Way Back When: The First Writing

During our study of the First Writing we read Write Around The World by Vivian French. This particular book was a super thrift store find, before I knew that it was included in the suggested book list of History Odyessy from Pandia Press.

 This is the story of how and why we learnt to write. Whilst you could categorise it as a picture book, it is quite long and detailed and therefore definitely for the older or very interested child.

Each double page spread covers an era in time, as it relates to writing. Sumeria, Egypt, China, The Alphabet, Languages, Handwriting, all the way through to Machine Writing and Secret Codes.

You could potentially build quite an indepth unit around this book

We played around for awhile with Hieroglyphs. How could we not, such an important part of mankind's history.

I spent some time reading reviews on this book with stamps package as many of them were very mixed.

I really wanted the kids to have the opportunity to use the stamps though so I took the plunge and went ahead and ordered it. Granted the stamps are not of the highest quality but the book itself has some interesting bits and pieces. Lego Lover was particularly intrigued with counting with Hieroglyphs so we spent some time playing around in that section of the book.

We all played with the stamps for a bit, wrote our names in hieroglyphs using this site.

We read Seeker Of Knowledge by James Runford. This is the story of Jean-Francois Champollion, the man who deciphered Egyptian Hieroglyphs.

Another longer, more involved, older child's, picture book, but definitely worth a read in regards to a unit of work on the history of writing.

Without Jean's sheer love of all things Egyptian, which began when he was a boy, determination and sheer hard work we may still be wondering about the Hieroglyphs.

I can't seem to find a photo but we also used Air Drying Clay to carve some cuneiform into and once allowed to dry the kids painted it.

Check out the linky parties I have shared this with.

• Ancient Mesopotamia

• Pre-History, The Big Bang and Evolution

• Charles Darwin, The Beagle, Galapagos Islands and Evolution

• All History Related Posts

Way Back When; The Story Of The Universe Part 1- Born With A Bang

We made a start with some history today. I love history and I really want to show the kids how the world has grown and changed and how events have shaped the world we live in today. Not forgetting all of the most amazing people that have walked before us.

We could just pick a place in time and go for it, but that just reminds me too much of how I experienced history in school. Even though I loved the subject I feel that it has so much more meaning when the story of history starts from the very beginning, so that is how we plan to tackle it.

We will be using the Story Of The World books as our spine. I won't be making history a huge saga though and if all we do is read the Story of the World and a few other intersting books to go along with it I will be happy. After all this is only our first cycle through of history and we have more than enough time to come back and revisit the past all over again.

We are not a religious family and the Story of the World is written from a young earth perspective (5000 years old). All of the scientific evidence thus far has proved that the earth is much older than that and although I don't have a firm belief as to how the earth was formed (I'm not sure that the Big Bang Theory sits totally comfortable with me either) I will be teaching history from a scientific perspective. Which means finding information written for children covering that viewpoint at a level that they can understand.

This was not easy task. In fact the few books I do have are far above the average 5 year olds level. B coped, just, with the books. I have since stumbled across a few others but have not seen them in real life so I'd have to order them to get any idea as to what they are like. Anyway, I'm rambling.

So we read aloud Born With A Bang, The Universe Tells Our Cosmic Story (Book One) by Jennifer Morgan.


The illustrations in this book are stunning. Just to give you an idea here's a little glimpse. The kids always like to do something whilst we read, generally drawing of some description. I set them up with watercolours and suggested to B that he paint something that represented the story as I wanted it to go along with his narration that I would later print.

For K I had no requests, I was just happy that she was happy to sit there and listen. Even if she only took in a small amount of the book as I knew it would go way over her head.


It has been over 12 months since B has done any type of narration work so I had to remind him what it was and what I expected. I knew we would be virtually starting from the beginning all over again. Narration in the early days is hard work, both for the child and the teacher....really it's like pulling teeth but I have read enough to know that in the end it pays off so hence we are moving forward with it.

The book is quite long so I suggested to B that I would stop at the end of every page or so (depending on the level of detail covered) for him to narrate something. As I was reading aloud and scribing his narrations I really wasn't taking much notice of the painting that was happening before me. B had basically painted (very simply due to trying to keep up with the story) every pertinent point in the story.

I have compiled the images below along with his narration. It took alot of prompting and question asking on my part, but in the end he finished with a nice overview of the book.

It was about 13 billion years ago when the universe was formed. The universe was a tiny little speck (painting 1)

The universe then burst into a grape fruit sized ball. (painting 2)

The universe exploded into the size of a galaxy. It then made particles.

With the particles the universe could make light.

The particles made the first atoms. The atoms were hydrogen. (painting 3)

The universe was making galaxies. Black Holes were appearing inside the galaxies. (painting 4)

The Mother Star made new elements, like calcium.

The Mother Star ripped herself apart in an explosion. (painting 5)

Our sun appeared and the planets. The Earth was a big ball of stardust. (painting 6)

After I had compiled B's narration, K quickly piped up and said that she wanted to make a book from hers. Here I was thinking she had been painting lollipops and was totally oblivious to what had been going on but no, she too had a page by page account.

We sat down together to go through what she had painted and I nearly fell off my chair, not by the paintings, but by what she could remember. I only had to prompt her once or twice. Following is K's recount of the book.

The universe bursted.

Then the universe exploded.

It made tiny particles.

The universe made the very first atoms.

The universe made heaps of Mother Stars. ( I was requested to go back and add 'heaps of')

Milky Way and Black Holes.

The mummy star exploded into a supernova.

The burning red ball was earth.

Our first history lesson of the year.....I'm one very happy and very proud mummy. The things you get when you least expect it.