History

History: Ancient Israel and Greece
Geography:  The Middle East


Week 12:
     Well, I can't catch you up on all we've done.  Suffice it to say we finished the geography of Israel, and have moved on to Turkey and are almost finished with that, too.  We made a delicious batch of Turkish Delight (didn't use the recipe in Child's Geography because it was not correct) using an online recipe from Cooks.com.  We have also enjoyed Turkish music and a Turkish tile craft.  
     In history, we are up to about 500 BC for Greece, just about to the classical period.  Bugle Boy did a FANTASTIC job on his Gods of Greece book:

     He has a page for each of the twelve Olympians.  In the history of Israel, we are at the time of the judges, and are sort of trailing along.  Our goal for December is to focus on the history of Israel so that we "catch-up" with Greece and then continue on in parallel.
     We have been reading an interesting book for children on Heinrich Schliemann.  Quite the character!

Week 1

     This week we begin the study of Ancient Israel and Ancient Greece, as well as a survey of the geography and people of the Middle East using as spines:
A Picturesque Tale of Progress: Conquests I
A Child's Geography: Explore the Holy Land
The Bible
New Catholic Picture Bible

Israel, week one:  We read and discussed the story of Rahab and the spies from Joshua 1 & 2.  I presented the first timeline card (see below).  We read CGHL (A Child's Geography...), pp. 37-38 and identified the area of the Middle East on a map, as well as identifying the countries we will study this year.   We read the following picture books (from the local library):
Tunjur!Tunjur!Tunjur!
One City, Two Brothers

and listened to some Israeli music from Putamayo Presents: Israel

Ancient Greece, week one:  We have already been reading Hawthorne's renditions of Greek myths:  A Wonder Book for Boys and Girls and Tanglewood Tales..  We began reading Picturesque Tale (PTP), pp. 11-18, with map handy.(focus on Crete and its civilization)  (See also the Science page for Archimedes book).  We made a salt clay map of the Mediterranean (1 part salt, 2 parts flour, water to clay-like consistency).  Here are the steps:
1. Using a large pizza box, decorate the top and sides with scrapbook paper and decoupage:

 2.  Then I enlarged the map of the Mediterannean area on p. 5 of Classical Kids: An Acitivity Guide to Life in Ancient Greece and Rome by 150% and drew it onto the bottom of the box:

3.  The next step is to make the salt clay and use it to cover the land areas and to build up mountainous regions:

4.  It needs to dry for several days.  Next week, we will paint it.

WEEKS 2-4

  After taking a nice summer break, we have begun where we left off in the early summer.  In history over the last few weeks, we have been continuing to work on Ancient Greece and Ancient Israel.  We finished our salt clay map, and have added a few "flags" using map pins to label Troy, Knossos, and Sicily, the birthplace of Archimedes (about whom we are reading in Science).  We have finished reading about the early Minoan civilization in The Picturesque Tales of Progress:




We supplemented Picturesque Tales with more recent information from Greeks Internet Linked about the destruction of the Minoan civilization being the result of the eruption of an extremely large volcano on the island of Thera (today consisting of Santorini and a few smaller island). (Actually, we used a previous version of this book, not internet linked, entitled The Greeks by Peach and Millard, which may be in your library). I had the boys each read Theseus and the Minotaur, a dramatic re-telling (we had already read the tale aloud from Tanglewood Tales).




We are now moving on to the period of Mycenean domination of the Mediterranean, focusing on the Trojan War (of course!) .  Mad Muncher and African Lion are reading The Trojan Horse: How the Greeks Won the War, while Bugle Boy  began to read in D'Aulaires' Greek Myths.

In the history of Israel, we are continuing to read in the book of Joshua.  I am doing less "interpreting" and more just reading of the Douay-Rheims text, although I do skip over some sections.  The boys seem to enjoy this a lot more.  We may make a salt clay map of Israel, as well, since that is what we are covering in geography.  We are enjoying  Putamayo's Israel Audio CD, which is a big hit with some and not so much with others (I find that we usually only get 2 out  of 3 to approve of any particular activity; there is always a dissenter).  Eating Halvah and doing a free Jewish Paper Cutting craft was fun for Bugle Boy:

 

This is definitely a craft for the slightly older child, as it requires the use of an X-acto knife.  There is also a free craft using the image of a walking bear that works well for the younger, scissor-based crowd.

     Narration of stories read from either the Bible or A Child's Geography are being done about three times a week, and the children's narration skills are improving.  I am working intensely with African Lion on this; more in Language Arts.