Building the Nile Delta

This year we are working our way more deliberately through The Story of the World, vol. 1. Kiddo longed for map work (he digs maps of all kinds), but I somehow never found the time to do them with him. He also loves hands on stuff (really, what kid doesn't?), and the activity guide for SOTW has lots of ideas. Why didn't I do this before? No answer. We are doing it now, though, and Kiddo is enjoying it immensely.

One of the ideas for the study of the early Egyptians was to build a model of the Nile Delta. Kiddo loves reading about Ancient Egypt. He has talked about it for over a year. He KNOWS the Nile. He was thrilled with the idea of building a model of the delta. THRILLED. I have a tendency, though, to not do things unless I have the perfect equipment. It is something I am working on, particularly this year. And Kiddo is helping me. When I said I wasn't sure we had everything we needed, he asked what we needed, headed out to the garage to find everything, and came back declaring we had what we needed. Yep, not getting out of it this time!

We bought an aluminum pan, 3 inches deep, and filled it with potting soil. The kids had a system for doing this. Kiddo shoveled in the dirt, Kutey patted it down. So fun to see them working together! They decided who was going to do which job, and then cooperated flawlessly to finish the job. One of the reasons I love homeschooling is the relationships the kids build with each other.

We had to dig rocks out of the landscaping around our house to put in the river bed, but Kiddo was more than willing to do the work, just to finish the project. We used some grass repair kit leftovers from a couple of years ago when we had our driveway redone (Kiddo knew it was in the garage. I did not. He was determined to do this project today!) The rocks at the one end represent mountains. The grass seed will sprout once we "flood" our model.