I'm trying to distract L from the Egyptians by moving on to great old Hammurabi and the other Mesopotamians in The Story of The World. Sargon the Great of the Sumerians didn't do it. No shrivelled up dead bodies. The Ancient Jews didn't either. (Though she really loves the Children's Illustrated Jewish Bible -- all mention of smiting and "knowing" removed, which trims it down considerably) Hammurabi's Code, with its talk of cutting off hands and putting to death might just spark her rather gruesomely inclined interest, though.
So in this vein, I've been searching for some material on Babylonia, and the Epic of Gilgamesh. I found an interesting site on creation myths called the Big Myth. It has myths on the beginning of the world from various cultures around the world, narrated with some animation. Them Babylonians were a fierce bunch. They're all about wars and conflict and monsters. The Louvre website also has a pretty amazing display on the Code of Hammurabi.
Have I mentioned how great the New York Public Library system is? The website is incredible: I just requested five books on the Epic of Gilgamesh and the Babylonians. Should be enough blood and gore in that to keep L happy for a couple of weeks.
Showing posts with label Egypt. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Egypt. Show all posts
Thursday, March 6, 2008
Tuesday, March 4, 2008
More Egypt at the Horus Cafe
Okay, I am now officially OVER Ancient Egypt already. But L's interest just isn't flagging. We spent a couple of hours in the library at Tompkins Square Park doing work, and I gave her some time at the end to pick out any books she wanted to borrow. Off she runs to the librarian, and after some whispered consultation, they disappear to some corner. A few minutes later, she's back with an arm full of more books on pyramids, mummies and pharoahs. I don't get it. They are all full of pretty much the same information -- dead kings, natron salt, canopic jars, drag the brain out through the nose and throw it away, yadda yadda yadda. She can't get enough! After the study session, we went to the Horus Cafe (get it? Horus, the son of Osiris and Isis?), and drank some mint tea and ate a grilled swiss cheese sandwich. Don't know how authentic that part of the experience was, but what the hell. She loved it.
The new Singapore Math is a huge improvement. She stills needs to be coerced and bribed to do math, but at least she's not rolling her eyes and heaving great sighs of disgust. We are now doing Number Bonds, which is the precursor to Addition.
Thursday, January 31, 2008
Robots and Mummies
Sorry, I've been offline for a few days as we move stuff into our new weekend place in New Paltz. Another point on the homeschooling side of the ledger: having the flexibility to leave the city as is convenient for us, rather than having to wait for the weekend or the school day is over, is really great.
As far as school goes, the past week has been sort of hit-and-miss. L had to take the New York City Gifted and Talented test on Monday. This was just in case we wanted to send her back to her school for first grade and also to maybe send her to one of the city G&T programs should she qualify (This is just to give us more options for next year). To do it, her school re-enrolled her for the day, which was really really great of them. Tuesday we made up for it by zooming through three times as many pages of math as normal, totally at L's own prompting. We also went to the library and read. Wednesday I went on a tour of the British International School, a new private school on the East River near the UN International School. I was very impressed, but don't think we'll be able to afford it.
After the tour, L and I went to the Met to see the Egyptian wing. Wow. It really was amazing to see how much L got out of the exhibits having spent the past 2 weeks reading about Egypt and mummies. We borrowed an audio guide and wandered around, looking at everything. She pointed things out: "Look, the white crown! The red crown! The double crown of Egypt!" She knew about the Upper and Lower Egypts, the pharoahs, King Narmer (who unified the two Egypts). We tried to decipher heiroglyphics. Seeing real sarcophaguses (sarcophagi?) and mummies made all the stuff we'd been reading about come to life. In fact, we spent so much time looking at the details that we didn't have time to finish and ended going back today and spending another 2 hours.
Today, L had her first basic robotics class. We unfortunately got stuck on a local bus for 1 hour and 20 minutes (!) going uptown and ended up being so late for it that we missed the robotics talk and only had 20 minutes to put the robot kit together. But it was still pretty cool. There were about 8 kids, ranging in age from 8 down to 5. The teacher provided the kits and screwdrivers and all she needed to do piece it together -- put the motor and circuit board into a shell, then connect all the wires the right way. The robot has a light sensor, which we talked about being like its eye, and when a light was shined on it, it beeped and moved. If you covered it or turned off the light, it stopped. So that was cool, but we'll try to make it on time next week. No more buses to 88th Street!
As far as school goes, the past week has been sort of hit-and-miss. L had to take the New York City Gifted and Talented test on Monday. This was just in case we wanted to send her back to her school for first grade and also to maybe send her to one of the city G&T programs should she qualify (This is just to give us more options for next year). To do it, her school re-enrolled her for the day, which was really really great of them. Tuesday we made up for it by zooming through three times as many pages of math as normal, totally at L's own prompting. We also went to the library and read. Wednesday I went on a tour of the British International School, a new private school on the East River near the UN International School. I was very impressed, but don't think we'll be able to afford it.
After the tour, L and I went to the Met to see the Egyptian wing. Wow. It really was amazing to see how much L got out of the exhibits having spent the past 2 weeks reading about Egypt and mummies. We borrowed an audio guide and wandered around, looking at everything. She pointed things out: "Look, the white crown! The red crown! The double crown of Egypt!" She knew about the Upper and Lower Egypts, the pharoahs, King Narmer (who unified the two Egypts). We tried to decipher heiroglyphics. Seeing real sarcophaguses (sarcophagi?) and mummies made all the stuff we'd been reading about come to life. In fact, we spent so much time looking at the details that we didn't have time to finish and ended going back today and spending another 2 hours.
Today, L had her first basic robotics class. We unfortunately got stuck on a local bus for 1 hour and 20 minutes (!) going uptown and ended up being so late for it that we missed the robotics talk and only had 20 minutes to put the robot kit together. But it was still pretty cool. There were about 8 kids, ranging in age from 8 down to 5. The teacher provided the kits and screwdrivers and all she needed to do piece it together -- put the motor and circuit board into a shell, then connect all the wires the right way. The robot has a light sensor, which we talked about being like its eye, and when a light was shined on it, it beeped and moved. If you covered it or turned off the light, it stopped. So that was cool, but we'll try to make it on time next week. No more buses to 88th Street!
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