Skip to main content

Craft: The Hanging Gardens of Babylon


Over the last two weeks, in Big Buddy's history curriculum, we've been reading about Babylon and King Nebuchadnezzar. History is probably Big Buddy's favorite subject; he enjoys hearing old stories and learning about ancient cultures. As we make are way through the The Story of the World: Ancient Times, I've been very impressed with Big Buddy's ability to remember details and his continual thirst for me knowledge. I supplement with lots of other books and Big Buddy is constantly asking me to read him another book/chapter. 

After reading about The Hanging Gardens of Babylon, I thought Big Buddy would enjoy creating his own version. I'm constantly saving interesting junk and had some cardboard toy packaging pieces from Christmas that I thought would be the perfect base. I then gathered up a few other craft materials and set Big Buddy free to design his own hanging gardens. 


Our Supplies

Other than setting out a book for Big Buddy to reference I didn't really give him much instruction. The book pictured above is DK Eyewitness Books: Mesopotamia, which has been a great resource for studying Ancient Mesopotamia. If you are looking for more Hanging Gardens of Babylon resources I'd also recommend the books: Seven Wonders of the Ancient World by Diana Bentley and Seven Wonders of the Ancient World by Micahel Woods. The cartoon, Time Warp Trio: The Seven Blunders of the World, (about three boys who travel back in to time) was also a fun way to reemphasis some the facts we had learned; you can watch the video for free on you-tube, here.


Big Buddy especially liked being able to use the glue gun. Surprisingly, Jeremy, who absolute hates it it when his students use a glue gun for there models only had praises for Big Buddy's work - I guess it pays to be his son...and only six. 


Mini Man and Little Lady also wanted to join the fun.

everyones gardens

My favorite part of Big Buddy's garden was the river across the top and the waterfalls to the grounds below. 


If you are looking for more homeschool or craft ideas please check our homeschool page. 

Lots more great kid friendly ideas can also be found at these link parties: Link and Learn, Weekly Kid Co-op, Montessori Monday, After School, Hip Homeschool Hop, Preschool Corner, For the Kids Fridays, and Show and Share Saturday. 
Labels:

Comments

  1. UnknownApril 12, 2014 at 4:12 AM

    Wowww when I see projects like this I wish I was more crafty. Luckily my nine year old is and SHE helps me help her during school projects lol <3 I loved the garden you guys created; so colorful and detailed! XOXO, Elif
    http://theboxqueen.com

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Rachel KaylynnApril 12, 2014 at 11:23 AM

      Thanks, I think a lot of it has to do with the fact that I don't mind collecting junk. I also spent a lot of years woking in childcare; which is full of creative women, I guess some rubbed of on me.

      Delete

Post a Comment

Thanks for taking the time to leave a comment - you make me smile :)

Popular posts from this blog

A Little Red Cardboard Barn

We've finished our farm unit and are moving on to a new theme tomorrow - but before we do I wanted share the barn we made. The wooden farm animals came with a beautiful handmade ark that we gave Big Buddy for Christmas a couple years ago.  I would someday love to have a wood barn but it's currently not in the budget. So in the mean time we decided to improvise and make our own.  I stumbled upon this perfectly sized milk box (4 gallons per box) while subbing and thought it would be sturdy enough to handle play. Hubandie and the boys used an x-acto knife and wood glue to build a barn shape. to get the doors to fold out hubandie used an x-acto knife and scored the inside of the cardboard We then painted with a basic primer and outlined a window and a door with painters tape. cardboard is very porous so priming is a must if you want decent coverage Big Buddy however insisted that we add more windows so it looked like the barn in our book The Big
140 comments
This post is a long one, click thru to see more »

Preschool Syllabus: Dr. Seuss

Normally I'd do a Dr. Seuss unit in March around his birthday. We had to do one now though because on Saturday Big Buddy and I going on a date to a  Dr. Seuss exhibit . The exhibit is only at the museum until January and I'm afraid if we don't go now we might not get the chance. We are of course reading lots of Dr. Seuss's books. A great advatage to studying Dr. Seuss in November rather than March is that all his books were available at the library. I also found a great children's biography which is perfect for preschoolers. Pebble First Biographies: Dr. Seuss  We've read it a couple times and Big Buddy loves reciting all the facts he's learned WRITING CENTER ADDITIONS big buddy's name in sand paper letters, coloring pages  & mazes from seussville.com skills practiced: fine motor, letter recognition, creativity,  reading comprehension LEARNING "TRAYS" -   I rotate these, setting out about four a day from which the boy&#
131 comments
This post is a long one, click thru to see more »

Jack-O-Lanterns on the Fridge

Last fall I saw the idea for refrigerator pumpkins with face pieces in FamilyFun Magazine  and have been anxious to recreate them ever since. It was pretty quick and easy and since the only thing we didn't have on hand was magnetic sheets ($1.50 with coupon at Joann's) it was also very cheap. my supplies: magnetic sheets, orange & black construction paper, white pen, tacky glue *i know they have self adhesive sheets but my Joann's didn't carry them   glued (very messily) and ready to cut Both the boys were quite enthused when they discovered them after rest time :) Hopefully it will keep them entertained until we carve real pumpkins. 
249 comments
This post is a long one, click thru to see more »