How do I TPR "wage war" in the classroom? #latinteacherproblems

This past week I spent some time looking over what vocab my students had learned out of the top 200  (a fair amount) and what they still needed (lots). There's one tricky thing about Latin high frequency lists that I suspect isn't the case for most modern languages: a lot of the high frequency vocab is for war & statecraft. So I needed to teach my kids homo (human being), dux (leader), ducit (leads), bellum gerit (wages war), and vincit (conquers). I also needed caelum, navis, terra, aliquid, and aliquis (sky, ship, earth/land, something, and someone).

I did a dictatio (link) with most of those on Monday, and tried a storyask on Tuesday without much success. On Wednesday I did a madlibs (link) and read aloud & reenacted some of the kids' stories that came out of that. During the week we also read together some written stories (link and link) that incorporated a few of the words. but I wasn't getting the reps I wanted of the REALLY important words. I was kind of stuck trying to work out how to do a good story-ask where I could get reps of "wage war" and "conquer." I figured out a great way to simulate combat in the classroom: have them do rock paper scissors! Script below the cut.


This is a story script for what I ended up doing.

Actors: everyone in the class
Target Structures: vincit, ducit, bellum gerit (conquers, leads, wages war)
Other vocab: terra, contra, aliquid, aliquis, navis, caelum, dux, alienus, homo (earth, against, something, someone, ship, sky, leader, alien, human being) - not all of these are necessary
Setup instructions: count off your students into 1's and 2's. Have them split up with one group on each side of the room. Tell one group that they're human beings, and the other group that they're aliens. Groups really really have to be even in numbers! Add yourself to one if necessary.
Script, such as it is:

The humans are on Earth. The humans are in Paris. One day, the humans see something in the sky. The humans see broccoli in the sky! The broccoli comes down from the sky to the earth. The broccoli is a ship! Someone comes out of the ship, but it isn't a human. A pencil comes out of the ship. The pencil is an alien! Many pencils come out of the ship. The humans are scared! The humans wage war against the pencils.

The leader of the humans is Julia. Julia leads the humans. The leader of the pencils is Patrick. Patrick leads the pencils.

(Make Julia & Patrick stand facing each other. Mime "rock, paper, scissors" as you say the next line.)

Julia wages war against Patrick. Patrick wages war against Julia.

(gesture for them to do RPS- if necessary, point out that it's out of ONE, not two out of three! If they tie, they can keep going until someone wins. If your TL has an idiom for RPS, by all means, teach it!)

Julia wages war against Patrick, and Julia conquers Patrick!

(Whichever leader lost is now "dead" and has to sit down. Unless your class is small, have everyone stand in two lines facing one another and play a round. "Dead" players sit down. After the first round, do the following for each pair.)

Sara and Marcus waged war. Did Sara conquer Marcus? Did Marcus conquer Sara?

(Do another round with remaining aliens vs humans, and repeat until all of one side is dead. Finish up the story by saying "The humans waged war against the aliens, but the aliens conquered the humans." or vice versa.)
----------
Additions:
You can easily add in some ablatives of instrument or some more "somethings" and places by extending the story. Mine included these as well, right after "The humans are scared!

The pencils want something. The pencils want tigers. The humans don't want to give the tigers to the pencils. Tigers aren't in Paris. Tigers are in Brazil. The humans go to Brazil to defend the tigers.

The humans wage war against the pencils using something. They wage war against the pencils using lightsabers. The pencils wage war against the humans using something. The pencils wage war against the humans using magic.
----------
edit: Oops forgot the Latin version!
homines in terra sunt. homines in Paris sunt. uno die, homines aliquid in caelo vident. homines broccoli in caelo vident! broccoli de caelo ad terram venit. broccoli navis est! aliquis e nave venit, sed homo non est. graphium e nave venit. graphium alienus est! multa graphia e nave veniunt. homines timent! homines bellum contra graphia gerunt.

dux hominum Iulia est. Iulia homines ducit. dux graphiorum Patricius est. Patricius graphia ducit.

(Make Julia & Patrick stand facing each other. Mime "rock, paper, scissors" as you say the next line.)

Iulia bellum contra Patricium gerit. Patricius bellum contra Iuliam gerit.

(gesture for them to do RPS- if necessary, point out that it's out of ONE, not two out of three! If they tie, they can keep going until someone wins. If your TL has an idiom for RPS, by all means, teach it!)

Iulia bellum contra Patricum gerit, et Iulia Patricium vincit!

(Whichever leader lost is now "dead" and has to sit down. Unless your class is small, have everyone stand in two lines facing one another and play a round. "Dead" players sit down. After the first round, do the following for each pair.)

Sara et Marcus bellum gerunt. Vicitne Sara Marcum? Vicitne Marcus Saram?

(Do another round with remaining aliens vs humans, and repeat until all of one side is dead. Finish up the story by saying "homines contra alienos bellum gesserunt, sed alieni homines vicerunt" or vice versa.)
----------
Additions:
You can easily add in some ablatives of instrument or some more "somethings" and places by extending the story. Mine included these as well, right after "The humans are scared!

graphia aliquid volunt. graphia tigres volunt. homines graphiis tigres dare nolunt. tigres in Paris non sunt. tigres in Brasilia sunt. homines ad Brasiliam eunt ut tigres defendant.

homines contra graphia bellum aliquo gerunt. homines contra graphia bellum lightsabris gerunt. graphia contra homines bellum aliquo gerunt. graphia contra homines bellum magica gerunt.