I have very slowly been writing the Mystery of History posts as we cover each lesson. We are probably going at a quarter the speed we should be, but I’m thinking some is better than none. And the girls call this fun school so I must be doing something right, albeit at a snail’s pace 🙂 I wanted to have a place where all my Mystery of History posts volume one could be found, and that I will add to as and when I cover each lesson. I am doing a big of blog house-keeping if you like.
Mystery of History Planning
Mystery of History Volume One – Lesson 1: Creation
In this lesson the girls write a letter to God thanking Him for creating the world; they create their very own new animal and name it; and they try pomegranates, pomegranate juice and some dates:
Mystery of History Volume One – Lesson 2: Adam and Eve
Here, the girls make a diorama of the Garden of Eden; moulded models of Adam and Eve showing that part of Adam went in to making Eve; attempted to grind wheat berries the old fashioned way; and made bread without yeast:
Mystery of History Volume One – Lesson 3: Tubalcain and Jubal
This was a fun lesson where we made some models of the instruments and tools these two men may have used; the girls cooked some lamb and barley stew; and we begun making historical costumes for our dolls:
Mystery of History Volume One – Lesson 4: Noah and the Flood
The girls investigated the layering which occurs in the earth after a flood; they used soap nuts for a multitude of different thigs, showing that God created all Noah needed; they made a bottle garden; and palyed with their Playmobil Noah’s Ark:
Mystery of History Volume One – Lesson 5: Ice Age
During this ice age lesson, the children attempted to use signs to communicate with each other; they created rock art and made ice age historical costumes for their dolls:
Mystery of History Volume One – Lesson 6: Dinosaurs
Our dinosaur unit was done a few years ago. This post contains a plethora of activities we did during that time:
Mystery of History Volume One – Lesson 7: The Sumerians
The girls made some Sumerian art, wrote in cuneiform and made clay bricks with which they built a small ziggurat:
Mystery of History Volume One – Lesson 8: Tower of Babel
Our family participated in a game where we could only speak in our allotted language (all sorts of made up languages); the girls built a big a tower as possible from plastic cups and they played a card game containing lots of different modern languages:
Mystery of History Volume One – Lesson 9: Gilgamesh
I had just been to the British Museum and had been inspired by the photos I had taken. The girls read the Epic of Gilgamesh; re-enacted a play of it in rather dubious costumes; they compared the Gilgamesh flood with the Biblical flood and carved a lamassu:
Mystery of History Volume One – Lesson 10: Stonehenge
This was a great lesson where the girls crafted some Beaker pottery, made stone age tools; historical dolls’ clothes with patterns which tell a story. They attempted to crack nuts the old fashioned way; and, of course, made a model of Stonehenge:
Mystery of History Volume One – Lesson 11: Early Egyptians
We had already covered the Egyptians in a unit study, but I still managed to find some activities they hadn’t yet done – they created some mummies from materials found around the house; completed an art study based on relief painting, wrote a letter based on a book they had read and learnt about Egyptian clothes and pyramids. A great lesson!
Mystery of History Volume One – Lesson 12: The Minoans
Another favourite, the girls helped me to make some historically accurate (snigger) costumes for their dolls; they completed an art study on the Minoan dolphin frescoes with a very successful attempt at fresco painting; they also created the holy bull and a traditional Minoan jug with an octopus painted onto it:
Mystery of History Volume One – Lesson 13: Abraham
In this lesson, the girls made some notepages to include Bible quotes and Abraham’s family tree; they made historical costumes for their dolls as well as a travel bed, travel picnic rug/bag and fashioned some of the food they would have eaten from plasticine. We also made a tent, and completed a snow globe but with grains of sand and night stars to remind the girls just how large a number were Abraham’s descendants:
Mystery of History Volume One – Lesson 14: Jacob and Esau
Having our own twins made this lesson really fun. The twins attempted to deceive a blind-folded Abigail and Becca into thinking they were the other twin. And it worked like a charm! We made covering for our doll’s arms just like Jacob wore to deceive his father, and we made some revolting lentil stew:
Mystery of History Volume One – Lesson 15: Joseph
The Joseph lesson was a particular favourite of mine as I persuaded the littles to make some grape juice by stomping on some fresh grapes. It was too funny, watching Charlotte’s reaction to the whole proceedings. She is just a little bit germ obsessed and the idea of drinking juice which had been near anyone’s feet was abhorrent to her. So funny! The little ones made puppets and performed a play of the whole Joseph story, from his time with his father all the way to saving his brothers from starvation at the end. Again. Very funny 🙂 They also made some flat bread to eat with honey and I made Joseph doll a multi-coloured coat:
This post will be added to each time we complete a Mystery of History lesson. I will also be adding this post to my history page.
It looks like you’ve really had some fun.
Having something like this is amazingly helpful.