The War to End all Wars

When we studied World War 1 our bulletin board started rather bare and sad. As we went through the chapter, we added pictures of various events, people, situations etc around the map of Europe and connected each picture to the place on the map where it happened.



Before long we had killed the Archduke, forded the Marne, dug the trenches and sunk the Lusitania. I also put pictures of soldiers in the spaces between our war tracking pictures. It was neat for the kids to get to see the war unfold as we studied it and they enjoyed the glimpse into the real people of the war.

By the end of the chapter, our board was pretty full and the kids (mostly of course) understood the chapter. We played a review game where groups earned French soldiers to fill up their trench system diagrams. When they got all the way to no-man's land then their group won.

After the test I read them a letter written by a young pilot to his parents at the end of the war. I have a whole book pof war letters covering the Civil War through Bosnia. This particular one was the soldier looking back over the war, from the time he enlisted through training, his first flight mission, losing his two buddies and eventually pondering the reasons and price of the war he had just taken part in. It was a neat connection that really drove home again for my kids the point that each of the thousands of people serving and dying was an individual.