Thursday, October 8, 2009

Joshua fit the battle of Halloween


October is a great time to study Jericho, the oldest known village in the world. When loved ones died, their families buried the bodies in the floors of their homes until they were nice and rotten. Then, they'd unearth them, clean out the yucky stuff, and reconstruct their faces using plaster and seashells.

(Dad wants me to make it clear that these are plastic Halloween decorations--you didn't think they were real, did you?)

Dad has put together a great history curriculum, using library books, a lot of our own books, and some cool websites. The Story of the World is only a basic outline, but most of the best and most interesting details are ignored or glossed over. The Horrible History series leaves in the gory details, and we always try to find a You Wouldn't Want to Be... book to fit the current topic.

Of course it rained the day we decided to mix up plaster of Paris, so we couldn't do this project outside. Not sure my kitchen floor will ever recover, but it was worth it!

2 comments:

Sara said...

What a cool project! It sounds like your history curriculum is outrageous! Very cool.

Sparklee said...

I knew when I drafted their dad to be the history teacher that it would be unconventional to say the least. He's sort of an amateur historian, with a particular interest in weird and wacky trivia. They have a lot of fun with their projects!

Sparklee