Battle in a Sandbox
Do you or your colleagues ever get "stuck in the trenches?" I have heard this expression in many Ontario schools where we teach the grade 10 course: Canada from 1914 to the Present. It refers to when you have gone into too much detail on the First World War, and find yourself with a wildly disproportionate lack of time to cover the other 96 years of history in the course!
My brilliant colleague, Sue Pannell-Barrett introduced me a decade ago to a much more fun way of getting stuck in the trenches, while actually getting out of them time-wise in your course. I haven't looked back since!
Second Battle of Ypres, 1915
Could be any WWI battle!
The genius of this activity, is that it is totally inquiry-based, students are practicing historical thinking (primary source evidence and significance), collaboration and organization skills, while having A LOT of fun playing in the sand. Attendance is never better than on sandbox day, and students consistently rank it their favourite activity in the course, and it literally only takes TWO classroom periods!
How it works
Day 1 - Research
Give students a visual/timeline overview of the Canadian battles of WWI (or whatever is in your curriculum) I have used this map-timeline from BBC of the entire Western Front along with the CBC People's History segment - "Go Out and Meet Death Bravely." Sometimes we do an Arms Auction activity (developed by some genius teachers in our school board years ago), the day before, for which I developed a slide deck with primary source images of the weapons in WWI
Put them in small groups and have them research the land battles of WWI using the First World War online exhibit at the Canadian War Museum.
They have to figure out their plan for representing the battle in the sandbox the next day. They need to figure out the landscape, scale, and plan to bring in any additional materials (I supply the box, sand, water, some soldiers, and sometimes some green stuffing for gas, or wire and popsicle sticks).
Assigning battles vs. free choice
I used to assign each group one of the battles so that we could "cover" them all, but then one year I just had them choose their own from the War Museum list. This had unanticipated benefits! First, more than one group chose the same battle, so we could analyze their different choices in presenting their interpretations, so the primary source skills really came to the forefront.
But the best story was about the battle of St. Eloi, which I knew nothing about prior to that moment! Students came to me to help them figure out the scale of the battle based on this picture:
The Battle of St. Eloi - Image from the Canadian War Museum
How big should they make the craters (there were several) in their sandbox. We enlarged the picture to try to get a sense of scale, and we could see that little black blur in the distance (on the road) was actually a car and two people. In fact, only a portion of one crater was going to fit in the sandbox, given the size of the dollar-store soldiers.
The activity forced students to really closely examine historical photographs to make sense of them with a question and a purpose, and we all learned something that day!
Day 2 - The Build!
They come in and build their battle! They have the first half of class to build and in the second half of class they visit each battle in turn and the group explains their choices, based on the primary sources that they used.
It was helpful that my classroom was next to a custodial closet, since I needed to have several buckets of water ready. We learned the hard way to keep the Passchendaele tubs on the old overhead carts and not to try to move them with all that water in it, or it leads to breakage and mess.
You can see the bucket system here - big bucket with smaller "dippers" for sharing
I always had students clean up before the end of class, but I also gave the care staff a heads up before and after sandbox day, because there was always some sand the students couldn't clean.
Trenches vs. hills
One of the most powerful learning moments for me with this activity came with one of my language learners. She didn't speak or understand much English, and her group was late in arriving, so she started the build by herself. After getting the buckets ready and making sure everyone had what they needed, I came by to see how she was doing. To my surprise, she had build a series of neat hills, not trenches. I realized that it wasn't really clear from the videos and images what a trench was if you didn't know the word, and that she had interpreted the soldiers "going over the top" as climbing up a hill, not climbing out of a trench. Great learning for me to help provide her (and others) with more vocabulary support and identify misinterpretations.
A trench or a hill?
Materials, Tips and Tricks
What you'll need:
- 6 plastic bins - under-bed boxes work well, ours were the right size to fit on an old overhead projector cart, we could put 3 on each card and then you just need 2 carts that can wheel between rooms as needed
- 6 bags of play sand - you might need more or less, depending on how big the bags are
- plastic soldiers and a box to keep them in - dollar store is just fine, we're not going for detailed accuracy here!
- Popsicle sticks, wire, polyester stuffing, bits of cloth are good starting points - students can bring in more if they like!
- At least 2 big buckets and 6 dippers (old yogurt tubs work)
- Water
- A broom and cloths are helpful to keep the care staff on your side!
- A plastic basket is helpful for sifting away dried sand afterward. Especially good if you want to use the sandboxes for archaeological digs, zen gardens or glacial formations later.
Printed guns using primary source images!
We do it again in the Second World War, and by that time, they've had a bit more practice and come up with some great ideas!
Battle of Ortona, Second World War - I've seen this done with lego, too!
D-Day, Normandy Landings, Second World War
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