The Phoenicians (SOTW ch. 15)

My favorite chapter so far. Traders, explorers, master builders of ports? Absolutely! Bring it on. We read the bit in SOTW, and then, as usual, we looked for supplemental videos and more detailed sources. Unfortunately we found very little in the way of either, but the following we found pretty useful.

Explorers of the Ancient World, by Anthony Brierley. A fun two page spreads of maps and other illustrations depicting the worlds and adventures of a variety of explorers from a variety of eras, including the Phoenicians and Hanno the Navigator. The written history is short, but well presented. We enjoyed this book very much.

Engineering An Empire is a History Channel series that takes a scientific look at the engineering feats of several different ancient empires. We had already seen Egypt: Engineering an Empire (volume 6), several times in fact, and loved it, so when we found out that there was entire series with an episode dedicated to Carthage, we were pretty excited. The episode on Carthage is shorter, and doesn't quite have the wow factor of the Egypt volume, but it was still very enjoyable. We'd recommend it.

Carthage and the Phoenicians is just a short, shallow look at this ancient civilization, but for those who won't sit still as long it's a great option.

How animals move: invertebrates (BFSU B7 I, plus the major phyla)

We talked two weeks ago about the skeletons in our bodies and our similarities to other vertebrates, then over the last two weeks we moved on to the appropriate next subject: invertebrates. Plus, having already spent some time learning about Linnaean taxonomy, we also spent some time learning about the major animal phyla and how to identify members of each. We had fun drawing, coloring, reading, discussing, and even memorizing.

There are tons of books that would be good for this kind of study, and we used more than I'm listing here, but the following were some of our favorites.

Classifying Invertebrates is just one book in the Classifying Living Things series, and we used all of those that pertain to the animal kingdom. These books make a lot of information feel very accessible with high quality pictures to help make the point. Unfortunately, no books published so recently can escape the bright colors, disruptive text variations, and poor page design that plague youth non-fiction these days, but this series is better than some (DK) and does follow a natural flow. I liked them and can recommend them.

The National Audoban Society Field Guide series is another set that we used for this exploration. In particular we used their Insects and Spiders, Reptiles and Amphibians, Birds, and Mammals books. We own all of these copies because I've picked them up at used book sales over the years, and for our purpose this week they were wonderful because they have beautiful, high quality photos presented in a natural order that shows similarities between sub-species. That being said, we own a completely different set of guides for our own field work (The Michigan field guides by Stan Tekiela, and books from the Peterson Field Guides series).

The Handbook to the Orders and Families of Living Mammals, by Timothy Lawler, is actually a college textbook that I was unable to part with. Lots of information, presented mostly on a college level, and only a few sketches of animals and their bones to assist with skeletal identification. It is leftover form my very favorite college course (from oh so many years ago) and remains one of my favorite possessions. Either for this reason, or because I trust him with it, or simply because it is truly a college book, Calvin is obsessed with this volume and spent more than a handful of hours during the week pouring over it.

Fireflies in the Night is from the annoyingly titled but very well written Let's-Read-And-Find-Out Science series. From what I can tell, the series was originally compiled back in the sixties, and even the revised versions are still wonderfully written. No dumbing down here, and no "eye-catching" gimmicks thrown in. The Stage 1 books, like this one, are pretty young for Calvin, but we still enjoy them. This is a go-to series for me.

Earl The Earthworm Digs for His Life, by Tim Magner. This is a really cute book that tells the life story of an earthworm searching for the meaning of his life. Along the way he recognizes, and of course tell the readers all about, the importance of each insect he passes by, worrying all the while that he has no important reason to be there. In the end, of course, we all discover that he is particularly important, and by that time we have also learned how he is born and how he functions. Sweet.

Comparing myths (and SOTW ch. 14, The Israelites)

Last week we were having so much fun with Egypt that we spent an extra week there. Part of that time was spent getting a better feel for the pharaohs who ruled throughout the dynastic period, and linking the dates and eras to things going on in other parts of the world at the time, like the Hyksos, the Nubians, the tribes of people to the northeast, and the mysterious Sea Peoples.

We also spent some time looking at chapter 14 of The Story of the World, which, titled The Israelites, deals with the purported slavery of those people in, and their exodus led by Moses out of the Kingdom of Egypt. We read a few versions of this story and found it hauntingly familiar. The story of Moses as a baby, after all, is the exact same story told in Uruk, 1,000 years earlier, about Sargon. This started us on a journey of myth comparison. The parallels between the stories of Abraham (once Abram) and Akhenaten (once Amenhotep IV) are also eerily similar. And of course we compared the creation myths of a variety of cultures as well.

We did not really read the chapter in SOTW on the exodus from Egypt. Instead we read myths from a variety of cultures, including a children's Bible, the Enuma Elish, excerpts from The Epic of Gilgamesh, excerpts from the Iliad, and a variety of other myth stories.

These are some of the resources we used:

The Big Myth is a paid subscription website that offers animated renderings of creation myths from around the world. The art and sound are rich, contrasty, and pretty Art Deco, which would not be my first choice, but it allows for all traditions to be given the same treatment and credence. We've watched them all together, and Calvin will also sit by himself and click through the links, watching the videos over and over. He finds them fascinating. We paid for the subscription, and I'm pleased, but a few of their works are available for free.

The Enuma Elish (the Babylonian creation myth), available for reading online.

Egyptian Myths, by Jacqueline Morley, combines beautiful illustrations with short tellings of the major Egyptian myths of creation. A lovely book, easy to enjoy.

The Epic of Gilgamesh is one of the oldest and most intriguing epics of all time, but much of the original is questionable reading material for young children. In Gilgamesh the Hero, McCaughrean retains enough of the original's clipped style to make it sound like what it is, but adds enough vibrant tone to make it friendly reading for an older child, and the illustrations enliven without detracting. We both loved this book.

In Puffin's version of the epic story, The Mahabharata is broken down into managably sized tales with readable text and interesting illustrations.

Egypt's New Kingdom (SOTW Ch. 13)

Moving on to the New Kingdom of Ancient Egypt, we used many of the same resources. The new ones we added that I liked are listed below, plus two videos that we absolutely love.

Tut’s Mummy—Lost...and Found (Judy Donnelly, 1988). Easy reading level, fun information. Calvin, our fellow Tut lover, read and re-read this one.

Look What Came from Egypt (Miles Harvey, 1999). A decent look at what things the Egyptians had and what they did with them, but it's pretty limited in scope (mainly forgetful of the many other thriving civilizations of the time) and offers no sources for factual statements.

Tutankhamun (Gill Harvey, 2006). A good biography. Calvin also read and re-read this one, but the reading level was more appropriate for his capability.

Engineering an Empire (The History Channel, 2006, via Netflix). A really great look at a few of the engineering marvels that came out of Ancient Egypt, from each of the three kingdoms. Information is giving about the reigning Pharaohs along with information on the architecture of the time.

Egypt's Golden Empire (PBS, 2005, via Netflix). From the end of Middle Kingdom or beginning of the New Kingdom onward, a look at the rising and falling of the Egyptian Empire and the remarkable Pharaohs that ruled during that time. Focuses mainly on the 18th and some of the 19th dynasties. Though violent for brief moments, reenactments give add an interesting appeal and bring the history to life.

How animals move: the human skeleton (BFSU B6)

Moving on from food webs and biomes, we talked more this week about adaptations, in particular the skeletal adaptations of animals like ourselves. We read a few books, we watched a Bill Nye video (a few times, actually), and we did a number of craft activities. The goal of the section is to learn why bones and muscles are important, and to gain a general idea of how they work and what they are made of. We also spent some time talking about the differences and similarities between a variety of mammal skeletons, looking for unique adaptations, and we spent some time talking about the names of our bones.

The Skeleton Inside You (Let’s Read and Find Out Science 2) (Philip Balestrino, 1989). I'm fond of this science series, and this book was no exception. They do a nice job of keeping the subjects accessible without dumbing them down, and usually the illustrations add a nice touch.

Look at Your Body: Skeleton (Steve Parker, 1996). From the guy who did the Skeleton books for DK, only this version, now out of print, is without many of the usual DK distractions. We did not spend a lot of time reading this book, but did really enjoy the pictures and illustrations in it.

The Skeletal System and The Muscular System (World Book Human Body Works, 2007). This book is full of information, more than we needed for our current purpose, but its related in short paragraphs with helpful photographs or illustrations, and specific topics are easy to locate. We did more reading in this book than looking, while we did more looking in the Steve Parker book above.

The Magic School Bus: The Search For the Missing Bones (Eva Moore, 2000). Although I've always believed the Magic School Bus picture books to be too full of distraction and noise to be truly useful, I'm finding that the chapter books are much better. Calvin seems to enjoy them as well.

Rattle Your Bones: Skeleton Drawing Fun (David Clemesha and Andrea Griffing Zimmerman, 1991). Just some good drawing fun to go along with everything else.

Bill Nye the Science Guy: Bones and Muscles. These videos are awfully busy, but Calvin enjoys them, and this one was pretty good, as far as they go.

The Body Book: Easy-to-Make Hands-On Models That Teach and Easy Make & Learn Projects: Human Body (Donald M. Silver). I picked up these two as ebooks from the Scholastic dollars days sale. They turned out basically to be simple but fun printable crafting activities that we enjoyed doing one afternoon. We used only one small section from each for our look at human skeletons, but there will be other parts in each that come in handy later, too.