This Year's History - Part 1

As we've mentioned before, we have been studying history from Creation to the Greek civilation. While a large portion has been spent on the Egyptian kingdoms and the Greek civilizations, it has all been done in the context of Bible history. So even when we've talked about nations like Persia, the Greek City-States and places like India, and Assyria, it has all pointed back to how it relates to the stories in the Bible. The My Father's World curriculum actually assigns specific Bible passages that go along, historically, with whatever we are studying that day. It's been really interesting, even for Rebecca and I, to see how the cultures related to stories we've known for years.

One of our projects this year was to paint a pot with scenes of everyday life, break the pot and bury it for a couple of weeks. Then we were to dig it up as if we were archaeologists finding it many hundreds of years later. So back in December, she painted her pot...

and dropped it.

We buried it in the garden

What was supposed to be two or three weeks turned into months as Olivia forgot all about it. In April, I asked her and gabe to come help me prep the garden beds and specifically told them where to dig.

They were surprised to find a piece Olivia's Pot!

All work on the garden stopped as we carefully got down and started unearthing the rest of the pieces

We used the paint brush to carefully brush the dirt off the pieces.

When we had dug them all up, we laid them out as best we could. Unfortunately, the time in the ground had worn away the painting except for some smudges of color.

Even the chicken got into the action, looking for pieces in the other bed.

 As part of our history, we looked at what daily life was like for the Jews.

We talked about how their calendar is based off the moon phases and, because they were an agricultural people, how life revolved around the seasons.

We talked about how they were primarily shepherds, dating back to Abram (Abraham) after he left Ur.

Olivia got to try washing some dirty socks like a Hebrew woman would have and decided it was much easier with a washing machine.

Finally, we talked about their religious practices and how they fit into their daily lives, even down to how the festivals and feasts were based around the moon phases, harvests and planting times.

Olivia made her own Temple Breastplate.

Olivia made her own set of 10 Commandments just like Moses'. She actually carved in the Hebrew numbers herself!

We've had such a fun time doing this curriculum this year and we feel like Olivia has really learned a lot about the history behind the Bible, not to mention how much I've learned, too!