Story of the World: Vol 1 - Chap 5 - The First Sumarian Dictator

With Clay or Playdough

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  I suggest looking for the books mentioned at your local library. 

For Chapter 5 we actually managed to do all the reading on one day.  So why is it divided in two days below?  Because we watched a movie on the other day.  

Day 1
The day before we read Chapter 5 in Story of the World we watched the first half of this video (stopping right after the part on cuneiform, at minute 14:40...the rest we are saving for future chapters). It covered  some things we had already learned about Mesopotamia, and added some new things.  This video is aimed at kids and very engaging and well done. 



Day 2


For this chapter I supplemented with DK Eyewitness Book: Mesopotamia, a book we used often during the first half of our SOTW: Ancient Times study.

First I prepared some Mesopotamian snacks (pistachios and grapes...I wanted pomegranates but they were out at the store).  I brought out the cuneiform tablet we had done during Chap 3 of Story on the World to have on the table since this chapter mentions that again.

Story of the World Reading

Paragraph 1 -2
I read through the first sentence in the second paragraph, then we stopped and found Egypt and Mesopotamia on the map.  I gestured to the cunieform we had done when it was mentioned, and before paragraph 3 we stopped and looked at  pages 16 -17 in DK Eyewitness Book: Mesopotamia, pointing out the houses people lived in and what they wore, and the foods they ate.  Then I brought out the snack.  My son said he didn't want to eat the pistachios at first but I convinced him to try one, and as soon as he ate it he said "These are the best things, EVER!"

Paragraph 3 - End of Chapter
While he ate we read on, and when Sargon was mentioned we looked at the picture of Sargon on pg 22 of Mesopotamia, (see other visuals online you can use if you don't have that book).   I was going to also  have him do a Dot to Dot puzzle I found on Sargon online to keep his hands busy while I read the rest of the SOTW chaper,  but he was happy snacking so I let that go.

We also read the bit on that page about Sargon's daughter being the first named author in history. 



ACTIVITY IDEAS

Sadly, we didn't try any of the fun activities below because my son was "activity resistant" that day,  but you can find some good ones at the following links.  (Ziggurats aren't addressed until the next chapter, but could be made here in stead since they existed in various Sumarian cities, and since there are other good activities for Abraham).   


1.  Make a Cylinder Seal with clay or playdough, or with foam stickers

2.  Play The Royal Game of Ur

3.  Build a Ziggurat in Legos, or with  sugar cubes, or cardboard.

4.   Make a Ziggurat pop up card  (This doesn't show how to do that exactly, but it would be easy to tweak to use for a Ziggurat)

5.  Draw a Ziggurat

6.  Make a Mesopotamian House

7.  Make a Mesopotamian Meal


COLORING/ACTIVITY PAGES
(in addition to those in the SOTW Activity Book)

• Sargon Dot to Dot (Also Sargon statue coloring page similar to in Activity book).

OTHER VISUALS

ANCIENT REPRESENTATIONS

Sargon Head - (Public Domain) 


ARTIST INTERPRETATIONS (Modern)

• Mesopotamian Army - The first section shows models of the army of UR, and the second section shows models of Sargon's Army.  These look like they are pretty accurate.
• Sargon (Artistic Interpretation + Historical Statue)
• Sargon (Cute Cartoon, but definitely historically based)
• Sargon (More realistic cartoon...not sure if outfit is historical)

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