Hands-On Ideas for Ancient History

[Earthmerlin]

Hi there. I've a rising 6th grader who will be studying ancient history. I'd like some easy yet hands-on supplemental activities I can use with her. Any ideas?

[NataliaMusk]

We're also doing ancients this year so I'm following this topic to hopefully get some ideas 🙂 For now I only plan on using the SOTW ancients activity book and I picked up a few random things from TPT

Ancient Egypt Map

CSI Investigation: Was he murdered? (King Tut)

Escape the room: Crack Ancient Egypt Hieroglyphics & Solve The Puzzle!

Ancient Civilizations STEM Challenges

Ancient Greece Escape Room: Crack Greek Alphabet & Roman Numerals! Breakout!

 

My kids love the "escape the room" type activities. They're designed for a classroom but it's a fun activity to do as a family. We're also going to "mummify" an apple (bunch of tutorials online for that). 

Editing because I forgot we also got some stuff from Rainbow Resource to make and paint our own Papyrus. I just personally like these ready to go activities because it gives me some time to teach the young ones while they're busy.

Make your own Papyrus and Hieroglyphs stencil 

King Tut tomb tile

Another thing that's designed for classrooms but can be adapted is this Greek Drama book. Gather the family and everyone can play a few different characters and it should be fun 🙂

Edited July 30, 2020 by NataliaMusk

[Lori D.]

Ancient Egyptians and Their Neighbors (Broida) -- for gr. 4-6, has a lot of nice hands-on activities for 4 ancient cultures: Egyptians, Mesopotamians, Nubians, Hittites


Also, the Mr. Donn website has all kinds of ideas for many subject areas; I linked the Ancient History list of links -- when you click on a sub-topic, it takes you to another page with loads of websites and activity ideas to go with that specific sub-topic/ancients area of the world.

Edited July 30, 2020 by Lori D.

[Earthmerlin]

Any suggestions on quick read alouds? I'm thinking Gilgamesh but wonder if there's anything else out there.

[Earthmerlin]

I'm also wondering about decent documentaries or movies--prehistory, sumerians, mesopotamia, egyptians, etc. 

[Lori D.]

2 hours ago, Earthmerlin said:

Any suggestions on quick read alouds? I'm thinking Gilgamesh but wonder if there's anything else out there.

 

3 hours ago, Earthmerlin said:

I'm also wondering about decent documentaries or movies--prehistory, sumerians, mesopotamia, egyptians, etc. 

Just swinging in really fast with a few suggestions -- I know other people will have great suggestions for you... 😄 

Mesopotamia
book = Gilgamesh The Hero (McCaughrean)
book = Gilgamesh and Other Babylonian Tales (Westwood) -- useful up into high school as an abridged retelling
book = Mesopotamian Myths: Captivating Guide to Myths from Mesopotamia and Sumeriam Mythology (Clayton) -- not short, not written for children, but pretty straight-forward for grades 5/6+ -- you could pick and choose your way through

Egypt
book = Tales of Ancient Egypt (Green)
nonfiction video = Pyramid -- based on David Macauley's book; interweaves documentary with animated telling of building the Great Pyramid

Israel
book = Biblical book of Genesis (creation and origin of Israelites)

Rome
nonfiction video = Roman City -- based on David Macauley's book; interweaves documentary with animated telling of building a Roman City

China
book = Treasury of Chinese Folktales (Fu)
book = Little Monkey King's Journey Retold (Jian)  -- picture book + Monkey King (Chen) -- series of graphic novels