World War I, Hands-On Style
After a brief and simple explanation of the beginnings of WWI, we showed the kids how to make paper airplanes. They chose from a hat the insignias of the various countries involved, found the country on a map and determined what side they were on. They added the insignias to their airplanes.
We talked about the role both boats and submarines played in the war. We experimented with buoyancy and made submarines out of Gatorade bottles, stones, baking soda, baking powder and vinegar and then floated them in an aquarium. We then made paper boats and power boats made from milk/orange juice cartons and balloons, so they could play out the battles. 
We talked about trench warfare and then I tried to get them the feel of it by making mousetrap trench bombers (catapults really, but we have imaginations) but the arc of the marshmallow ammo was too low and we talked about that.
Next, I made up a tabletop game with a checkerboard, stones, dice and green, plastic army men. If you would like to play, get a chess or checkerboard and put a stone or marker in each square of the two middle rows. This is the "No-man's Land," or the space between the trenches. Each side can now set up their army men anywhere they wish. The first row behind the stones on either side is the trenches, and men are safe from being hit there. Once set up, each side takes turn making two moves for each round. A turn can consist of either: 1) moving a man one square in any direction, or 2) deciding which man is firing and rolling a die to see where his weapon hit (did you hit a man on the other side? If so, that man is removed from the game.) or 3) moving one stone of the trench line one row. To win one side has to either trap their opponent behind the trench line so that they cannot move or to eliminate their opponent's men.
Lastly, I used a portion of the Zimmerman Telegram and had them be cypher-breakers. Through this they learned about Germany approaching the Mexican government with a proposal for military alliance; Germany's offer to give Mexico material aid in the reclamation of territory lost during the Mexican-American War. This telegram, which was intercepted, and decoded, led to America being drawn into the war. In the message, Arthur Zimmermann, the Foreign Secretary of the German Empire, informed the Mexican government that Germany was going to resume unrestricted submarine warfare. Zimmermann also invited Mexico to join the war on Germany's side if the United States did not stay neutral, in an effort to regain Mexico's lost territory of Texas, Arizona, and New Mexico.So, third student was set with the task of decoding a fictitious message using a simple substitution code. In substitution codes, the letters of the "plaintext" (the message to be put into secret form) are replaced by other letters, numbers, or symbols. In this code system, each letter of the alphabet and each of the numbers from 1 to 9 appears in the matrix of the grid. Each letter in the grid is replaced by two letters in the coded message. The first letter in the message is from the vertical axis of the grid, and the second letter is from its horizontal axis. For example, if "DG" were the first two letters to decipher in a cryptogram, you would find the letter "D" on the vertical axis and the letter "G" on the horizontal axis. Trace them across the grid to their intersection at the letter "A" in the plaintext. To decode the fictitious message in the cryptogram, third student began by grouping each set of two letters starting with the first two letters (FG) and continuing through the message. The code letters are arbitrarily arranged in groups of five letters. Some letter pairs will carry over from one line to the next. As he located each letter in the grid, he wrote that letter above the pair of code letters to which it corresponds. There are no punctuation marks in the telegram.
Next, I made up a tabletop game with a checkerboard, stones, dice and green, plastic army men. If you would like to play, get a chess or checkerboard and put a stone or marker in each square of the two middle rows. This is the "No-man's Land," or the space between the trenches. Each side can now set up their army men anywhere they wish. The first row behind the stones on either side is the trenches, and men are safe from being hit there. Once set up, each side takes turn making two moves for each round. A turn can consist of either: 1) moving a man one square in any direction, or 2) deciding which man is firing and rolling a die to see where his weapon hit (did you hit a man on the other side? If so, that man is removed from the game.) or 3) moving one stone of the trench line one row. To win one side has to either trap their opponent behind the trench line so that they cannot move or to eliminate their opponent's men.
Lastly, I used a portion of the Zimmerman Telegram and had them be cypher-breakers. Through this they learned about Germany approaching the Mexican government with a proposal for military alliance; Germany's offer to give Mexico material aid in the reclamation of territory lost during the Mexican-American War. This telegram, which was intercepted, and decoded, led to America being drawn into the war. In the message, Arthur Zimmermann, the Foreign Secretary of the German Empire, informed the Mexican government that Germany was going to resume unrestricted submarine warfare. Zimmermann also invited Mexico to join the war on Germany's side if the United States did not stay neutral, in an effort to regain Mexico's lost territory of Texas, Arizona, and New Mexico.So, third student was set with the task of decoding a fictitious message using a simple substitution code. In substitution codes, the letters of the "plaintext" (the message to be put into secret form) are replaced by other letters, numbers, or symbols. In this code system, each letter of the alphabet and each of the numbers from 1 to 9 appears in the matrix of the grid. Each letter in the grid is replaced by two letters in the coded message. The first letter in the message is from the vertical axis of the grid, and the second letter is from its horizontal axis. For example, if "DG" were the first two letters to decipher in a cryptogram, you would find the letter "D" on the vertical axis and the letter "G" on the horizontal axis. Trace them across the grid to their intersection at the letter "A" in the plaintext. To decode the fictitious message in the cryptogram, third student began by grouping each set of two letters starting with the first two letters (FG) and continuing through the message. The code letters are arbitrarily arranged in groups of five letters. Some letter pairs will carry over from one line to the next. As he located each letter in the grid, he wrote that letter above the pair of code letters to which it corresponds. There are no punctuation marks in the telegram.
