We love studying about Geography and History, but this time, we honed in on 5 Great Ancient Civilizations:
Art & Architecture and made some free printable art activities for kids that went perfectly with the lessons.
It really put a spin on our entire study! Our perspective changed and our eyes were specifically scouting for the art, the architecture, the detail, and the style of the culture.
Don’t forget to visit our resources hub for music and fine arts! It is full of wonderful hands-on ideas for you to use at home.
In this post, you will see a little bit of what we did and check out the free printable art activities for kids on 5 of the most amazing ancient civilizations.
You will also read about our free printable cards and several ways to use them.
Please sit back and enjoy reading through it all. You will find it as fascinating as we did!
Here are some great resources that you might love!
We love China! There is no simple Art in China. It is beautiful and intricate. I had a grand old time visiting China and speaking their language.
I have also taught Mandarin Chinese to children for years. To read about our art and architecture lesson on China that kids love, —–>>>>> CLICK HERE <<<<<—–
We have also studied Egypt in depth in the past (except for the art of mummification) using Little Passports and some other great resources.
But we haven’t specifically mentioned the exquisite Egyptian art and architecture, other than the pyramids. This time, we looked at sculptures, amazing buildings with carvings, statues, hieroglyphs and so much more.
Can you imagine living in Ancient Egypt times? Even their outfits were works of art! We have ideas for kids to make and ancient History Art project!
We used our Egypt mini replicas to talk about Egyptian makeup, the scarabs and other symbols, their wigs and the Pharaoh crowns.
It must’ve been amazing, except that I get a taste of it, literally, when we travel to the sand dunes we have in the area. Biting on sand day in and day out.
Sand everywhere, in the house, in the beds, in their sandals, even.
In our Egypt unit, we honed in on the beautiful Egyptian art and the architecture of their unique building, tombs and temples. Out of all Art ideas, drawing and decorating hieroglyphs are our favorite Art.
We also discussed the different looks of the Egyptian gods. We looks at real pictures of different sarcophaguses. The detail is fantastic!
The free printable cards I made for Egypt were fascinating to my children. The Sphinx is amazing, for example. We studied about how they made bricks and how they carried them the construction sites.
We also took a look at how pharaoh’s would design and build their own tombs, beautiful and awe-inspiring because of their strong belief in the afterlife.
And here comes Greece! This is an amazing country and I cannot wait to visit!
Go to —–>>>>> THIS POST <<<<<—– to see what we did in our Greek lesson with projects for kids! 🙂 You will enjoy it so much!
To read the wonderful post about Ancient Native America & Ancient Maya Civilization Art & Architecture, click —–>>>>> HERE <<<<<—–.
Lastly, I left Rome for last. Why? because is one of the richest civilizations that, even though it isn’t as powerful or prominent as the Roman Empire once was, its influence and contributions have changed the world forever.
One of those influences is Latin. Yes, Latin is a dead language, but so many languages have word roots that can be linked back to Latin.
It is quite fascinating. Needless to say, we are learning Latin in our homeschool and can definitely verify that claim. Roman numerals are still used worldwide as well.
The printable cards I made for Rome show the Coloseum, jugs, buildings, inscriptions on stone and a statue. We used the mini replica of the Coloseum to see more detail and a 4D view of it.
Roman soldiers word beautiful armor, their aqueducts and arches were impressive architectural constructions for the time and the way of life in general (with forums, marketplaces, saunas and such) was simply unfathomable.
Once we go more in depth about Rome and the Roman Empire, I will show you some of the crafts and writing projects we made. Don’t forget to grab your free Roman Numerals printable!
Reading list:
1. Hands-on History: Ancient Rome
2. Story of the World Vol. 1 CDs
Let me tell you really fast a little bit more about the free printable art activities for kids card set. Yes, it is a 3-part cards set for Montessori use, but you can use it for much more than that.
I printed the set in color, single-sided and laminated the cards before cutting them. I left the country’s name below each picture for several purposes. One was to play the game you see above.
It is a simple matching game, but it is unique and fun with the twist I gave it. See, I printed 2 sets and gave one set to each of my children.
We made 5 stacks of the cards, separating the civilizations to go together. Then each child took turns picking their favorite ancient civilization.
That child would then place a card of their choice on the tray and my other child would find the matching card in her stack.
They took turns and went back and forth. They loved the game! It sound simple, but it has a control of error, it yields for eye-hand coordination, dexterity, visual discrimination and so many other things. Give it a try!
Free Printable Art Activities for Kids
Check out this awesome unit on Egypt!
This post is part of our fun series. Take a look at other Fine Arts posts that are Montessori and Montessori-Inspired.
Montessori Art Inspired by Nature (Free Printables) Natural Beach Living
5 Great Ancient Civilizations: Art & Architecture (Activities & Free Printables) | The Natural Homeschool
Art Postcards: Montessori Art Appreciation for a Variety of Ages Living Montessori Now
Our Montessori Art Environment | Planting Peas
DIY Art Cards for Montessori Learning The Kavanaugh Report
Explore Writing Materials with Kids | Child Led Life
Preparing Children for Their First Fine Arts Experience Every Star is Different
Our Montessori Art Program Grace and Green Pastures
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Renae says
Wow! You have been busy! There is so much information here. What fabulous resources you have here. I know I”ll be going back and using some of them when we study each of these places in depth.
Elaine Goh says
I love your idea of that game. We also play games with our 3-part cards, I think in the home it can be used for so much more than just simple matching. I love how you explored art through the various cultures. Very inspiring!
Debra says
Hey, that’s a clever way of thnnikig about it.
kimberly says
This is awesome!!!! I just love that sweet picture of your daughter dressed up for your China study. I’m excited to print out the free printables too. Thank you.
Vanessa says
This unit study on ancient art is amazing! I can tell that you put a lot of thought and effort into making this fantastic learning experience for your children. The photos are beautiful and now I want to go visit all these amazing places, especially China! 🙂
Nicole @ The KavanaUgh Report says
I love this! Henry would flip to add geography and art together!
Jennifer Dawn says
What a great unit! The printables look fantastic!
Bess says
I need all of this. Seriously. I am drooling over what you have put together. As you know, we’re a CC family and this works beautifully with what we are doing this year. My children would adore this. I need to go over every resource you suggest carefully in the next week and figure out how to add it to our work. Thank you!
Mother of 3 says
What wonderful ideas!!! Pinning this post for later referencing. My boys love learning about the Greeks and Romans.
Christyn says
Hi! I’m having trouble getting the free printables. I’ve entered my name and email address three different times, but I’m still not getting a link sent to my email. (And I’ve been checking the Spam folder, just in case.) Can you help? These look fantastic.
shelah says
This is an amazing unit on Ancient Civilizations! You have such brilliant activity ideas.
Liseth says
Hi! Your work is amazing! I have so much inspiration after seeing your page. How can I have access to the free printable of this lesson? Thank you so much
Emma says
Hi Tanya, I’ve been looking for a structure for teaching my little ones about ancient history and your method looks great. I like how you use art to create connections to ideas about how people lived. I’ve tried to download the free printables but keep getting a message that it failed to authenticate. Would you please be able to email them to me? Plus, thanks for such interesting book recommendations! My oldest child is going to love ‘Long is a Dragon’!
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