Ancient History: Africa/Egypt

We spent quite a lot of time immersed in Ancient Egypt. The Kid did a homeschool history fair project on mummies, so there's more of a mummy emphasis here than we may have had otherwise. I have been reminded a few times already in our study of Ancients how little information there is regarding some parts of the world, and Africa is one of them. We found what we could, but truly could not find much that wasn't about Egypt.

We started the unit by reading:

• Usborne Internet-Linked Encyclopedia of World History, pages 172-173
• Story of the World: Chapter 11a (we have read Anansi stories before and therefore did not do the ones in SOTW)
• Story of the World: Chapter 2

We then read one more chapter of Story of the World each week for the following three weeks:

• Usborne Internet-Linked Encyclopedia of World History, pages 116-117
• Story of the World: Chapter 4
• Usborne Internet-Linked Encyclopedia of World History, pages 134-139
• Story of the World: Chapter 12
• Story of the World: Chapter 13

Nonfiction books we enjoyed:

• Egyptology: Search for the Tomb of Osiris by Emily Sands and Dugald Steer
• Kids in Ancient Egypt by Lisa A. Wroble
• Everyday Life in Ancient Egypt by Kirsten Holm
• Top 10 Worst Creepy Egyptian Mummies You Wouldn't Want to Meet by David Stewart
• Egyptian Mummies by Henrietta McCall and Dave Antram
• You Wouldn't Want to be Cursed by King Tut by Jacqueline Morley
• You Wouldn't Want to be an Egyptian Mummy! by David Stewart
• You Wouldn't Want to be a Pyramid Builder by Jacqueline Morley 
• Top 10 Worst Things About Ancient Egypt You Wouldn't Want to Know! by Victoria England
• Treasury of Egyptian Mythology by Donna Jo Napoli - we started out loving this, though it is really long and we moved on before we got quite through. 
• Pyramid by David Macaulay

Fiction books we enjoyed:

• Funny Mummy: Over 350 Jokes From Ancient Egypt by Steve Bertman
• Casting the Gods Adrift by Geraldine McCaughrean - wonderful longer read aloud telling the story of the pharaoh Akhenaten and his wife Nefertiti as seen through the eyes of a boy becoming a craftsman for the royal family
• I Am the Mummy Heb-Nefert by Eve Bunting
• Temple Cat by Andrew Clements

Activities we enjoyed:

• Making a chicken mummy
• Making canopic jars from air dry clay to store the chicken mummy's gizzard and liver
• Scientific Explorer: Our Amazing Mummies model kit
• Preparing a mummy presentation for a homeschool history fair 

Following along in history? Go back to the Ancient History main page.

Kid in the Kitchen

What better week for a post on cooking and baking?

This past month, The Kid has been helping out more and more in the kitchen. She's five, and like most kids she loves to help in the kitchen. I realized recently that she could probably do a lot more than she has been if I slowed it down a bit. She now is my assistant during preparations for most lunches. Starting last week, we now swap roles for one lunch a week and Sunday brunch - she is the cook, with an adult assistant.

What do your kids start out learning to cook? I'd love to find more stuff she could actually be independent on!

Project Time

We've always had a pile of projects we meant to do and somehow didn't get around to. So we have a new "class" called Project Time! 30 minutes every school day dedicated to whatever project we're currently working on. So far, we've used this time for her history fair project and NaNoWriMo. We'll break from NaNoWriMo next week to use the time to put the wrappings on her chicken mummy.

Finally, projects that get done!

Read Aloud: The Secret Garden

The Husband and I take turns reading aloud to The Kid for about a half hour before bed most nights. Our most recent book was The Secret Garden, which is one of my all-time childhood favorites. I love the friendships between the kids, reading through the changes that occur for Mary and Colin, and the great relationship that the kids have with some of the adults. This one is a long book, and it tells its story slowly and gently, so it's definitely for patient listeners. But it can also be helped along by Inga Moore's illustrations in the fantastic version we found!

BFSU: Energy Unit

Resources: Magic School Bus episodes (these were definitely more in the "fun" than "educational" category)

Lesson 1: BFSU C-3: Concepts of Energy II: Kinetic and Potential Energy
Lesson 2: Magic School Bus Gets Charged
Lesson 3: BFSU C-4: Concepts of Energy III: Distinguishing Between Matter and Energy, part 1
Lesson 4: BFSU C-4: Concepts of Energy III: Distinguishing Between Matter and Energy, part2
Lesson 5: Magic School Bus in the Arctic

This post is part of my series on using BFSU as a science unit study.

NaNoWriMo 2015: Getting Started

The Kid loved doing National Novel Writing Month's Young Writers Program last year and has been very excited to get started again this year! Of course, being five years old, the 30,000 word count that is set as the default goal is a bit much. Last year, she set her goal at 1500 and just made it. This year, she has set herself a goal of 2500 words.

This year, she wanted to do part of the workbook that the YWP has to help young writers map out their characters and stories. So we spent a few days at the end of October, with me scribing in the workbook as she created a main character, supporting character, and villain. She made up a brief outline of her book's plot and I asked her questions to prompt her. That is all the planning she did - and it's far more planning than she's ever done before.

Her goal is for her to write (or dictate) about 20 minutes per school day throughout November. She wants to try her hand at typing it, so we may be trading off some. We have always done her previous stories with her dictating and me scribing, guided by BraveWriter's Jot It Down program, and I'm expecting I'll be doing the majority of the typing this month.

Wish her luck!