Ancient Science by Jim Wiese

I think Ancient Science by Jim Wiese is such a cool science book, and makes a great companion to ancient history studies!  The only thing I'm not crazy about so far is that I don't have a handy shopping list to take with me when I go shopping.  I don't know about the rest of you, but science only gets done in this house if I have the supplies on hand well in advance of commencement of projects!

Instead of typing up my shopping list and printing it out for my own use, I thought it might be nice to put it up here so that it is accessible to everyone. 

Shopping List for Ancient Science by Jim Wiese

I Gave In and Bought SOTW!

I finally broke down and bought Story of the World Volume 1: Ancient Times and the activity book to go along with it.  After spending my morning pulling all of the pages out of the activity book to make for easier copying we spent the afternoon reading the first five chapters of the book and doing a few of the activities to go along with it.  We've already covered this material, but I wanted to hear the history from the SOTW perspective, and review never hurts!  We enjoyed the first five chapters, and my only regret is not buying it sooner!

We pulled out our Crayola Air-Dry Clay and made some small clay tablets to write on, as the ancient Sumerians did with cuneiform.  We decided to stick holes in the corners so we can attach some ribbon and use them for Christmas ornaments next year.  It seemed silly to make them only to throw them away in a couple of months.

The top one says "Alexander the Great" and was done by Nik, age 6. 

The bottom is, well.....I don't know what it is!.....and was done by Nate, age 4.

Not a bad day, all in all.  Now we need to catch up on the next twelve chapters so we can move on to new material.

Ancient Greece

I apologize for my long absence; the holidays are always very busy.

We're finally into our studies of Ancient Greece and the boys are so excited!  We've only been at it for a week and already I've finished the first three books in Mary Pope Osborne's Tales from the Odyssey series.  Once I start reading the boys just won't let me stop!  :-)  I wish our library carried all six of the series, but unfortunately they only have these three.

Books We Read:
 Pegasus by Jane Yolen
The Librarian Who Measured the Earth by Kathryn Lasky  
The Children's Homer  by Padraic Colum
Tales from the Odyssey #1: The One-Eyed Giant by Mary Pope Osborne
Tales from the Odyssey #2:  The Land of the Dead by Mary Pope Osborne
Tales from the Odyssey #3: Sirens and Sea Monsters by Mary Pope Osborne

Links:
PASS World History Part 1 - Unit 5: Ancient Greece Part A  Part B

KidsPast.com - Ancient Greece

On the Shores of the Great Sea by M.B. Synge, we are beginning with the chapter "The Story of Carthage"

Digging Up Greece printable game by Ellen McHenry (we're saving this for the logic stage)

MythWeb - Greek mythology
History for Kids - Greek History

Ancient Egypt

It's nearly time for us to study Ancient Egypt.  I'm gathering resources to use right now.  The problem isn't finding activities, it's limiting them because I've found sooooooo much!

PASS World History Part 1 - Early Civilizations in Ancient Egypt  Part A  Part B free pdf text

My newest find came this afternoon in a Playmobil newsletter.  Did you know that Playmobil now has an online game called The Nile Game?  They also have a little movie titled The Magic Key.  Scroll around the screen to find the links to them, for some reason I cannot link directly to them.  The Nile Game is on the ship and The Magic Key is in the pyramid.  There are other things like an Activity Sheet, which appears to be a printable coloring page, and a Quiz!  My boys are going to be so excited!

We'll also be using Minnesota State University's Ancient Egyptian Culture page along with library books and books we already own.

ThinkQuest Ancient Egypt is not to be missed! ThinkQuest is an amazing resource!

Video Resources
~The are some History of Egypt videos on YouTube that we will be utilizing.
~And maybe the BBC documentary Pyramids - How They Were Built (also at YouTube.)
~And the National Geographic Tools For Adventure: Explore A Pyramid activity
~We will definitely use the Horrible Histories video (another YouTube one) called The Mummy Song.  My kids love the Horrible Histories!

Lapbook/Notebook Resources
~Homeschool Share Ancient Egypt Unit Study and Lapbook

Coloring Pages
~Kids-n-Fun Ancient Egypt coloring pages

I'll update with more links as I find them.