Flooding the Nile - Week 4

Success!!! It appears that if you plant your crops after the Nile has flooded they actually grow! :)

While we didn't plant any additional seed this week (we had such a bumper crop there wasn't any room) we decided to go ahead and flood the Nile one final week. I can report that at the end of Week 5 our grass was going wild and was so tall it was all falling over.

 My (very) brief attempt at creative photography... I think it would have been a cool picture if I could have figured out how to get the camera to focus on the girl's faces instead of the grass. Oh well! :)

This has been a great experiment to watch and learn about the Nile from for several weeks. We're looking forward to many future Story of the World projects!

Flooding the Nile - Week 3

Flooding the Nile for the third time tied nicely into our scince seed theme for the week. It was especially nice to be able to examine how seeds we had planted previously were growing. At the end of week 2 you can see the water has receded pretty significantly, we've moved the pyramids because we learned they sit on the west side of the Nile (this picture makes them look like the east but the mountains are in southern {upper} and the Nile Delta is in northern {lower} Egypt), and our crops still didn't grow very well...

 Here we are discussing the issue(s) of our crop failure...

 Then we had a revelation!!! Actually, this was pretty goofy especially on my part. Egyptian farmers didn't mind the floods because they brought rich silt to their fields. It was okay that the river flooded the fields because it occurred at the same time every year and farmers waited until AFTER the flood to plant their crops. Yes, it took us 3 tries to realize we needed to flood the Nile first and then plant our seeds so they didn't wash away. What a lesson in using thinking skills and not just doing what is habit! I guess because I'm so used to planting and then watering I didn't even stop to think about what we were doing. Glad we had this (not so brilliant) aha moment!

 After a bit of discussion regarding planting the seeds after the flood, we decided it would actually make even more sense to wait until the water had an opportunity to recede for a day or two before planting. I'm telling you there was super Lueker brainpower at work this week! lol :) Here the girls are planting their grass seed (again).

 Our finished product - if our crops don't grow well this week, I give up! :)

Flooding the Nile - Week 2

Because of our over exuberance in flooding our Nile river in week 1 our crops did not grow... No problem though, every farmer has a bad year here and there, right? So, we planted our crops again

 we flooded the Nile again

 and we discussed the issues of being farmers in Egypt

As well as our Nile Crocodiles and rocks to represent the mountains of Upper Egypt, we used our Magna Tiles to create the 3 great pyramids to add to our representation this week. Hopefully our crops will fare better in the coming week!

Flooding The Nile River

In our third week of studying the "Story of the World" we began learning about Ancient Egypt and the Nile River. As well as reading, narration, coloring and mapwork our main project for the week was flooding the Nile River. We learned before the Aswan Dam was built the Nile flooded every year. This was important for Egyption farmers because the flooding water left silt rich in vitamins and minerals on their land for their crops. With that in mind, we got busy building our own small Nile River to watch over the course of a couple of weeks as we learn about Egypt and the surrounding region(s).

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The girls searching for rocks for our river bed

 Pouring in the dirt for our river banks/croplands

 Seperating the banks of the Nile

 Placing the rocks in the riverbed and Nile Delta

 We planted grass on the banks as our crop. We also placed some large rocks on one end to represent the mountains of Upper Egypt.

 Then we let loose with our water hose aka the Nile River (the triangle shape in Lower Egypt represents the Nile Delta)

 We may have gotten a little carried away with our flooding process...

 Adding our Nile Crocodiles

 Two sweet girls with their completed Nile River

Watch for updates on how our crops and additional weeks of flooding the Nile River have worked out. :)

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There were a number of great books from the suggested reading list for this week. Our favorite was titled "Bill and Pete Go Down the Nile" by Tomie dePaola (Putnam, 1996). It was a story about a young Crocodile and his class learning about and touring Egypt. The girls love this book so much it might be one we purchase for our own collection. A close second was "Croco'nile" by Roy Gerrard (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2001). The last book we would recommend is "Egyptian Gods and Goddesses" by Henry Barker (Grossett & Dunlap, 1999). This was a nice age appropriate yet thorough explanation of Ancient Egyptian religious beliefs.

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The girls did two narrations this week. The first was on how upper and lower Egypt were united called "Two Kingdoms Become One." The second was called "Gods of Ancient Egypt." I really enjoy hearing what the girls have learned from our work and watching them draw their illustrations. I will try to take some pictures of their narrations to share in the future.