A-Z of Hands on History, Day 1

Raise your hand if history was taught as dates, names, and facts to memorize? You’re raising your hand too. That was my experience for over half of my history career in school. Then I hit high school and my freshman history teacher was interesting. She made even a high school history lesson hands on. Can you believe it? It got me to thinking, can I work my through the alphabet and find a fun activity for each letter?

 

A is for Athens, Ancient Greece, our first letter in hands-on history

• Archimedes– Re-enact his famous experiment and discover density.  No need to also run through the streets naked, or another idea for Archimedes
• Battle of Marathon– run a marathon yourself and see how that poor messenger felt.  To really enact it, put on full armor
• Aesop’s Fables– make a pop-up version of your own book
• Make a Greek pot– Decorate your own heroic scene
• Olympics– Recreate the first Olympics in your own home, we also as a lark made the Cleaning Olympics one day.  All Things Beautiful has a great Olympics post also.
• Minoans– learn about the Minotaur and the scary maze they had, and this cute page on Theseus
• Make a Greek mask– Is it for Tragedy or Comedy?  I don’t really know a lot of Greek comedies…….
• Pythagoras– Learn about geometry a fun way
• Build an ancient Greek temple– Out of Legos, that makes it even cooler!
• Make a board game about the Trojan Horse– Because who doesn’t like that story in history?
• Atlantis– myth or reality?

 

B is for Bible because it is an ancient and a historical document

• Hebrew Kingdoms– the different dynasties and some fun puppets
• I’m gonna be lazy for this and point you to my 100 ways to Teach Your Kids About the Bible

 

C is for Chaldeans, or Babylonians

• Fall of Jerusalem– to the Babylonians, also called the Chaldeans
• make cuneiform tablets– out of cookie dough and eat the cookies!

D is for Darius the Mede, who was a Persian

• Persian invasion of Greece– act it out with soldiers
• Build roads– like Darius 1 did.  Always a hit because you can use your toy cars
• Power of Persia– I love the oceans she made to act these out

 

E is for Egypt, who doesn’t love Egypt?

My daughter read this and said she doesn’t love Egypt, so sadness, my daughter doesn’t.

• Make a mummy doll-This is the quick and easy project to learn about Egypt, for the more involved…….
• Make a chicken mummy–  I had a mummified chicken sitting on my counter for 2 months.  All of my guests were quite impressed.
• Make a cartouche– because who doesn’t want hieroglyphic jewelry?
• Create a pharaoh’s mask– color your own mask
• make papyrus– it’s like making paper
• explore King Tut’s tomb– I want to go on an archeological dig…..
• Round up of Egypt ideas– from one of my favorite history (and in general sites) All Things Beautiful
• Make pyramids out of Rice Krispy treats– yummy yummy, and then go to the dentist to clean your teeth
• Egyptian art lessons– bring your art studies into your history
• Make your own headdress and collar– All the cool kids are wearing it
• Ancient Egypt map– because illuminated maps are way cooler than normal ones

Hands-on History from A to Z

•  A-E Athens……. you’re here
• F-J Founding Fathers……..
• K-O Kings……
• P-T Pantheon………
• U-Z US history…………

Now go see all of the other school-related posts in this series

• After School Activities from The Educators Spin On It
• Hands-on History from Adventures in Mommydom
• Home Daycare or Family Child Card from My Buddies and I
• Montessori from Living Montessori Now
• Thrifty Teaching Tools from Kindergarten & Preschool for Parents & Teachers