We have a new home school history group and though in its infancy, we love it. We get together with a group of kids bi monthly to work on history projects together. We all follow a similar curriculum and recently we've been studying ancient Egypt and Mesopotamia.
This book provides loads of fun project ideas, so many we can never do them all together this year. Luckily, there is always next year (yes, that means we are going to continue home schooling into the summer and the next school year).
Our project was inspired by the Sumerians, who created Cuneiform, a kind of alphabet and symbolic language dating back about 3000 years ago. Their documents were written on clay tablets, by means of a blunt reed for a tool. The impressions left by the tools were wedge shaped, thus the name cuneiform (from the Latin cuneus, which means "wedge").
Our "reeds" were screw drivers and other found implements, but I hereby take a stand that authenticity isn't really a requirement in elementary grades.
Step 1: roll out clay.
I love Samantha representing girldom as the only girl in the group right now and blasting bright colors everywhere
Step 2: learn that wax paper is a terrible terrible thing on which to roll out clay, resolve to never do that again
Step 3: Give 2-year-old playdough on a separate table and let him think he is apart of things. Praise the Heavens as he takes the bait!
Step 4: Start carving into clay secret messages, your name, "Mom Rules," etc
Step 5: Check work as you go
Step 6: Keep going, erase with rolling pin as necessary
Step 7: As children sit in peaceful busy almost-silence working, realize home school history group is wicked awesome
Step 8: For those of you considering home school, it is ALWAYS like this.
This book provides loads of fun project ideas, so many we can never do them all together this year. Luckily, there is always next year (yes, that means we are going to continue home schooling into the summer and the next school year).
Our project was inspired by the Sumerians, who created Cuneiform, a kind of alphabet and symbolic language dating back about 3000 years ago. Their documents were written on clay tablets, by means of a blunt reed for a tool. The impressions left by the tools were wedge shaped, thus the name cuneiform (from the Latin cuneus, which means "wedge").
Our "reeds" were screw drivers and other found implements, but I hereby take a stand that authenticity isn't really a requirement in elementary grades.
Step 1: roll out clay.
I love Samantha representing girldom as the only girl in the group right now and blasting bright colors everywhereStep 2: learn that wax paper is a terrible terrible thing on which to roll out clay, resolve to never do that again
Step 3: Give 2-year-old playdough on a separate table and let him think he is apart of things. Praise the Heavens as he takes the bait!
Step 4: Start carving into clay secret messages, your name, "Mom Rules," etc
Step 5: Check work as you go
Step 6: Keep going, erase with rolling pin as necessary
Step 7: As children sit in peaceful busy almost-silence working, realize home school history group is wicked awesome
Step 8: For those of you considering home school, it is ALWAYS like this.
Kidding aside, dealing with the two babies is no cake walk when I try to create learning opportunities for the older two, and we certainly have days where things go to crap. But when 50% or 100% of the babies are napping, it really is like that above picture around here a lot of the time. Togetherness, kindness, cooperation and learning. I am not saying I am gonna get a tattoo that says Home school 4 life but we really love it. I am really excited to see where home based learning takes us.
And if you are in my neck of the woods, and want to rage against the machine with me, I will totally let you join our history group, invite you to singing class, math lab and go on field trips with us.
3 comments:
You're bribing me aren't you? It may work.
Oh, this is terrific!
Have you thought about meeting at the MFA one morning? Free for kids and there is awesome Sumerian and Egyptian stuff. (And some of the other galleries are wide open and fairly empty and good for some gross motor fun... But you didn't hear that from me.)
What book are you using? The link did to work, we love Story of The World, super fun, good book suggestions, and fun projects, like mummifying a chicken!!!! Seriously, directions and everything, ewwwwwwww!!!
Good job on the project, kit looked great, we are currently learning ancient Chinese calligraphy, and Mia is quiet adept at writing anything in hieroglyphs, good stuff!!!!
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