Ancient Civilizations Homeschool Unit

This was the second of only TWO units this school year! Of course there was a lot of other school around the edges. But these two were both just huge units, and honestly, it was quite fun to dive SO deeply and for SO long into these topics. We felt quite experts by the time we were done.

I haven't ever taught or even learned about several of these Ancient Civilizations before, and it was great to do it along with our study of the Old Testament because I finally felt like I understood (at least a little) what was going on with the Hittites and the Amorites and all the warring tribes and other civilizations rising and falling and carrying the Jews away captive and so forth. I've never understood any of that before! 

Because this was kind of a history survey (we used Story of the World, Vol. 1 as a loose spine), we didn't delve into each civilization as much as we could have. They have a lot in common, though, and I hope to revisit some of the most interesting ones. We have studied Ancient Egypt before, and it's one of my favorite units! But I'd love to do separate unit studies of Ancient Greece and Ancient Rome as well. Maybe we'll get to Rome during our New Testament studies!

Here's my old Pinterest board for Ancient Egypt (I didn't make a new board this time, but we did some of these same activities, and some new ones): https://www.pinterest.com/marilynnielson/ancient-egypt-homeschool-unit/

We also watched these videos about some of the first civilizations:

• From hunter-gatherer to Farmer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=teavjYI9pdM&t=97s

• Human Prehistory 101 (part 3), Agriculture: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IVHD9wGlbho

I want to write down one of the children's favorite activities before I forget it. It was something I made up on the spur of the moment, but they loved it and wanted to play it over and over! We did this activity after a discussion of archaeology and how archeologists interpret the past.

1. Divide into two teams. One is the Ancient People. One is the Archaeologists.

2. The Ancient People go around the house collecting random objects (stuffed animals, cooking utensils, blankets, clothing, wood scraps, whatever). Then they take their objects outside and hide them around the yard. They decide upon a story for what they are doing. E.g.: "These people worshiped bunnies. They lived near water and traveled in boats. They fought with neighboring tribes and died of a plague." They hide the objects in such a way as to reveal what they can about these details. They take note of how many objects they hid.

3. The Archaeologists go around the yard and find the "artifacts." Once they have found them all, they try to say as many details as they can about the life of the Ancient People. They try to guess how they lived and how they died.

4. Switch teams and play again!