Ancient History, Week 6

First Writings

Tessa practiced writing in cuneiform and hieroglyphs...two early forms of ancient writing.


Monday

• Read The Story of Writing by Carol Donoughue (pages 6-11).
• Completed cuneiform writing activity adapted from "Make Cuneiform Tablets" from the SOTW activity guide.

Tessa and I found the cuneiform writing activity so frustrating at first that I admit, I rushed it. I thought maybe she was just too young for it, so we worked through one quick short word and called it done. As it turned out, Tessa just needed more practice. She played with a stylus, some Play-Doh and cuneiform guide sheet on her own for a couple of hours after school. She got quite good it! She even had me pretending to be an ancient scribe student and her the teacher. I lament that our keepsake tablet could have been so much more had I been a little more patient. The good news is that all of her free play gave her a more thorough understanding of cuneiform. She enjoyed it so much that I know she'll remember this lesson for years to come.

I created my own simple cuneiform guide sheet for this activity from a free cuneiform font I found on the internet. I'm not sure how accurate the font it, but it worked well for us. Feel free to use it as well.

Download A Simple Cuneiform Alphabet.

Tessa's cuneiform tablet with the word "fish" on it. We used tan FIMO clay that we baked hard in the oven.

Tuesday

• Looked up and defined HO dictionary word for Lesson 4, Main Lesson.
• Read Seeker of Knowledge by James Rumford.
• Read The Shipwrecked Sailor: An Egyptian Tale with Hieroglyphs by Tamara Bower. 
• Completed draw and color.

Wednesday

• Read The Story of Writing by Carol Donoughue (pages 12-17).
• Completed hieroglyphs activity adapted from "Hieroglyphic Secret Note" from Ancient Egyptians and Their Neighbors: An Activity Guide by Marian Broida.
• Used Ancient Egyptian Hieroglyphs by Kathy Allen as inspiration for hieroglyphs activity above. There are several nice pics of actual hieroglyphs in it as well as a simple hieroglyphs guide.

Tessa finds it very difficult to look at a picture and replicate it with pencil and paper, so it didn't take long before frustration set in while completing this hieroglyphs activity. After several failed attempts, I left her to work on it alone while I fixed lunch. To my complete and utter amazement, ten minutes later she got it done! That's marker on her "papyrus" scroll there, so imagine how hard she must have concentrated. In hindsight, I wish I would have tracked down some hieroglyphs stencils or stamps. I think the activity would have been way more fun for her.

Tessa's hieroglyphs note says, "I like candy." Her name is encircled with a cartouche.

* HO = History Odyssey, SOTW = The Story of the World