lots of yelling and screaming as people start madly running at each other.  It’s really rather intense.

Unfortunately, our trench warfare simulation had to end early as Superman accidentally stepped on the tub of dyed water breaking it, and I didn’t have more Kool-Aid to make another batch.

In retrospect, we did not need as big of a tub of water as I created, but it sure was a lot of fun to try.

Okay, now let’s go over to the original Trench Warfare lesson.

And the idea of trying to teach young boys in particular that war is not just about glory and adventure.

 After all, this is a common sight with my boys, and that’s not necessarily a bad thing.  I want them to grow up and want to protect them; that is a natural instinct.  But you also want your boys to know when it is right and when it is wrong, and when to walk away from a fight.

So we simulated trench warfare, so they can find out what it was like in the trenches of World War 1.

Supplies for an indoor trench warfare simulation

as many pillows as you can get, socks or bean bags (here’s how I make bean bags), and some Nerf Guns (my boys currently like this Zombie gun* and Nerf Ball gun, discontinued they now have this Mega Dart Gun)*

Preparing for your Trench Warfare simulation

First, take some socks and roll them up to simulate mortars.  This could be why I haven’t been able to find socks for the past 2 weeks. I will blame it on this history lesson.

Next, take all those pillows you grabbed and build up your trench. I set a 5-minute time limit.  Originally, I was going to have the kids build trenches in our backyard for their army guys and fight with that, but we got a big rainstorm, so it was all mud.  Never mind that plan.

Split into two teams, defenders and attackers.  Defenders get the mortars, and attackers will be charging the trench.  This lets you understand what it’s like from both sides.

Running your trench warfare simulation

To make it more like the mortars being fired, the defenders had to throw their mortars facing backwards.  When they ran out of mortars, they could turn around and shoot their Nerf guns.

The attackers were allowed to shoot their Nerf guns facing forward, but once they’d been hit, they had to “die.” This, of course, meant lots of dramatic-sounding death scenes.

Here’s what we discovered in our World War 1 trench warfare simulation:

1.  It’s hard to hit your target with mortars, but it does make the attackers more wary because they don’t know when they’ll be hit.
2.  It’s hard to take a trench.  You will suffer a lot of casualties.  Our simulations never successfully managed it.
3. Guns are accurate, and if you have a good supply of bullets, you will kill your opponents.
4. Not all guns are accurate.  One of our guns was the ball shooter; it was not as accurate and did not have as many bullets.  That is a disadvantage.

After we talked through what we thought about the simulation, I printed off some of the pictures, and the kids all wrote about what they learned.

I loved Princess’s sentence: War is scary.  I did not like being shot at.

I think that sums up what most soldiers would say pretty darn well.

More ideas for World War 1

• How did the United States end up in World War 1
• WW 1 Helmet
• World War 1 nurse’s hat