Hanukkah Books and Activities

We just finished studying ancient Egypt, Moses, and the Exodus. I thought it would be a good time to take a Christmas break from our World History Unit Study and learn about Hanukkah. This fits in nicely with our study of the Israelites and the Old Testament. I found some wonderful books and crafts to help my kids learn more about Hanukkah. The National Geographic book Celebrate Hanukkah with Light, Latkes, and Dreidels gives a very nice overview of Hanukkah and has pictures with captions showing how people around the world celebrate the holiday. Festival of Lights is another good book which gives a more detailed historical account of the first Hanukkah celebration and the miracle which occurred. We also enjoyed the book Hanukkah by Roni Schotter which is a sweet story of how one family with five children celebrates Hanukkah. This story held my preschoolers attention while the other books were more geared toward children a year or two older.

We have the December Idea Book from Scholastic which has coloring pages, crafts, and activities related to Christmas, Hanukkah, and other holidays in December. We love this book and will be making our own paper menorah and dreidel from the book. In addition, we will be cooking up some latkes to enjoy with sour cream and applesauce. You can find free Hanukkah crafts and latke recipes on-line.

Paper dreidels can be found at Enchanted Learning and DLTK. You can print a paper menorah craft at DLTK as well.

Family Fun has a recipe for latkes.

Hanukkah begins on the evening of December 21st this year. Happy Hanukkah!

Ancient Egypt Unit

Over the summer, I created my own World History Unit Study. I really like the classical approach of starting your study of history at the very beginning and covering World History over two years and then U.S. History over two years. I had looked at the curriculum available for World History and just couldn't find anything that was quite what I wanted, so I ended up creating my own. I picked two books to use for my World History spines and then added other books and activities to complement the first two books. I have also woven the study of the Bible into our study of World History. If you do not want to do this you can leave the Bible related books and activities out. After spending almost three months using my World History Unit Study, I am thrilled to say it is one of our favorite subjects this year and I am so happy that all those hours I put into creating it are paying off. We have added a few books and activities as we have gone along and also come across some books that weren't as wonderful as they originally sounded. Below I will share what I created for our study of Ancient Egypt. All of the books are available through Amazon.com from the Kids Love Learning Store except for A Child's History of the World which is available through Sonlight. We have gotten many of the books through inter-library loan from our library. You can click on the books listed below to learn more about them.

History Spines
The Usborne Book of World History (pgs. 14-23 & 33-39)
A Child's History of the World (pgs. 25-33 & 40-44)

These are the two books we always begin reading for each section of our World History Unit Study. The Usborne Book of World History gives a good overview of what happened in a chronological fashion for each major civilization. A Child's History of the World has wonderful narrative stories to complement the Usborne book. We then add other books to fill in more details or learn more about a particular subject. I ask oral questions during and after the reading of each book. I do not have a weekly schedule for my unit study because I prefer to move through the unit at a pace that works for our family and that changes from week to week. I add in crafts, activities, maps, timeline work, and movies throughout the week as we have time for them. Each day I check off what we have covered and record it in my weekly planner.

I want to add that the Usborne Book of World History has received some poor reviews because many of the drawings depict historically accurate nude figures. If this might be an issue for your family and you still want to buy the book, I recommend using a sharpie marker to draw simple clothing for the figures. I have not found a better World History spine to date.

Egypt BooksUsborne Time Traveler
Mummies, Pyramids, and Pharaohs: A Book About Ancient Egypt
Hieroglyphs From A to Z
Hieroglyphs
Seeker of Knowledge: The Man Who Deciphered Egyptian Hieroglyphs
Mummies Made in Egypt
Tut's Mummy: Lost... and Found
Hatshepsut, Her Majesty, Himself
Pyramid (DK Eyewitness Book)


Egypt Books for Older ReadersThe Pharaoh's of Ancient Egypt
Mara, Daughter of the Nile
Tutankhamun and the Golden Age of the Pharaoh's

Bible Books Exodus
The Golden Children's Bible (pgs. 64-123)
This is a wonderful children's Bible and the one that was read to me when I was a child. During our study of ancient Egypt, we chose to read the related Bible stories about Joseph, Moses, and the Exodus. If you already have a good children's Bible then you could certainly use that instead.








MoviesPyramid (PBS Home Video)
The Prince of Egypt










Crafts
Paper Pyramid Crafts (free printables) - 1. Easy 2. More Detailed

Make a Cartouche Using Hieroglyphs

Golden Egyptian Bracelets - 1. cut empty toilet paper tube lengthwise; 2. trim around to make two inch wide rings; 3. color or paint bracelets gold; 4. decorate with hieroglyph pictures; (you can see more detailed instructions for toilet paper tube bracelets here)

Ancient Egypt Coloring Pages


Activities
Play the Egyptian Game Seega (free printable)

Play Mehen Snake Board Game (free printable)

Prepare a Mummy for Burial

Make a Lego Step Pyramid

Make a Sledge (show how ancient Egyptians moved large stones) - 1. gather 4-6 unsharpened pencils, a small hardcover book, and small hand weight or other heavy object; 2. place the book on the floor with a hand weight on top and attempt to push the book with your pinkie finger; 3. next lay the pencils evenly in a row under the book and again attempt to push the book with your pinkie finger; 4. discuss how the ancient Egyptians might have used Sycamore logs and a sledge to move heavy stones (you can read more about this here)

Maps
Blackline Maps of World History (psg. 18, 19, 26, & 27)

We recently bought this set of maps covering world history from 5000 B.C. to the present. This was money well spent because the maps have added greatly to our study of world history. This map set includes simple activities and discussion questions for each map. Jacob loves these maps and is always asking when we can do the next one.



Timeline
This year we are using a timeline book from Sonlight called The Book of Time and some of their timeline sticker figures to go with it. Next year I will be making my own timeline figures using a fabulous clip art site I discovered here. Below I have listed free resources for making your own timeline book and more information about using time lines in your study of history. You could also make a mini timeline book or wall chart just for ancient Egypt using the free resources below.

Ancient Egypt Timeline and Egyptian Timeline Worksheet
Ancient Egypt Clip Art (click on Search Database and look under Egypt in the Subject category)




Timeline Book Instructions from Donna Young
Free Forms for Creating Timelines from Donna Young
Free Printable Timeline from Los Banos Homeschoolers
Free Book of Centuries from Simply Charlotte Mason
More information on making timelines on Squidoo

Copywork
I have come up with a number of copywork sentences for handwriting which go along with our study of ancient Egypt. We use writing paper with lines at the bottom and a space at the top so that Jacob can add his own illustrations to go along with the copywork. You can print off your own copywork paper with a box for illustrations here. You can also add interesting borders or print paper for intermediate writers here. The copywork sentences we have used for ancient Egypt are below.


1. Ancient Egyptians lived by the Nile River which provided water and good soil for crops.

2. King Narmer of Upper Egypt wore a double crown after he defeated the king of Lower Egypt.

3. The Great Pyramid of Giza is the only wonder of the ancient world still in existence.

4. Hatshepsut was ancient Egypt's only successful female king or pharaoh.

5. Tutankhamen's tomb and magnificent treasure were found by archaeologist Howard Carter.

6. Joseph's father Jacob wove Joseph a coat of many colors which made his brothers jealous.

7. The name Moses means drawn out. Pharaoh's daughter drew baby Moses out of the river.

8. Pharaoh would not let the children of Israel go so God sent ten plagues.

More Fun Egypt Stuff Fun with Hieroglyphs Stamps
Exploring Ancient Egypt Fun Kit







Please leave a comment if you find my Ancient Egypt Unit helpful.

Fun With Paper

Both my kids really enjoy making things out of paper. I love it too because it is inexpensive, keeps them entertained, often correlates with some unit study we are doing, and helps with fine motor skills. We are eclectic homeschoolers which means I like to pull ideas from many educational and homeschooling approaches and methods. I try to pick what motivates and works best with my two children's learning styles. One of the many things that inspires Jacob to learn is paper crafts. Certainly not every child is going to enjoy paper crafts. If your child does like paper crafts, adding related ones into your school day can generate more enthusiasm for a subject. At the Kids Love Learning Store, you will find a number of different paper craft books listed under different subject areas.

This year for history we are following the classical approach. We plan to study world history for two years and then United States history for two years in a chronological fashion. I borrowed a popular world history curriculum from the library and they had some good ideas for activities to complement the study of world history but also some ideas that I thought were a bit out there. The curriculum, which will remain unnamed, had a very interesting idea for an activity when studying ancient Egypt. The activity was to mummify a chicken. Now some of you Moms or Dads may have tried this, and kudos to you. I personally don't have time for such activities and I am not a huge fan of big messes or salmonella.

Instead of mummifying a chicken, Jacob was able to play a short on-line computer game that allowed him to create a mummy just like the Egyptians did. He also made a lovely three dimensional paper pyramid, built a pyramid out of legos, and demonstrated how the Egyptians moved large stones using hand weights and pencil rollers. I ended up creating a world history unit study of my own because I couldn't find one to buy that I really liked. My self created world history unit study has been a hit with Jacob and I plan to share it in sections on this blog as we move through the year and it gets tweaked a bit more.

Anyway, the whole point of this post was to introduce some of my favorite websites where you can print off fun and educational paper crafts and hopefully avoid mummifying any chickens.

Paper toys (you can find a pyramid at the first link):
http://papertoys.com/

http://www.thetoymaker.com/2Toys.html

Paper dolls:
http://marilee.us/paperdolls2.html#Printchildren

more paper dolls

Printable coloring pages of art masterpieces and lots more:
http://www.colormeonline.com/default.htm

Pop-up cards to print and make:
http://robertsabuda.com/popmakesimple.asp

Origami models with printable diagrams:
http://www.oriland.com/studio/main.asp