History is fascinating. The boys are always asking me questions about their past, my past, their dad’s past.
“Were you a kid once Mommy?”
“Did Daddy eat broccoli when he was little?”
They are starting to become more curious about what happened…before.
Before they were born and before they could remember.
I wanted to start introducing them to, not just their own history, but their grandparent’s, great-grandparent’s and great-great-grandparent’s history.
We are using Story of the World (SOTW) Year One: Ancient Times as our history curriculum this year. I chose SOTW because it is a great, hands-on, take-your-time-and-have-fun curriculum.
We read the introduction “What is History?” the first week in September and started our timelines. (above)
We started Chapter 1 the second week in September. We talked about nomads, the Fertile Crescent and the first farmers.
We made our own cave paintings with a paper grocery sack and acrylic paint and watched The Croods for fun.
We started Chapter 2 recently. Chapter 2 is about the Ancient Egyptians. Our first craft in Chapter 2 was building papyrus boats out of straws, duct tape and string.
We floated them in the bathtub and the boys had their little Lego figures sailing along and, I think, fishing.
The activity book in Chapter 2 had instructions to make a model of the Nile with dirt and grass seed in a tin casserole pan.
What a cool project! We were all ready to make our model when my husband said, “Why don’t you make it out in the swales?”
Of course we should make it out in the swales! It’s a bigger model and the boys get to get muddy and play in the dirt.
We trekked out to the pond (which is really just a large puddle now) with shovels and spades and a map of the Nile and got started.
Joe directed traffic for a bit as he consulted the map. There were a few tense moments where they argued over who got to dig the “split part” aka the Delta, but in the end they worked it out.
Joe worked from the top, Jake from the bottom and I helped in the middle with instruction on the depth and shape from both of them.
After about an hour of hard work digging in thick, goopy clay, we had a miniature Nile on our homestead.
Now it was time to test it out. We had a slight problem deciding out to flood the Nile, our hose wasn’t long enough and it was a clear, sunny day so we couldn’t count on heavy rains. In the end, Joe suggested we use a bucket of water.
We got the papyrus boats we had made the previous week and proceeded to flood our mini Nile.
It worked! Our papyrus boats floated down the river after getting stuck only once or twice and out into the Mediterranean Pond/puddle.
We did it a few more times before the river started filling in and everyone got hungry for lunch.
It was fun, engaging, messy and exciting. We will likely also make the model in the tin pan, but the boys will have the memory of playing in the mud to create the Nile with them for a long time.
It’s now part of their history.
a pinch of homestead 