Ancient China

We studied Ancient China last time and I totally forgot to post about it!  ARG!
Anyway, we discussed the unique geography of China and its isolation.  The large deserts that span the western side of China kept it isolated and allowed the civilization to develop independently from other ancient civilizations.  The Chinese came up with their own writing, crops, technology, religion, and societal structure.  We also talked about the Xia Dynasty, which is considered a myth by some scholars, as the 1st dynasty in China.  (Although we also mentioned the remains of an older civilization that has been discovered recently)  The Xia left no written records, and if they were real they were defeated by the Shang Dynasty who did develop the writing that we tried out.
The kids got to try a chopstick/rice relay.  It is harder than you think!
We discussed the image of the dragon and how it is an important animal in Chinese myths and legends.  Then we made dragons of our own.
They also tried painting Chinese characters, specifically the one for "hope." Several of the kids tried other words and their names as well.

I found a neat documentary on Ancient China.  It's 50 minutes long, but it has some really great info in it.
Ancient Civilizations and Theocracies: China Part 1


Thank you Lydia! She did a nice job doing our health lesson.  She taught everyone about Dyslexia and described how it can effect learning and communicating.
I believe Gracie is up to do our health lesson this week as we travel back to Egypt for History!

Ancient Egypt

We had a fun lesson on the history of ancient Egypt yesterday!  We re-capped some info from Mesopotamia and the Indus River Valley.  We caught up on our timelines too.  Thank you Olivia, for sharing with us about Hammurabi!
The kids all colored a map of the Nile River Delta System and we talked about how its shape was like a long stemmed flower.  We spoke again about important this river was to the civilization that sprang up around it; in communication, a protective barrier, and agriculture.
We learned a brief synopsis of how King Menes (a Nubian) conquered and united the Nile River region under his rule and began the 1st dynasty of Egypt.  This also began the huge building projects  in Egypt.  We looked at 3-D images of the outside and inside of Khufu's Pyramid (the Great Pyramid).  We watched a short video about the engineering, labor, and mathematical feats that the Egyptians achieved to build such precise and sound structures.  We even got to read some deciphered taunts from Kind Kamose aimed at the Hyksos invaders.  Who knew you could talk trash in hieroglyphs?!  Here's the link if you'd like to see it.
If your students has an Egyptian assigned to them, be ready to talk about him/her next time on Nov. 18th.
I also challenged the kids that if they build a model of a pyramid, the Sphinx, a canopic jar, or another example of Egyptian engineering/art to bring it next time to show off.  I also encouraged them to build it as a replica of an actual structure or object that they can tell us about as opposed to a generic pyramid.  But anything they are motivated to build and show is fine with me!
Here are some cool games I found about Egyptian subjects.  The boys were especially excited about pulling brains out of a nose with a hook.  Thank heavens its virtual.  ;)

Egyptian Tomb Adventure

An Embalming Game 














Build a Pyramid Challenge

Mesopotamia and the Indus River Valley

We had a fun time yesterday!  The kids discussed the differences that agriculture and living in cities would have on people's way of life as apposed to a nomadic one.  They came up with many important differences!

We looked at a map of the world c.2500 BC and the major river valley civilizations in Mesopotamia, Egypt, the Indus River Valley and China.  The kids glued or wrote the names of some important crops that were domesticated in those regions.  We also got to find out what millet and emmer are!   Here is a link to the interactive map I used for that:

Time Maps

The kids and I then honed in on Mesopotamia and the Indus River Valley.  We learned about Sargon, who created the first empire in Sumer and Akkad.  We also talked about Hammurabi and his code of law - which had good rules, but very harsh punishments that may seem unfair to us today.  

I also let the kids listen to the B52's song, Mesopotamia.  A hit for sure! ;)

Mesopotamia by the B52s

Everyone usually thinks the Romans came up with aquaducts, sewage systems, and bath houses, but we learned that the Indus River Valley Civilization had this technology over a thousand years before Rome existed!  Mohenjo-Dara was a huge complex city.  Houses there had their own private wells, bathrooms, and sewage drainage that kept the city clean.  It is also interesting that archaeologists have found very few weapons in its ruins, which suggest that they lived in a peaceful place and time.  We ended the lesson by playing the ancient game of Chaupar or Pagade (which in English is Parcheesi).  If your child would like to find out more about these amazing people who's history was forgotten for thousands of years, check out the BBC Indus website from the previous post.  

Thank you Michael for a great Manners lesson about how to properly introduce yourself and greet people!

Thank you Evan for finding out about Otzi the Iceman for us!

Thank you Lyla for telling us about Sargon the Akkadian!

Some of us have a field trip on October 14th, so our next History lesson will be on October 28th and we'll learn about early Egypt and China.  So be ready to tell about your person if they're Egyptian!  

Great Indus River Civilization site!

I found this great site with photos, videos, games and info for kids about the Indus River Valley Civilization!
BBC Indus Valley

If you click on any of the sections, you can then scoll down to play the Professor Indus Game.
:)
Enjoy!

A Great Start!

Yesterday at History Club we got off to a great start!  We discussed what History and Geography are.  We learned the five themes of geography.  (Ask your child what MR.LIP stands for)  We looked at historical atlases and we started our timelines.
On their timelines we labeled 2.5 million BC-8,000 BC the Paleolithic Age (the younger students labeled theirs Old Stone Age), 8,000BC-3.000 BC the Neolithic (New Stone Age), and the Bronze Age from 3,000BC.  We noted on our timelines that around 8,000 BC agriculture began and around 3,000 BC people began to use writing.  We'll get more into that next time!
We looked at some examples of cave art from Chauvet Cave in France and recreated some of our own.  If you'd like to look at the gallery of photos from that particular site, here it is:
http://www.bradshawfoundation.com/chauvet/chauvet_cave_art.php

We also briefly discussed the transition from pictures to alphabetic writing, and I sent home a cuneiform alphabet that the students can play around with if they'd like.

I assigned each student a person to find out something about and report back to us as we get to them in class, some at the next mtg and some two mtgs from now.  This isn't a report or project, just find out some thing about this person to tell the class about so we understand why this person is important to us in learning history.  It could be one sentence, or more if they are interested in telling more.
Olivia - Hammurabi
Celee - Ramses II
Bella - Abraham
Lyla - Sargon
Gwyn - Nebuchadnezzar
Evan - Otzi the Iceman
Michael - Hatshepsut
Lydia - Nefertiti


For our health lesson, I talked with the students about September being Emergency Preparedness Month.  We discussed having an emergency plan in case of a fire in our homes.  I based the information on the Boy Scout Emergency Preparedness Merit Badge.  They should have all made it home with a sheet with information about fire emergency plans.  I also told the students about the Carroll County Emergency Preparedness EXPO at the AG center Sept 25 10-2pm.  If anyone is interested in going, let me know.  Here's a promo video about it:

Emergency Preparedness EXPO video

Link to textbook resources

The Journey Across Time textbook has a website with chapter overviews, interactive maps, vocabulary cards, etc.  There are some puzzles and games as well.  :)

http://glencoe.mheducation.com/sites/0078241332/student_view0/unit1/chapter1/index.html

History Club Begins Again!

I'm excited to start a new school year and a new slice of history!  This year we will be focusing on Eastern Civilizations from pre-history to Medieval times. I will be utilizing this Glencoe textbook:

We will loosely follow this textbook.  If you would like to use it for reading outside of class, just let me know and you can borrow it in between lessons.  It is a middle school textbook, and so it geared toward that level of reading, but many of the shorter articles are just cool to read for our younger students as well!
We will have a number of different grades, learning styles, and interest levels present at our History Club Meetings this year. (as usual)  With that said, I encourage each student to keep a three-ring binder to put handouts and project instructions in.  We will be maintaining a timeline that would be useful to have in the binder as well.  For some lessons we will be creating lap-book type inserts that can also be kept in the binder.
I will be using this blog site to keep us all on the same page as to the subject area covered at each class and any extra assignments that may be worked on outside of meetings.  I will also try to keep a running list of videos and books that relate to our lessons for added interest.
 Parents and students feel free to post comments or share things you learn along the way!  It's a lot more interesting to take ownership over our learning than to passively absorb info every other week.

*A note on Health lessons:  We had discussed having the students take turns sharing a health topic with the class at the beginning of each History lesson.  This would entail the student to read, watch, or in some way learn about a health-related topic, present a short synopsis of what they learned (5 min) and hand out some type of info sheet to each of the other students to keep.  Each student would only have to do the work once every few months, but they will all be getting a short health lesson twice a month.  I will do an example lesson at our first History Club so that everyone will have something to go on.