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Hands-on Ancient Mesopotamia: Easy STEM Irrigation Activity

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The study of Mesopotamia is one of our middle school requirements. I’ve been really surprised by how much fun we’ve been having studying about this time period. I’m sure the STEM projects we have been including may have something to do with it! We have this next one ready which is an easy stem irrigation activity.

Ancient Mesopotamia STEM Irrigation Activity

With this project, kids learn how this ancient civilization invented a system to grow crops. The most extraordinary thing about this is that we still use this system today! Irrigation has been the main contributor in the development of agriculture.

If you are studying about erosion in science, this could also double as a great STEM project for science as well.Hands-On Ancient Mesopotamia: STEM Irrigation System
About the Mesopotamians

Mesopotamia was a region situated along the Tigris-Euphrates River system located in Western Asia. It’s where Kuwait, Iraq, sections of Saudi Arabia, the eastern sections of Syria, Southwestern Turkey, and parts of Turkish-Syrian and Iran-Iraq borders are today. The name Mesopotamia means “between rivers.” It’s said this was the center of culture and where the influence of agriculture began.

Agriculture changed the game for ancient people. Instead of hunting and gathering, tribes of people were beginning to settle down and form civilizations. The Mesopotamians were the first to develop a written language and invented the wheel. They also built ships to travel the Persian Gulf in order to trade with other civilizations.

In the center of their cities they constructed temples of the many gods they worshiped. The anatomy of these structures would have involved thousands of workers and would have taken many years to construct.

Mesopotamia’s Engineering

In Southern Mesopotamia, the Sumerians built city walls and canals to prevent flooding. The Tigris and Euphrates Rivers carried monstrous amounts of silt, resulting in fast rising rivers.

The irrigation system was of a basin type. They would dig a hole in the embankment and then use mud to close it back up. Water was then lifted up using a swape, which is a pole acting as a lever. Some of these canals may have been used for 1,000 years before they were left and others rebuilt. Today, 3,000-4,000 years later, remains of the canals are still present.

To build your own Mesopotamia irrigation system you will need the following items:

• a big baking pan
• sand
• cotton squares
• water
• pieces of wood/popsicle sticks
• soil
• green construction paper/green food coloring
• sticks and leaves
• monopoly houses
• hot glue

You may also want to cover your table or do this outside. Have a trash can nearby, as this project tends to get messy.

I was able to find many of these supplies around the house. The only thing I had to buy was a big bag of sand from Home Depot. This is what makes this STEM project really affordable.Hands-On Ancient Mesopotamia: STEM Irrigation SystemStart by filling up one side of the baking pan with cotton squares. This will help prevent your sand from eroding when you fill up the river with water. The other side will be the river. Play around with the sand until it begins to look like a beach. After you get the look you want, begin sectioning off where you want to place the fields of crops. This is where you’ll need the soil. You can also plan out little sections to build homes or temples to represent the cities.

Also, you’ll love these super hands-on history resources from Home School in the Woods.


Hands-On Ancient Mesopotamia: STEM Irrigation SystemUsing green construction paper, or leaves, place your crops in the fields. You can dye some of your sand green to represent fields. Use the sticks and leaves to look like trees. We used the hot glue gun to glue the leaves onto the sticks.Hands-On Ancient Mesopotamia: STEM Irrigation SystemNow it’s time to build your canals. Begin digging trenches in between the fields with a ditch leading out towards your river. (You’ll fill in the river in just a bit!)Hands-On Ancient Mesopotamia: STEM Irrigation SystemNow that your canals have been dug, you will need a gate to control how much water will be needed for your crops. You can use popsicle sticks, pieces of wood, or sticks to build a gate to fit between the edges of your canal. The gate will need to be able to open and close, and it will need to be water proof. We hot glued pieces of popsicle sticks together.Hands-On Ancient Mesopotamia: STEM Irrigation SystemOnce your gate is built, install it into your canal. Pour water into your river with the gate shut. If the water leaks keep modifying your gate. The river should not be released into the canals until the gate opens.Hands-On Ancient Mesopotamia: STEM Irrigation System

Hands-on History for Kids

Search online for pictures of irrigation systems of Mesopotamia if you are stuck. I found an image to show my kids before I let them go. They always surprise me with ways to build things that I never would have thought to do.

These ancient people were truly remarkable. I love being able to build small replicas of engineering systems so the kids can understand how they work. Not only does it improve their comprehension of what is being read, it also improves their critical thinking as they try to build what they read!

If you are looking for more STEM activities to add to your day, check out this post!With this project, kids learn how this ancient civilization invented a system to grow crops. The most extraordinary thing about this is that we still use this system today! CLICK HERE to do this Ancient Mesopotamia Kids Hands-on History and STEM Irrigation Activity!

You’ll love these other activities:

 

 

Ancient Japan for Kids: Fun and Simple Handwriting Activity

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This post may contain affiliate links. For more information, please see my full disclosure policy.

 Ancient Japan for Kids

We have studied the Ancient Greeks, Ancient Romans and Ancient Egyptians off and on for more than four years. My children are natural historians, and love to imagine themselves as mini-Indiana Jones type archaeologists.

As I planned our studies for this school year, I wanted to incorporate this natural and significant interest into our approach. Then, my oldest expressed an interest in learning Japanese to meet his foreign language requirement and the answer became clear. I began to pull together ideas and resources to study ancient Japan.

Ancient Japan for Kids: Fun and Simple Handwriting Activity. Your kids will love learning about Japan through Kanji. It was used to represent Japanese words with the corresponding meanings. Click here for this fun kids learning activity!

Japanese Ancient History

I am almost ashamed to admit how little I learned in school about this amazing country, much less its history. (I always say that I am learning as much as my boys are in this homeschooling journey!)

The vast timeline of Japanese Ancient History continues up until 538 AD. For thousands of years, Japanese culture experienced its own iron age and classical expression. During this period, the first known written reference to Japan was recorded in the Chinese Book of Han in the first century AD. Then, between the fourth century and the ninth century, Japan’s numerous kingdoms and tribes gradually came to be unified under a centralized government, controlled by the Emperor.

The pottery of this same time period and the historical record itself details the evolution of the Japanese language and the development of not one, not two, but THREE different Japanese alphabets.

It was actually the Chinese practice of character writing that  had a huge effect on the development of the written language of ancient Japan. Chinese characters became the Kanji symbolic alphabet  in Japanese. ( Incidentally, written Chinese is one of the world’s oldest active, still in use, writing systems. Many current Chinese characters have been traced back to the Shang dynasty about 1200–1050 BC, but the process of creating characters is thought to have begun some centuries earlier.)

Kanjiwas first introduced to ancient Japan in the first half of the first millennium AD. At the time, Japanese had no universal writing system, so Kanji were used to represent Japanese words with the corresponding meanings.

Later years would bring the Japanese phonetic alphabets, Hiragana and Katakana. (Yes, you read that correctly. The pottery of the time period and the historical record itself details the evolution of the Japanese language and the development of not one, not two, but THREE different Japanese alphabets.)

Ancient Japan for Kids: Fun and Simple Handwriting Activity | Tina's Dynamic Homeschool Plus

Hands-On Learning: Ancient Japan

In my almost nine years of homeschooling, one thing that I have learned is essential for our learning to be retained and, if I am honest, enjoyed, is that hands-on activities make all the difference for my two growing boys.

Because I wanted to bring the rich history of Japan alive for my boys, I knew I needed to include a hands-on activity in our study. Because the three alphabets factoid stunned us all, I decided to challenged them to replicate Japanese Character Writing or Kanjii.

Ancient Japan for Kids: Fun and Simple Handwriting Activity | Tina's Dynamic Homeschool Plus

What You Will Need For This Activity:

Ancient Japan: Hands-On Learning Activity

After learning that the name of the Japanese symbolic alphabet is the Kanjii Alphabet and that it naturally flowed from the Chinese alphabet, we got to work.

Step One: Print out printable (available for free with this post) and use as reference.

Step Two: Take the brush pens and practice brush strokes first. (This was an important step as none of us were accustomed to using this type of pen!)Ancient Japan for Kids: Fun and Simple Handwriting Activity | Tina's Dynamic Homeschool Plus

Step Three: When comfortable with the brush pen, try your hand at a Kanji character.


Step Four: Once everyone is comfortable with creating the characters, ask your child to choose the top 3 symbols that are meaningful for his life and interests.Ancient Japan for Kids: Fun and Simple Handwriting Activity | Tina's Dynamic Homeschool PlusStep Five: Using the card stock, draw the three selected symbols.Ancient Japan for Kids: Fun and Simple Handwriting Activity | Tina's Dynamic Homeschool PlusStep Six: Label the characters in English.Ancient Japan for Kids: Fun and Simple Handwriting Activity | Tina's Dynamic Homeschool PlusStep Seven: Because this alphabet also looks like beautiful art, hang on the fridge or even frame your child’s historic creation!Ancient Japan for Kids: Fun and Simple Handwriting Activity | Tina's Dynamic Homeschool PlusI have to say, this is more difficult than it looks! Brush pens are obviously much different than the pens we use everyday and the slant of many of the symbols can be difficult to replicate.

In fact, if you are completing this activity with a young child, or one that struggles with fine motor skills, I highly recommend encouraging them to choose symbols that are less intricate to begin with. (For example: the symbol for dog is blissfully simple for the younger learner.)

Overall, expanding our ancient history study to include Japan has been a great success. Not only have we moved into an area of the world that we are all less familiar with, but we have also found the differences in Japanese art, culture and yes, alphabets, to be fascinating.

If nothing else, you can remind your child when she is complaining about handwriting practice that in Japan, children learn three alphabets as opposed to our one!Ancient Japan for Kids: Fun and Simple Handwriting Activity. Your kids will love learning about Japan through Kanji. It was used to represent Japanese words with the corresponding meanings. Click here for this fun kids learning activity!You’ll also love these other resources:

 

Hands-on Ancient Babylon: Hanging Gardens Fun Activity

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Hands-on Ancient Babylon Hanging Gardens of Babylon

Known as one of the 7 wonders of the ancient world, the Hanging Gardens of Babylon were thought to have been a showpiece in the capital of the Neo-Babylonian Empire and built by King Nebuchadnezzar. But there is some debate among scholars if it really even existed or it was just a fable or who actually built it. While some historians believe that the gardens towered hundreds of feet in the air while others believe it was much smaller, there is also some debate on just exactly where the gardens were located.

Hands-on Ancient Babylon Hanging Gardens of Babylon. Known as one of the 7 wonders of the ancient world the Hanging Gardens of Babylon, were thought to have been a showpiece in the capital of the Neo-Babylonian Empire and built by King Nebuchadnezzar. CLICK HERE to build this hands-on fun kid’s activity!!

It is said that the gardens were built to help Nebuchadnezzar’s wife Amytis get over her homesickness. She was from a region that was green and mountainous and very much unlike the flat land of Mesopotamia. Again, there is some disagreement here. Some believe that the queen Sammu-ramat who ruled after Nebuchadnezzar was responsible for the gardens instead.

They were built with layered platforms of stone and filled with trees, hanging plants, and flowers. The gardens are thought to have disappeared during an earthquake and we do not have any physical confirmed evidence of their existence but there are varied accounts of them throughout history and foundation vaults and chambers were located near the palace by archeologists that could support their location.

This is a great hands-on project for children from middle elementary up through high school and can be done while you read about the Hanging Gardens of Babylon. It can be made as simple or as elaborate a project as you wish.

To make your own Hanging Gardens of Babylon you will need the following items:

  • A floral foam block
  • Cream or tan craft paint
  • Play sand
  • Tools-wooden skewer, spoon, wooden craft sticks,etc..
  • Small silk flowers, real flower cuttings, greenery
  • Tacky craft glue
  • Knife/cutting board
  • Paint brush

I was able to pick up all of our items at our local Dollar Tree and some we had on hand with plenty of leftovers for another project. This makes it a really inexpensive way to get some hands-on learning.Hands-on Ancient Babylon: Hanging Garden Fun Activity 1 @ Tina's Dynamic Homeschool Plus

Hanging Gardens of Babylon Hands-on History

Start by cutting floral foam block into 3 pieces of graduating size, so that your layers when stacked leave a ledge on each one. For little ones you can let them cut their own foam with a wooden craft stick or even a plastic knife (the foam is soft and easy to work with). Press a skewer down through the center to secure them together. We will trim it later.

It is very simple to add foam pieces together and make this project as large as you like. We stuck with a small tabletop version so that everyone could make their own to enjoy looking at.Hands-on Ancient Babylon: Hanging Garden Fun Activity 2 @ Tina's Dynamic Homeschool Plu

Search for photos of the Hanging Gardens of Babylon online to use as a reference and leave it open as your child works. We looked up several sites to get a clear picture of what they are believed to have looked like. Use your tools to carve out windows, doors, columns, steps, etc. in the foam, this is a great medium for carving. Our preferred tool was a wooden skewer because it gives great detail.

Hands-on Ancient Babylon: Hanging Garden Fun Activity 3 @ Tina's Dynamic Homeschool Plu

Brush away any excess foam in your carving with a soft paint brush to give it clean sharp lines. If you use something too stiff it will wear away more of your foam. You could also blow it clean with canned air if you like.

Hands-on Ancient Babylon: Hanging Garden Fun Activity 4 @ Tina's Dynamic Homeschool Plu

Hands-on History: Ancient Civilizations

Mix cream or tan craft paint with a couple teaspoons of play sand. We are going to create a texture that is similar to bricks or stone on our tower. Paint your structure all over, be sure to get some inside your carved areas. Allow to dry for 2- 3 hours, or until completely dry to the touch.

Hands-on Ancient Babylon: Hanging Garden Fun Activity 5 @ Tina's Dynamic Homeschool Plu

Place on a plate or other flat surface in a small bed of play sand. Lift up your top most layer and snip off the skewer, leaving enough that the top piece remains secured.

Hands-on Ancient Babylon: Hanging Garden Fun Activity 6 @ Tina's Dynamic Homeschool Plu

Begin decorating by laying moss all over the levels, letting it hang down randomly and securing with glue as you go. Press the plastic end of small flowers, greenery, and even small pieces of aquarium plants into the foam to make your gardens lush and exotic looking. Secure your plants with glue if you feel like they need a little more anchoring.

Imagine the beauty that must have been there as they walked throughout the various levels, the exotic scents and sounds.

Also, I wanted to let you know about this. If you’re looking for more hands-on history, we love using Home School in the Woods.

Hands-on Ancient Babylon: Hanging Garden Fun Activity @ Tina's Dynamic Homeschool Plu

We added a few blue pebbles at the bottom for water. This is an ideal time to talk about the watering system they were believed to have used on the gardens- a series of waterways to deliver water to the top that then cascaded downwards, very similar to Archimedes Screw.

Hands-on Ancient Babylon Hanging Gardens of Babylon. Known as one of the 7 wonders of the ancient world the Hanging Gardens of Babylon, were thought to have been a showpiece in the capital of the Neo-Babylonian Empire and built by King Nebuchadnezzar. CLICK HERE to build this hands-on fun kid’s activity!!

You’ll love these other hands-on Ancient Civilizations fun activities: