Oh, it's ancient history

This school year, we were invited to be a part of a homeschool co-op with some families from our church and our area. We use a history-based curriculum (which is great because I LOVE history!) and because of what the other families have done in the past year, we are starting in the medieval period. Since I didn't really want to just skip ancient history (I was obsessed with Egypt when I was a kid!), and after deciding to join the group in late July, I threw together a crash course in ancient history for the girls. We talked about archaeology, how people learned to make pottery, building the Egyptian pyramids and eventually made our way to Greece and Rome. I started off strong with some fun hands-on projects so thought I'd throw together a little slide show. (Sadly, Greece and Rome really only got coloring-sheet treatment!) A few friends asked me recently to share some of the projects I do, so I'll list materials too for those who want to know.

Since the captions are so short, here's the rundown of what you'll see:
-The archaeology project: digging random things out of a bucket of paver base (sand and rocks). Materials needed: gardening gloves, small paint brushes to "treat ancient artifacts with care" (:D), a bucket, sand, and random treasures from around the house.
-Making clay pottery. Materials needed: quick dry clay, stamps, jewels to decorate, tools to carve designs with, paint to use on the pottery after it has dried (optional), water. Note: we found real clay pretty tricky to work with. I think there may be easier to use options but haven't tried anything else yet.
-Moving blocks to build the Great Pyramid: since the Egyptian farmers who built the pyramids used a type of sled (i.e. NO WHEELS!) to move all the blocks to the pyramid site, we tried pulling a landscape stone across the yard with a winter sled. The girls found out quickly how difficult that would have been!
-Sugar-cube pyramids: They loved doing this especially since we had some friends over that day who did it with us. Just Google "sugar cube pyramid" and you'll find loads of recipes for the mortar, etc. Our pyramids only had a base of 6-7 cubes. Ten is what is usually recommended but I frankly don't want enormous sugar-cube pyramids lying around my house, nor did I want to spend my entire grocery budget on sugar cubes!

So, there you have it!