October is Mesopotamia month. This month we are reading the epic poem Gilgamesh. The children will be illustrating picture books depicting the story as well as writing poems and essays. Projects will include making a small scale model of a ziggurat, writing our names in cuneiform on clay tablets, decorating with mosaic tiles and sculpting our own individual lamassu. We will celebrate all of our hard work at the end of the month with a Mesopotamian feast that would put Ashurbanipal to shame!
Mesopotamia Month
and don’t forget the music!!!
.maria
Ya gotta take a visit to the Metropolitan Museum of Art during Mesopotamia month and see some real stuff!!! (If you haven’t already). The Met is AWESOME.
I love that you guys are giving such great suggestions, please keep them coming. The kids are taking a class at the Met on Friday nights from the end of Oct. to Jan.
It is called Pause for Pegasus and fits nicely into our ancient civilizations theme.
We will also be going to visit The Babylonian Collection at The Yale Museum one day this month. They have over 45,000 Mesopotamian artifacts on display. We had planned a trip to visit Mary and spend some time at the Penn Museum (They have all the stuff from Ur) but the exhibit is closed until March. Didn’t someone tell them that OCTOBER is Mesopotamia month?? Sheesh.
(p.s. i just found out that the Oud originated in Iraq – aka mesopotamia)
here are some beautiful examples by wissam joubran, from palestine and some info :
http://www.wissamjoubran.com/en/Histoire
.maria
Maria, you are THE BEST. I have had the hardest time finding something like this. We have been listening to random lyre music and arabic folk music to get an idea of what the music may have been like. This is so specific to time and place. It’s also cool for the kids to meet the ancestor of the guitar, which they are learning to play this year. THANK YOU!!