Archaeology for Kids: Uncovering the Mysteries of Our Past, 25 Activities (For Kids series) [Paperback]

Richard Panchyk (Author)

Book Description

Age Level: 9 and up | Grade Level: 4 and up | Series: For Kids series

This activity book features 25 projects such as making a surface survey of a site, building a screen for sifting dirt and debris at a dig, tracking soil age by color, and counting tree rings to date a find, teaches kids the techniques that unearthed Neanderthal caves, Tutankhamun’s tomb, the city of Pompeii, and Tenochtitlan, capital of the Aztec empire. Kids will delight in fashioning a stone-age tool, playing a seriation game with old photographs of cars, “reading” objects excavated in their own backyards, and using patent numbers to date modern artifacts as they gain an overview of human history and the science that brings it back to life.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Readers can analyze soil, make an oil lamp like those used by the Greeks and Romans, and emulate the work of Mary Leakey, who estimated the height of ancient animals by examining fossilized footprints in Archaeology for Kids: Uncovering the Mysteries of Our Past by Richard Panchyk. Each chapter offers an overview of a historical epoch then describes the pioneering efforts of archeologists who, in later years, worked to uncover the period.

Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

From School Library Journal

Gr 5-9-In a comprehensible, often-conversational text well larded with small photos, engravings, and diagrams, Panchyk presents an introductory overview of the field, including methodology, a basic run-through of eras, information boxes on interesting sidelights, and activities perfect for classroom reinforcement. Not an in-depth source by any means, this survey will be useful to students intrigued by the science of uncovering the past or merely looking for another source for report material. For the teacher looking for resources to create an archaeology curriculum, or to spice up an ancient history unit already in place, it will be valuable. In the hands of enthusiastic adults, and combined with other less textbookish works, such as W. John Hackwell's Digging to the Past (Scribner's 1986; o.p.), Michael Avi-Yonah's Dig This! How Archaeologists Uncover Our Past (Runestone, 1993), or Xavier Hern ndez's handsome Lebek: A City of Northern Europe through the Ages (Houghton, 1991; o.p.), it may open a wide window on the pageant of human history stretching behind our present.

Patricia Manning, formerly at Eastchester Public Library, NY

Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Reading level: Ages 9 and up
  
• Paperback: 160 pages
• Publisher: Chicago Review Press (October 1, 2001)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1556523955
• ISBN-13: 978-1556523953
• Product Dimensions: 11 x 8.6 x 0.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #141,559 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #56 in Books > Children's Books > History > Ancient

More About the Author

Born in Queens, New York, Richard Panchyk attended the prestigious Stuyvesant High School. He received a Master's degree in Anthropology from the University of Massachusetts/Amherst, and also completed doctoral coursework there. He knew he wanted to be a writer by the time he was seven years old. He sold his first "book," a four-page handwritten trivia booklet, to a third grade classmate for five cents. In college, he held numerous positions on the student newspaper, including Editor-in-Chief. Among other things, he wrote more than 100 articles and published a cartoon called "Over the Ledge." He printed a small book of his poems at the age of 19, and published his first book with Van Nostrand Reinhold at the age of 21. Since then has published 17 books for a total of more than 2,400 pages, including eight books in the "For Kids" series published by Chicago Review Press.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

22 of 22 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A great set of practical activities for teaching students about archaeology, May 6, 2006

By 

Lawrance M. Bernabo (The Zenith City, Duluth, Minnesota) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Archaeology for Kids: Uncovering the Mysteries of Our Past, 25 Activities (For Kids series) (Paperback)

"Archeology for Kids: Uncovering the Mysteries of Our Past" is intended to foster a curiosity about this particular science in budding archeologists. Richard Panchyk begins with a Time Line that starts in 65 million B.C. when the last dinosaurs died out and ends in 1997 when a new Egyptian burial ground was found, containing almost 10,000 mummies. Actually it is not the end of the dinosaurs but the first Ramapithecus, Australopithecus and other human ancestors that matter more because this time focus on not only key historic events such as the end of Roman Empire and the American Civil War, but key events in the field of archeology, such as when Schliemann began searching for the city of Troy and the Australopithecus remains of "Lucy" being found. This will give teachers an idea of where (and when) this book can be helpful in teaching about the past to today's students. Then there are the more than 25 activities that will help those young students understand archeology and the ancient cultures that have been uncovered.

Panchyk beings with an Introduction addressing the question, What Is Archaeology? The short answer is that archeology is the best tool we have for solving the mysteries of ancient lives. The goal of this book is to teach young students about how archaeologists work and what they have discovered (so far) about the past. That is why the first chapter outlines the eight basic steps of archeology, which begins with the question "What do you want to find?" and ends with the preservation of what you find. In between we learn that having money is just as important as engaging in excavation. Once you know the basics of the science, then you can look at six particular periods and places of ancient history that have been studied in this manner.

Chapter 2 is devoted to The First People and has activities for making molds of footprints and a spark in the dark, measuring brain capacity, and how to create stone tools. You can see that these are real world activities. There is also a section that explains why most archaeological sites are underground even if ancient people did not live there. Chapter 3, The Ice Age and the New Stone Age, includes an experiment to see what sort of items are preserved well in ice, building a Paleolithic fireplace, making cave art and a microlith tool, experimenting with agriculture, and an exercise to see what we can learn from finding animal bones about diet and lifestyle. Chapter 4, The First Civilizations, focuses on Sumeria, Babylon and Egypt, and has a pair of interesting sidebars, one that lists some of the common remains of civilizations that can be used to identify them and another concerning independent invention of things like makeup and writing. This chapter includes a seriation game (putting things in date order), a problem involving what happens when different people have different money and want to buy things from each other, an exercise involving pottery classification, and how to build your own screen for sifting artifacts.

Chapter 5 is about Greece and Rome, and off of Schlimeann's discovery of what he believe to be Troy there is the first part of a stratigraphy game. You will also find an underwater archaeology game and instructions on how to make an oil lamp. Chapter 6 is about discovering The New World and has assignments for finding the circumference of an artifact and a lesson on how to preserve artifacts, along with the second part of the stratigraphy game. The final chapter is about Historical Archaeology, and deals with the science as it applies to studying what happened only a couple of hundred years ago rather than thousands of years in the past. Reading historical maps, finding a historical site, figuring out tree rings, creating a time capsule, using historical documents, and learning about occupations from things like city directories and phone books, are the final activities. The back of the book includes a Glossary of key terms (e.g, "artifact," "superposition"), Web Sites for Further Exploration, and a Bibliography.

"Archaeology for Kids" is intended for kids ages 9 and up, and if there is an activity book in this series that has more practical and real world activities than this one, it does not come to mind. I am sure that teachers could adapt most of these activities to other times and places so that they are not just of use in studying the most ancient cultures. This entire series of activities books from Chicago Review Press are excellent supplemental books for teachers covering a wide range of subjects. "Archaeology for Kids" is one of four volume beginning with an "A," the others being "Africa for Kids," "American Folk Art for Kids," and "The American Revolution for Kids." Teachers who are looking for educational activities should check out the entire catalogue of books because they are sure to find several that will prove useful.

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Archaeology can be fun, July 4, 2007

By 

Alfred (Minnesota) - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Archaeology for Kids: Uncovering the Mysteries of Our Past, 25 Activities (For Kids series) (Paperback)

I purchased this for our 12 year old daughter along with several other books on Archaeology for her use during our "Independent Activities Period" over the summer. I read through it quickly and found it generally well written and interesting. I would have liked more text on how archaeologists do their work, more details on the discovery processes, and more describing how a small fragment is used to reconstruct the original. My impressions is that the book is written more for the High School crowd. She is reading about a chapter a day and asks good questions over the material. Overall, I'm pleased with the purchase.