Customer Reviews

Ancient Egyptians and Their Neighbors: An Activity Guide

5 star:		(9)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

So much more interesting than a textbook for our homeschool study of ancient history! This book covers not only the familiar Egyptian civilization but also several lesser-known yet equally important ones to whom we owe a great deal. For example, the Babylonians gave us our first written laws; the Sumerians gave us writing and the first real cities; the fierce Hittites discovered how to work iron. Children will remember what they learn in this book because the text is accompanied by recipes, crafts, and other activities. I recommend the Hittite Hummus myself.

This book introduces four cultures : the Egyptians, the Mesopotamians, the Nubians and the Hittites. The author accurately presents aspects of these civilizations such as history, geography, architecture, clothing, food, religion, writing and labor. Children will enjoy themselves and become part of these ancient worlds by easily following the instructions of the activities. These include constructing a boat, cooking ancient food, creating clothes, and writing on clay. All in all, it is a fun and informative book for children ages 9 to 12.

We use "Our Young Folks' Josephus" as our primary history spine which mentions all these cultures as they relate to Israel. What I like best about this book is that it covers cultures that are often not well represented in other books of this type, particularly the Nubians, Mesopotamians and Hittites. There are many craft activity guides available for Egypt, but nothing that I know of for these other cultures. The crafts are really well thought out and a lot of fun to do. They also have a lot of real learning value and are not just play. Our family highly recommends this book for the study of Ancient cultures.

This is a gem of a book.As an educator and child psychologist(and parent!),I welcome this exceptional addition to the literary field. Though its defined audience is 9-12 I found ANCIENT EGYPTIONS AND THEIR NEIGHBORS:AN ACTIVITY GUIDE full of ideas and interesting facts.I admit I did not attempt the activities,but the text itself is exceptional---thoughtful and beautifully written as well as meticulously researched. Broida concentrates on four ancient neighboring cultures revealing what their lives were like.The activities give the child an opportunity to become part of these cultures,greatly enriching the reading experience. Let's hope this is only the first of a series.Congratulations to a talented,innovative, and intelligent author.

This is a gem of a book.As an educator and child psychologist(and parent!),I welcome this exceptional addition to the literary field.Though its defined audience is 9-12 I found ANCIENT EGYPTIANS AND THEIR NEIGHBORS;AN ACTIVITY GUIDE full of ideas and interesting facts.I admit I did not attempt the activities,but the text itself is exceptional--thoughtful and beautifully written as well as meticulously researched.Broida concentrates on four ancient neighboring cultures revealing what their lives were like.The activities give the child an opportunity to become part of these cultures, greatly enriching the reading experience.Let's hope this is only the first of a series.Congratulations to a talentd,innovative and intelligent author.

We got this book as part of a curriculum on Ancient Egypt, and at first I was slightly disappointed. I am not sure exactly why, but I just didn't realize how much information was really in there. Maybe because the book is only two-toned in color or something, I just saw it as a bunch of basic projects (i.e. make a bracelet, make an Egyptian tunic, cook a fig cake) with some paragraphs of text interspersed.

But over time, I came to appreciate the book more. We kept going back to it for some of the basic information in the text parts. And as we did some of the projects and compared it to other Egypt project books out there, we appreciated the versions in this book more. The recipes were easier, all the basic projects were covered (i.e. write in hieroglyhics, make a cartouche), and it was one of the only children's books out there who mention the Nubians and Hittites at all.

Definitely the Egyptian section is the best of the four. I am not sure I would buy it as my star resource for the other three cultures. But we're definitely glad we bought it since we like it more than "Old Testament Days," "Make It Work," "Pyramids!", and even Broida's other book "Ancient Israelites." Worth the 11$ to have it around.

This book is a great resource. Using it (along with a few others) for homeschool study of ancient civilizations. Text is pretty thorough and they add interesting sidebars that are pretty memorable (Mesopotamians buried dead under their houses and had a tube that they sent food down to the dead! if that's not memorable what is?). Each aspect of the civilization (housing, food, clothes, work, etc) has text and then a project--projects are good quality ideas and should appeal to both boys and girls. One of the first projects was to build a floor plan of a Mesopotamian house using Legos. Later there were projects using clay and a weaving project as well as recipes for food and so on. I'm pretty experienced with craft projects and I thought these were well thought out, challenging enough while not being frustrating, and you ended up with something worthwhile. Looking forward to the Ancient Egypt section.

This is for those of you who are debating whether you should purchase this book: This book is more than I'd hoped it would be, especially for only $11. For each activity, there is also a lesson that tells its relevance. I was expecting maybe a 50 page "workbook" type activity guide, but this one has 173 pages, and isn't formatted like a workbook at all. Also, the maps in the book are very detailed and easy to read - and easy for my kids to understand. The pictures are in black and white, which is rarely any fun for kids, but for $11, I think I've gotten my money's worth. :)

this is a great book for children. there are lots of fun activity's as, well as alot of info. your children and you will find many interesting things to do. if you have children you will want to buy this book.