Possibly the Worst Idea I've Ever Heard

This is the conversation I had with another teacher early in December:

"We're planning to take all of the 7th graders to the football field for the last hour of the day on Friday, December 19th, the last day before Christmas break, and have them reenact WWI."

^ My response ^

If you've read my blog for very long, you know 7th graders are CrAzY!!! They seem to be especially crazy this year. And, any teacher will tell you that students, no matter their age, get crazy the week before break. The last day before break is just insane. 

So, when someone told me we were going to put all of the 7th graders (350+ of them) on the football field and have them reenact a war for the last hour of the last day before break, this is how I felt...

This is a joke, right?? Apparently not. 

We did get a little wiser about it and put some parameters around it. We split the 7th grade into two groups (one on the soccer field, one on the football field), discussed the rules with them for the entire week before the event, and essentially just played a game of capture the flag with some WWI "components" thrown in.

Each team had three flags they needed to capture. There was a POW camp on each side that represented the jail where "soldiers" had to go when they got "captured." As they were playing, teachers walked around and handed out injury cards. The injuries ranged from losing an arm to getting killed. Abiding by the jail and injury rules did not happen very often, but when you've got 175 people playing, monitoring the details is a little difficult.

Students who didn't want to play, danced and made up cheers held up propaganda signs on the sidelines. Others were "nurses" where the injured had were supposed to report when they were given an injury card.

It was chaotic, but a good chaotic. We got to play three games. My team won all three! There was only one major conflict that got squashed before it turned real and only two bloody noses. 

It essentially was just a massive game of capture the flag, but hopefully their conversations in class helped them make some kind of educational connection. If nothing else, it was fun!