Long Silence Explained

Sorry for the long silence! It's been over 7 months since my last post and many of you may not even be reading this any more...that's all right, I would understand if you weren't. For those who are still interested, I want to explain what happened and where I've been.

My third year of the Memoir '44 History Club ended well. My students seemed to enjoy it to the end and many were sad that they were moving on to middle school and wouldn't be able to participate any more. A large number of students own Memoir '44 now and told me that they would keep playing on their own. I hope that's true!

I've moved schools this year, so the fourth grade students who were in my club last year weren't able to continue playing with me this year either. Not only did I move schools, I also moved countries! My wife and I now live in the United Arab Emirates (in Abu Dhabi)

and I'm teaching 5th grade here. Because of our large move, I didn't update the blog over the summer or do a whole lot of anything except pack!

I put all of my Memoir '44 equipment into storage so that I can restart the club when I return to Oregon. If I could have, I would have loved to bring at least some of my Memoir '44 stuff so that I could run a club here in Abu Dhabi but we had limited space and weight...and we had a lot of stuff to bring. Luckily my parents are coming to visit in December and have agreed to bring me some Memoir '44 stuff so that I can run an after school club again!

Once that club gets underway I'll post some pictures and start updating thing a little bit more. Until then I might just share some thoughts on this blog about teaching World War II history, things that I'm learning about World War II as I read, or other things that relate to Memoir '44 History Clubs! If anyone has questions, simply ask and I'll be happy to answer!

A Simplified Campaign

Spring break is barreling down on us and we have a lot to do at school before the break, so Memoir '44 Club is on hold for a little while. However, the week after spring break I'm going to open the club to all of my students from last year who are now 4th graders. We'll see how many kids sign up but as long as there are 6 students interested, I'm willing to put in the time and give them a chance to play the first campaign of the Battle of Normandy campaign.

We'll meet for 5 sessions and play those first 4 scenarios. Our first meeting will be spent watching some video clips about the push into France out of the D-Day beachhead. If we still have time after watching the video, we'll spend some time remembering the rules and getting ready for the campaign.

I've created a very simplified way to incorporate the Reserve Roll element into this small campaign for the students. Before each battle, the kids will roll battle dice for the Reserve Roll and 2 dice for the Victory Events. They will apply the results of these rolls just like they would if they were playing a real campaign, but they won't have to use any reserve tokens. This way, the kids get to experience some of the excitement of receiving reinforcements and where to put them, without having to worry about choosing which battle to use them for.

Once we get started with the 4th grade group, I'll update everyone on how the plan goes. Thanks for your continued support and dedication to the Memoir '44 History Club at Jewell Elementary!

Come and Gone

Sorry that it has been so long since my last post! I've had some other things going on and sadly this blog has fallen to the wayside. I'll try to be better about posting what we're doing for the next few months of school.

I opened the club to my current 5th grade class and had a great bunch of students step forward and want to join. Three of them had already been in the club before but I had five new students sign up. Even though it was only a group of eight, I found that having such a small group actually allowed me to teach them more and assure that their games were going smoothly.

We met for only five days, but in that time we learned about the Allied push out of the Normandy beachhead and we played the four battles that make up the first part of the Normandy Campaign found in the Campaign Book Volume 1. The students loved it and they seemed to have fun playing. We finished the group on Thursday, February 25th.