Thursday, September 27, 2012

Ancient History

I am so excited to be back in Ancient History this year - this has to be my favorite time period to teach as a homeschooler.  There is so much wonderful stuff to read, learn, do!  Today we were in ancient Sumer.  We were talking about cuneiform so we decided to get out the sculpy and make our own cuneiform tablets.  Then they decided they need more sculpy projects so they made woven reed baskets...with lids...and then added charmed snakes.  I think somewhere along the way we wandered out of Sumer....  As long as they were doing a hands on project, I decide to give their ears a work out and pulled out a translation of Gilgamesh.  It struck me that here I am reading Gilgamesh to my 3rd, 4th and 6th graders (and they are *enjoying* it!) and my son's public high school teachers seem to think he's not capable of much more than R.L Stine horror twaddle oh but I digress...  I have been absolutely dying to use my friend Barbara's (an Orthodox curriculum writer!) History Portfolios.  These portfolios are simply beautiful and will leave my kids with a wonderful keepsake for years to come.   I have Nate, David and John using the Jr. Portfolios and Betsy with the regular level.  I don't have photos of the kids' work in them but I will post some at some point.  I think we're hitting our homeschooling groove again!  As much as I love my special kiddos, I have to say it is really nice to have them in school while I work with the ones a bit more capable of learning the academic stuff.  We can really fly now!






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