Logic Stage History: What hands on projects have you found/used?

[keptwoman]

I thought it might be great to have a list. I'm particularly looking at ancients, but I'm sure others are looking for other time periods too.

[redsquirrel]

I only do a project every couple weeks or so. I use the SOTW activity guide and just do stuff from that. Either I pick something I skipped last time around or I do something we did and he loved. Either way, there have been no complaints.

[FaithManor]

I don't know what era you are in but my boys have some great things lined up for this year including the construction of a PVC pipe trebuchet that will launch tomatoes, gourds, and small pumpkins across the church soccer field! Thankfully, pastor is a complete geek and won't mind...the deer will come eat the mess.

 

They'd forge swords if they had the means and THANKFULLY THEY DON'T HAVE THE MEANS!

 

Michigan has a huge Renaissance Festival each August, so we'll be attending for Saturday and in full peasant costume. We'll also be attending the Danish American Festival in Greenville, Mi.

 

The artsy one might illuminate some letters and turn them in for a 4-H art project and two of the boys are going to cast Celtic crosses in dh's small metal casting forge - not FOR SWORDS!

 

That's about it. The boys are 5th, 7th, and 8th grades so beyond a lot of the things in SOTW which we did during our first time through the rotation. I self-designed our curriculum for this year and I hate crafting/cooking so these activities are not in the plan.

 

Faith

[BridgeTea]

For Ancients:

 

built a small shaduf (used for irrigation in Egypt) from sticks, string, rock, and a bucket

 

carved a cylinder seal (used in various civilizations) out of a votive candle, and rolled it across playdoh to see the relief print it makes

 

used large, pointed paintbrushes and watered-down black tempera paint to try our hand at Chinese characters (lots of great youtubes for this - go big and have fun)

 

mummified some raw eggs and meat chunks (didn't care to do that whole chicken I keep hearing about ;) )

 

We use the Early Times series by Suzanne Strauss Art, and the books have lots of suggested projects in them. Your library may have these books.

[NanceXToo]

For Ancients, we do some of the things suggested in the SOTW1 Activity Guide (which we tend to do over the summer as the rest of the year, we're busy with other "main" curriculum stuff).

 

Via Oak Meadow, we're doing U.S. History this year for 5th grade.

 

Here's a link to a page where I describe some of our more interesting/fun activities and projects from this year (and links to pictures etc):

 

http://nancextoo.livejournal.com/164767.html

 

We've done stuff like:

 

making our own compass, making a diorama of Jamestown, making recipes such as for hardtack, Johnny Cakes and making our own butter, making a clay pinch pot, experiencing what "printing" was like in Colonial Times (i.e. using individual alphabet stampers to see how long it took), making a tin lantern (like Paul Revere), making our own paper, making our own candles (i.e. Ben Franklin), etc. Next week we'll be making our own ink and writing with it using a fountain pen.