Timeline this week led us into discovering homeschool history adventures in Ancient Assyria and Israel. So much was learned this week that we didn’t know. First, Assyria conquered Israel, and they use siege towers. My homeschoolers’ each built their own towers and explained them well. The similarities between ancient war and modern was discussed. We now know the siege tower was a primitive design of our modern tanks. But that’s why a detailed study of timeline is perfect. Learning about things we don’t know and connecting the dots to our modern world.
As we dove into the study each one of them researched Ancient Assyria and the Kings. In turn, they learned about Ancient Israel and their culture. both were very interesting. One interesting fact was found that we owe our modern libraries to the King of Assyria. He started the very first library ever. Research papers this week were full of information. Here is how we dove into this study.
Building Siege Towers for Battle
Each one of my homeschoolers’ made their own siege tower. They found a picture online, and created them with the material they envisioned. My oldest used Legos. His brother used construction paper, straws and a lot of hot glue. Don’t worry, he’s is old enough to use hot glue, but we did discuss using too much. Finally, the youngest one used a shoe box, construction paper, toilet paper rolls for wheels, and paint. All of them turned out great and I couldn’t have been happier. They work so hard each week on their homeschool history projects.
Research Papers on Historical Facts
Research papers for the historical facts are taken from our Encyclopedia’s and the history encyclopedia that I have on our reference shelf. I assign them the topic and in the history encyclopedia they read the assigned pages. What is important about this is that they are doing their own reading and finding what is interesting to them. They have a topic to research, but the paper is all about what they liked in the story. Homeschooling allows so much educational freedom to learn what truly interests you. Especially in history the endless amounts of information available to absorb as you read.
Allowing them the freedom to choose the history content for the chosen topic gives them more independence over their school. Teaching them to study and love learning about the past is a skill I feel we are developing each week.
Homeschool History Reading and Grammar
Our reading and grammar is picked up through the research. I also apply this section to the paper. Each one of the papers has cursive writing, grammar skills applicable to the age, research for the oldest two, and creativity involved in the hands-on project.
My favorite part is watching them read the material and seeing them grow in their grammar and writing skills. My oldest son is learning how to take good notes to prepare for tests. He also does well with the presentation part of the project.
Hands On Project Application
As I have mentioned before I save old boxes, straws, toilet paper tubes, caps, water bottles, cans and other various recyclables. Not too much, just enough for weekly projects. I like to have items on hand for our projects because then I don’t feel bad when we pitch them at the end of the semester. Secretly I think this is their favorite part of our homeschool history day. Preparing the project how they see it allows their talent to shine. I grade based on their best effort for the age. Each of them have only one guideline and that is the project has to resemble the requested topic. For instance this week was a siege tower. a few weeks ago it was a lions den. So they have to make something that closely resembles a den, tower, airplane or whatever else they may create.
Each week as we work on our timeline I will share how they processed worked, what we did and how the project turned out. Pictures will be on Instagram @Momsarefrugal with our weekly projects.
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