Chasing Cheerios

Showing posts with label history. Show all posts
Showing posts with label history. Show all posts

Tuesday, July 31, 2012

Making Clay Tablets

After reading about the Sumerians writing on clay tablets and the Ancient Egyptians making clay bowls, we decided to make our own.  We had fun getting very messy!  I made several tablets, and O(6) made her handprint on one.  O tried to make a couple of bowls, but they fell apart.







E(2) loved writing on the tablets with twigs.



We traced her hand.


O asked if she could put clay on her face, and she seemed surprised when I said yes.  Then she seemed REALLY surprised when she asked if she could put clay in her hair and I said yes!


E quickly copied her and covered her hair with clay, too.  It was a fun and messy afternoon!

After they washed off in the lake, got sprayed off with the waterhose, and had a shower, we had a snack and watched a show about ancient Egypt via Discovery Streaming.  Since we'd read about the Ancient Egyptians eating figs, I went out to our fig tree and picked a few figs (the girls were too hot and tired to join me...it was close to 100 degrees).  They don't really like figs, so I put cheese on them, and O loved them.  E ate the cheese, but not the figs.

Monday, July 30, 2012

Our "Old Time" Girls

Our girls love to play "old times!"  Last week, we took a break from playing ancient Egyptians to play "old times" for a while.




Sunday, July 29, 2012

Cave Paintings

The girls and I studied cave people and cave paintings a few weeks ago, and we had a lot of fun!  We turned our treehouse into a cave!



We lined our treehouse with brown paper and decorated it with paintings using our spray painters, markers, and stencils.  We looked at pics of caves on the internet and since we saw handprints on cave walls, we made sure to make handprints, too!












After we finished our cave paintings, O and E built a pretend fire from twigs I gathered (I was the cave child, and they were the cave mamas).




O made a delicious twig and leaf stew.



Fun times in Lakeside Homeschool!

Thursday, July 26, 2012

Excavating Ancient Egyptian Treasures

The girls and I have had a fantastic time excavating ancient Egyptian treasures this week!  The idea for this activity has been bouncing around in my head for a while, so I was excited when we finally reached the Egyptian chapters in our history curriculum!

To set up this activity, you need the Ancient Egyptians toob (link at the end of the post), sand, a wooden box  (I used the box that our Melissa and Doug unit blocks came in), a magnifying glass, and a paintbrush.


I put the list that came with the toob in the box, so that we would know what we were looking for. You'll want to do this activity outside or have a broom nearby because it's almost impossible to keep the sand from getting on the floor!





We searched through the box with our paintbrushes.  I used the end of brush and stuck it in the box a few times to try to find objects, and O was quick to caution me against this because I might damage the treasures!



There was lots of excitement in our house when O(6) uncovered the pyramids of Giza!



We matched the figures to the list and read about each figure as we found it.



After we finished the activity, the girls had lots of practice sweeping!



O had to get out the electric sweeper to get all of the sand.  Once the weather cools off, we'll start doing this activity on our deck!





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Wednesday, July 18, 2012

Studying The Vikings

The girls and I started studying the Vikings in February through reading Leif the Lucky.




Both girls LOVED this book, and we read it very frequently (until we had to return it to the library).  I loved listening to my 2 year old tell me all about the Vikings based on what she learned from this book!

In addition to reading Leif the Lucky, O(5) and I started a lapbook.  All of the components of the lapbook came from Dynamic 2 Moms...here is the link. This is a WONDERFUL resource, and it was a fantastic 1st lapbook for us to make!  Once Elliott was diagnosed with his brain tumor in February, we put all of this on hold.  We finally picked it back up and finished the lapbook about a month ago!  O was SO proud!
















In addition to Leif the Lucky, we have read several other books on Vikings that we enjoyed.  Here are the links to a few of them...








In addition to reading lots of books and making a lapbook, we had LOTS of fun exploring a Vikings Treasure Chest that I bought off ebay.

O and I had fun playing a Viking game included in the treasure chest.









The girls also enjoyed coloring pics of Viking longships while I read to them about Vikings. 








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