Last fall we began hosting a history party once a month for our Ancient World studies. (Loosely) following the outline of the Story of the World - Volume One we decided to celebrate and learn about different periods of ancient history and their locations by joining with some other families and playing games of the place/period, making crafts or doing activities, and eating food. It's been monstrous fun. A lot of work, mind you, but a lot of fun, too. So far we have done:
Archeology - Our introductory party, to help introduce the children to the history of the ancient world the way archeologists learn about it. For this party we set up a dig for the kids, gridding the sand at the park with string and burying bones, dinosaur eggs, and pottery shards for them to find. One lucky kid even found a coin! Then we made our own aboriginal hand print paintings by spitting kool-aid over our hands. We ate food that we had to 'dig', like 7 layer dip. It was a favorite party: mine still talk about it sometimes.
Ancient Egypt - Aurora dressed like an Egyptian princess and we made Egyptian necklaces out of paper plates, painting them in jewel colors. We made our own little mummies using egg cartons as the sarcophogus and little cardboard people as our base to wrap in strips of white cloth. The food wasn't as much of a hit, you can imagine, with figs and dates for the kids to try.
Ancient China - The children learned how to play the game Go and they each tried their hand at Chinese calligraphy. I served them quinoa with molasses, rice and stir fried vegetables and rice sticks. There weren't any leftovers. :-P
The First Thanksgiving - To break it up (and also to fill in enough months) and go along with our overview of American history (it's first grade; overviews are great!) we celebrated the First Thanksgiving in part by eating succotash and learning Five Men's Morris.
Ancient America - We didn't want to overlook the ancient Americans! We deciphered Native heirogyphs, made our own totem poles, and even ran the gauntlet (whilst being pelted with mini marshmallows)! By this time I couldn't find any more authentic native recipes from the time period so we celebrated with a feast of Navajo Tacos (the kids weren't complaining!), everyone bringing a part to share.
Ancient Greece - Our last party was about ancient Greece so I decided it would be fun to have an authentic Olympic Games for the children to compete in, minus the naked wrestling, of course. We had two distance races, standing jump, long jump, javelin toss and discus throw. Then we made laurel wreaths for our heads. The athletes feasted this time on some great Greek food: spanakopita, baklava, rice pilaf, pita & hummus and olives with grape juice to wash it all down.
Monday is our celebration of the Revolutionary War time period and I need to do some hurried research to fill in enough appropriate games, crafts and food for the eager children.
Like I said: fun, but a lot of work!
