Merciful Manna 3-6 and 3-13-2017 Weekly Review: Egyptians

This is what I started with. It's still quite a struggle for me to break it down to their level in one fell swoop. We talked about this briefly, and then moved on to the fun stuff!

Canopic jars, Egyptian gods, and organ playdough! Such thoughtful and engaging conversation about organ choices then versus what we know now, and concepts of afterlife.

Building a teeny playdough pyramid. They enjoyed trying bases of different sizes, and we had some great talks about 2d shapes working together to make 3d shapes. 

A very unofficial translation of our names into hieroglyphics.  Honestly, I was so impressed by their focus and attention to detail here. 

We also had the privilege of visiting the mummy exhibit at the Indy Children's Museum and checking out plenty of realistic hieroglyphics.  

And really, why even bother homeschooling if you don't get to mummify your sister during Egypt studies?

Merciful Manna 2-27-17 Weekly Review: Mesopotamia and Sumer

We discussed the fertile crescent and the way that the earliest civilizations of Mesopotamia were benefitted by the rivers nearby. We talked about what plants need to grow, how God provides, and how people learned to move water by irrigation to expand their farmable land. We performed an experiment to see what variables affect water flow to plants.

We learned about ancient Sumerians and their cuneiform writing carved into clay tablets.  We tried some playdough cuneiform carving of our own!