The first writing - hieroglyphics and cuneiform

Today we had a history lesson from SotW. Sayer seemed to know that there would be some sort of project at the end of it because she kept asking 'When do we get to do the craft?' while I was reading to her.

First we reviewed the concept of history, and discussed the nomads and the foods they ate and how they traveled and what they'd have to learn to do in order to settle in one place to live. We discussed the Fertile Crescent and getting water from the rivers to the crops, and then the Nile in Egypt and it's annual floods and it's Upper and Lower kingdoms and how they were united. Then we moved on to the first writing.

The lesson went over the Egyptians carving hieroglyphics on stone and the Sumerians writing cuneiform on clay tablets and then the later Egyptian invention of papyrus. We talked about the pros and cons of each method (longevity vs size/weight). Then Sayer got to get 'dirty' and play with clay :)

First she got a piece of paper and a pencil and wrote out a message that she would translate into cuneiform. Then I brought out the clay. We had some from a kit my sister Katie got for the kids to make ceramics on a battery operated wheel. Sayer and I worked it until it was nice and pliable, then we made a generally rectangular tablet. I gave her one of the pumpkin carving knives we have from last Halloween and set her up with her message and the alphabet translation.

About forty minutes later she was done. One line of it runs up into another line so it's hard to tell if the last letter belongs on the upper or lower line. But she did a good job. Yes, I'll get around to posting pics later (poke me!).

Want to know what message she decided to write? Do you? Really? Okay, here it is:

"Help. There is a monster chasing me!"

:)

After we were done with that Sayer read me a short book about the Nile.

We'll do a review tomorrow, along with the map work and coloring page and another activity or two.