Description
Ancient history in the fifth grade starts with the childhood of civilized humanity in ancient India, where human beings still lived in a very dream-like state. The ancient Persians who came next transitioned from the dream-like state to connect with the earth and felt the need to transform the earth & domesticate animals. The great cultures of Mesopotamia (the Chaldeans, the Hebrews, the Assyrians, and the Babylonians) come even more into our being as humans by recording their history in the form of writing. The Egyptians built an entire complex civilization of pyramids, pharaohs, writing and reading. The Greeks came last in this saga of ancient history with a developed civilization that is much like ours in many ways. This block will cover the third of the four ancient civilizations – Ancient Egypt.
Note that in these four blocks that topics are covered in the following manner:
- General history, summaries, modern connections, & lesson tie-in ideas are found in the history block for that unit.
- Literature and poetry for that culture are contained in the history unit.
- Art for this culture is covered in suggested lessons for watercolor painting, and in form drawing lessons
- Recipes and Food of the region are mentioned in the history part of the block, and in the readings.
- The music from each culture is included in additional MP3s.
- Architecture of the time is integrated into the historical descriptions and is used as a tool for bringing history alive.