The boys and I just wrapped up our first unit of History together as a home school family!  Caleb, Brody, and Asher had a wonderful time listening to me read "The Story of the World" by Susan Wise Bauer, and the exciting mystery of "The Boy in the Pyramids" by Ruth Fosdick Jones.  Caleb stayed up many nights looking through his Usborne Time Traveler book and the King Fischer Encyclopedia of HIstory.  

Painting Pyramids was another highlight.  While Brody would rather have a can of paint and an empty wall,  those of us looking for a bit more structure and an opportunity to integrate art with what we are learning, the "Draw and Write Through History Series" by Caryless Gressman is perfectly wonderful.  

All three of the boys loved dressing up in Egyptian garb - Check out my Pharaoh, Mummy, and Tomb Robber!   What a joyous motley crew they make.

And of course we ended the unit with a great feast.  Caleb dressed as a slave, shirtless with only a towel around his waist, and brought a bowl of water, in which guests could wash their hands (third picture above).  Brody was dressed as the young Pharaoh, King Tutankhamen (King Tut), and sat on his throne while all the other guests reclined on a blanket at his feet.  Asher wanted desperately to be the dancing slave girl, but the only music I could find was "Walk Like an Egyptian" by the Bangles!    

Needless to say, our first go at this learning business at home has been a mad success.  My goals were many facetted, but bringing history and literature together in memorable ways was paramount in my desires for our family.  "Integration" is a key word that I keep hearing over and over again in Classical Education circles.  All these "pegs" we're "hanging" in their memories allow us to hang exciting pictures upon in the years to come.  The learning goes deep as one aspect of learning today suddenly correlates with other lessons that once seemed unrelated.  

Just this morning I saw the lightbulb turn on in my 8 year old's mind.  We were reading Aesop's Fables and talking about what it means for a story to have a moral, or a "good lesson" as I chose to say.  We talked about all of the fables we knew off the top of our head like the three little pigs and the boy who cried wolf, and talked about what good lessons we could take away from these stories.  When we discussed the story of the ants and the grasshopper, in which the ants work all summer long to prepare for the cold winter ahead, but the foolish Grasshopper merely plays his fiddle, Caleb said, "The Grasshopper played all summer, but he paid for it in the end."

That was the end of our lesson and Caleb left the kitchen table and went back to his room where I found him deep in thought.  "What are you thinking about?" I asked. He responded, "I was just thinking that people who don't believe in Jesus might have a fun time here on earth but in the end they are going to pay for it, just like the Grasshopper did."

I sat down with him then and said, "We all deserve to pay the price because we all mess up.  But that's why Jesus came, to pay the price for us."

Talk about integrating subjects:  Asopes Fables and the Gospel of Peace. My Goodness!