Teaching Ancient History without a curriculum

You don't need to buy a ready made curriculum to teach your children. Here is how I taught Ancient history to my kids without a curriculum. We started in the summer. I told the kids we were going to make each of the 7 wonders of the ancient world and when we finished our building projects we would throw a party. When we were building a wonder of the world we would read about it and about how it was made. This base knowledge was really helpful through out the year. We also listened to the Classical Conversation song about the 7 wonderers of the ancient world. We don't do Classical Conversations but found their song on YouTube and thought it was helpful for memorizing. We started our projects on June 19 and had out party on August 14. It was a prefect way to learn through the summer and the kids had so much fun building and LOVED our ancient party.

We checked out this book from the library to help learn about the 7 wonders

Hanging gardens of Babylon

Statue of Zeus at Olympia

Colossus of Rhodes

Pyramids of Giza

Pharos lighthouse at Alexandria

Temple of Artemis at Ephesus

It's time to party! The kids finished their 7 wonders

Mummy wrapping contest

Ancient Party games

Party games

Our family took a 2 week trip out West so we didn't start our school year until September 16. A full month after our ancient party. We do light school over the summer so we have lots of flexibility throughout the school year. We started the school year with a study of the stone ages. We talked about the 3 time periods of the stone age (Paleolithic, Mesolithic, and Neolithic). We made tools and learned through picture flash cards. Then when we are done with the unit we turn our flash cards into posters.

We made stone tools

fun ways to learn the terms of the stone age

some resources from the library

After we learned about the Stone Age we started with our study of different civilizations. We started with Mesopotamia. We focused on Sumer then talked about cuneiform and Ziggurats. We made our own Ziggurats which was fun. Then we talked about the Epic of Gilgamesh. We talked about the first empire and the Sargon of Akkad. We talked bout the first Babylon and Hammurabi's code. Then we talked about Assyria and Lamassus. We talked about the Neo Babylonian empire and about the gates of Ishtar. We then talked about how the Persians took control and then how Greeks conquered the Persians. After we did all this learning with picture flash cards we made our posters. We live only 2 1/2 hours from Chicago so we made a trip to the windy city to see their Oriental Museum on the campus of The University of Chicago. We got to see some of the things we learned about. It was so amazing to see things that were so old! We also use song parodies to help learn. Our favorite youtuber that makes fantastic songs is Mr. Nicky. His Mesopotamia song is fantastic.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fdblRch6m3g

History posters made from our picture flash cards

Our Mesopotamia unit

Fertile Crescent

Ziggurat

Chicago Field trip: From Babylon from the Ishtar Gates

Chicago Field trip: Assyrian Lamassu

Cast of Hammurabi's Code

Pieces from the Epic of Gilgamesh

Sumerian Prayer dolls

Persian sculpture

Our next civilization was ancient India. We focused on learning about the Indus Valley, Vedic Period, Mauryan Empire, then the Gupta Empire. We talked about their advanced system of cities and how they traded and they made stamps to mark their belongings. We talked about their contributions to mathematics and science. We talked about Sanskrit and Mauryan Pillars. We even went out for Indian food. We talked about Hinduism and Buddhism too. As always we love Mr. Nicky's history parodies!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vskHZIPJCE4

Flashcards turned into posters

Poster on India

Trade stamps

Sanskrit

Building pillars

Indian Food

Ancient Egypt was the next civilization. We talked about the early, middle, and late kingdoms. We talked about the evolution of pyramids. We also looked at the major pharos in each dynasty. We talked about Egyptian mythology and we made our own canopic jars. We also talked about Egyptians and their chariots and made our own chariots. We also went to our local museum that has a small Egypt exhibit. We enjoyed many recourses from the library for our information and Mr. Nicky's parody to help learn about ancient Egypt.

https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=mr.+nicky+egypt

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P3EDilQkbUk

Chariot building project

Canopic Jars

Canopic Jars project

Ancient Greece was the next civilization we learned about. We talked about the earliest civilizations on Mycenae and the dark ages of Greece. Then we talked about the Archaic, Classical, and Hellenistic Periods. We talked about philosophers, scientists, and drama. We talked about the Trojan Wars and the Iliad and Odyssey. We also looked at Greek Mythology. We ended the unit with Alexander the Great and how his generals divided up his kingdom after his death. We enjoyed many resources from our library as well as Mr. Nicky's song on Greece.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0F5qlu3nSDY

Ancient Rome was our last unit of the year, so we didn't put up posters when we were done. We also didn't cover any South American civilizations because my kids do a Spanish group and they covered them in this class. So our Roman studies started with Romulus and Remus. We talked about Roman art and the kids made mosaics. We learned about aqueducts and their roads. We talked about mythology too. We talked about Mt. Vesuvius and Pompeii and made our own models of the city. We talked about Gladiators and the strength of the Roman army. Mr. Nicky's video was wonderful as always.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m5V-IK1cEtE