Story of the World: Chapters 5 & 6

Life has been a little crazy around here this week between the 4th of July and preparing for the kids' art class I'm teaching next week.  So here's a combined post for The Story of the World and Episcopal Children's Curriculum (EEC).  Chapter 6 of SOTW tells the story of Joseph, which tied into our EEC unit, so we studied them together.

Story of the World: Chapter 5
This chapter tells the story of Sargon, the first Sumerian dictator.  Sargon united Sumer and renamed it Akkadia.  Chapter 5 was very short and none of the suggested crafts particularly appealed to us, so we skipped them.

Books
The Golden Sandal - a Cinderella story set in Mesopotamia



Videos
Ancient Civilizations for Children: Ancient Mesopotamia (With Teacher's Guide) [VHS]

Activities
Sumerian Inventions Word Search - found in the Activity Guide


Story of the World Chapter 6 and EEC Shell Year Unit 1: Sections 5 & 6

Books
Joseph - this is a BEAUTIFULLY illustrated bible story
Dance, Sing, Remember : A Celebration of Jewish Holidays - introduces Jewish holidays and includes some accompanying activities

  

Videos
Joseph - King of Dreams


Craft
Crazy Bug made a many colored dream t-shirt using spray on fabric paint. This was a good lesson in "less is more" because the more spray that was added the muddier the colors became.  We're going to try it again this summer using only closely related colors like red, purple, and blue.


We've also been checking our Chicken Mummy and changing his salt mixture regularly.  He's already dried out a lot!

Story of the World: Chapter 4

All Hail the Chicken Mummy!

It's here, it's finally here: the infamous chicken mummy chapter!  Crazy Bug and I have eagerly awaited chapter 4 of The Story of the World, because we've heard so much about the chicken mummy project.  And because we like doing really weird stuff.

Chapter 4 is about the Old Kingdom of Egypt and focuses on mummies and pyramids.  There are a couple projects suggested in the Activity Guide, but the one everyone talks about is mummifying a chicken.  I was wary at first, because I hate handling raw meat and I gag very easily.  The idea of leaving a chicken on my counter for a month didn't sound too tempting.  But many people reassured me, and I'm happy to say they were right.  Our chicken (actually a cornish game hen) is drying nicely in a mixture of baking soda, washing soda, and salt.  No stench!  If you don't have the Story of the World Activity Guide, you can find similar chicken mummy directions here.

I'd recommend this project for anyone studying Ancient Egypt.  Crazy Bug is in that gross six year-old phase and just adores our King Cluckmantutan.  She's really understands what the mummification process is all about now, and I'm sure she'll remember the information for a l-o-n-g time.

Here's what else we did:


Story of the World Lapbook, Chapter 4 component


Books
You Wouldn't Want to Be an Egyptian Mummy! - this book is not for the squeamish!
You Wouldn't Want to Be a Pyramid Builder
Mummies! (Know-It-Alls)

     

Project
Scented Oil
This is a project from the Activity Guide.  We'll use it later on our chicken mummy.  Crazy Bug chose the unusual and highly stinky combination of cinnamon, garlic, onion, curry, and dill seed.

Story of the World: Chapter 3

Chapter 3 of the Story of the World is only one section long, but we did a lot with it!  This chapter discusses the invention of writing and introduces both cuneiform and hieroglyphics.  We read the chapter and completed the chapter 3 lapbook component.

Books
Seeker of Knowledge - I loved this book!  It's a great beginner's biography of the man who deciphered the Rosetta Stone.

Craft
After discussing how the Egyptians made papyrus, we made our own homemade paper.  I've done this before using materials from around the house and it was a pain in the neck.  This time we used Arnold Grummer's Papermaking Kit , and it was much, much easier!

Science
We did an experiment to test which was a more durable method of writing, carving on clay tablets or writing on paper.

1.  First, we used Sculpey oven-bake clay ( III Modeling Compound copper) to create clay "tablets".  Using toothpicks, we carved cuneiform letters onto them and baked them until hard.

2.  My mother gave Crazy Bug a great hieroglyphic stamp set from the Metropolitan Museum of Art, which we used to stamp "papyrus" (resume paper).  We rolled the paper into scrolls and tied them with string.

3.  We filled two identical containers with the same amount of same temperature water (a great time to talk about controlled variables), and put the clay tablet in one and the paper in the other.  We then checked the items every few hours to see how they were holding up.  By the next morning, we couldn't unroll the paper without ripping it, but the clay was unchanged.  Crazy Bug and I discussed the fact that there are few records from the later Egyptian periods and how this relates to the use of paper.  We also discussed how our modern records (paper and computer files) might hold up in 5000 years.

Story of the World: Chapter 1

This weekend we read The Story of the World, Chapter 1: The Earliest People.  It told us about the nomads and how some of them came to settle in the Fertile Crescent.  Crazy Bug particularly liked the parts about the girl, Tarak, bringing home lizards for her mother to make into stew.

Our project was to make cave paintings like the ones the nomads made.  Our "cave" was underneath the kitchen table.  I taped brown packaging paper to the walls and pulled out some black, brown, red, and white paint.  We painted animals and animal hunts.  This led into a long session of imaginative play, where Crazy Bug hunted,gathered, and built a Lincoln Log fire so we could cook our lizard stew.

Our extra reading choices this week were The Cave Painter of Lascaux and Digging Up History (Usborne Beginners) .  The first book was not a hit, but the second one was.  After our pretend archaeology dig last week, Crazy Bug marveled at how archaeologists dug out entire cities.  The Usborne Beginners books also have internet links for more information, so we played an archaeology game online.  Crazy Bug had to act like a real archaeologist and try to determine what various artifacts were used for.  She discovered that it's harder than one might think!

Story of the World: Introduction

Crazy Bug had so much fun with our first Story of the World chapter!  We started by reading the introduction together.  Then I asked Crazy Bug a few questions to help her summarize what she learned.  Our conversation went something like this:

Me:  What is history?
CB:  History is the story of people who lived a long, long, long time ago.
Me:  How do we learn about history?
CB:  By letters and carvings.
Me:  Can you say a whole sentence about that?  We learn..."
CB: We learn about history by reading letters and carvings that people wrote a long time ago.

Next we read a story to learn more about what archaeologists do.  I highly recommend Archaeologists Dig for Clues by Kate Duke.  Although it's a bit longer than Crazy Bug's usual tolerance for nonfiction, she was fascinated!  She couldn't wait to go on our own "archaeological dig".

I gathered up some artifacts from around our house and we headed down to a deserted beach.  We used sticks and string to make a 3x3 grid in the sand.  I buried the objects, then Crazy Bug carefully dug them up, brushed them clean, and recorded the objects and their locations on our log.  Each item was placed in a carefully labelled bag for the trip back to the "laboratory".  We imagined we were archaeologists from the future and tried to learn as much as we could from the items.  ("This envelope has printing on it!  They must have known how to print things and had a mail service!")

I have to say, I've seldom seen Crazy Bug quite so excited as she was about this dig!

Diving Into Ancient History

We've finally dived into our world history curriculum and I couldn't be more thrilled!  We are using The Story of the World: Volume 1 , which is part of a four volume cycle that takes children from the earliest people through modern times.  There's nothing textbook-y about this book!  SOTW treats history like an intriguing story.  The author, Susan Wise Bauer, stresses that at this age we shouldn't aim for mastery of the subject.  Instead we are simply exposing our children to world history in order to give them a background they'll later build on.  The book is supplemented with a wonderful activity guide and many outside reading recommendations.

Some people might feel that a world history curriculum is too dry for this age group.  I've hear many people say that they'd rather their children have time to play and just be kids.  These things are not mutually exclusive!  After reading the chapter on cave dwellers, Crazy Bug spent hours pretending to live in a cave.  As we played, she frequently asked questions about how the cave dwellers ate, cooked, and made tools.  Before this, she hadn't played make believe games for a while because she'd grown bored with all the scenarios she could imagine.  Learning about history actually enlivened and reignited her creative play!  To me, that's exactly what education is about!  It gives children the skills and information they need to enjoy their world.

As you explore the activities shown on my blog, try to keep that goal in mind.  I don't teach my daughter about Chihuly and Matisse so she can recite their biographies back to me.  I teach her about them so she can discover new styles and materials to create with.  She doesn't get bored by pulling out the same watercolor set over and over again.  Instead she is constantly inspired by new ideas!  Likewise, I don't teach her how to write just to make her seem smart.  Her head is filled with so many ideas and thoughts that she wants to share.  Learning to write allows her to express herself clearly so she can communicate her thoughts to others.

Don't be afraid of education.  No, we should not sit our young children down at desks and overwhelm them with worksheets, drills, and rote memorization.  But that doesn't mean we shouldn't teach them!  Instead, do a little teaching, then let them use and explore the knowledge they've learned.  The result?  Happy, eager, curious kids who have a strong foundation for their creative pursuits!