The Tower of Babel and The Ice Age ~ History of the World Study

"And the whole earth was of one language, and of one speech."

~ Genesis 11:1

In the last post of our "History of the World" homeschool study series, we left off on Noah and the World Wide Flood.  What major events comes next? Unfortunately, that is quite controversial. However, we believe that the earth is young and follow a literal account of Genesis in our home. Therefore, the next major event in history would be the Tower of Babel, followed by the infamous Ice Age. It is actually very fascinating to study this and put the pieces together in history which bring light to science and the Scriptures. Also keep in mind that studying this early in history makes for some guess work in timeline dates but we did our best.

To begin, we placed all our paperwork for this unit behind the "Tower of Babel/Ice Age" tab in our History of the World Student Work Binder (which is the divider section behind "Noah and the World Wide Flood"). We are making our own set of encyclopedias this way!

                            

{Here is some clip art to copy and paste into your "Timeline Binder".}

We also pasted down two entries into our timeline notebook at approx. 3500-3000 B.C. for the Tower of Babel and 3500-2500 B.C. for the Ice Age (you will find more information on our timeline notebooks here) (world history, Bible).  You could either type in a description of the Tower of Babel and the Ice Age and paste it underneath your timeline picture or simply write in "Tower of Babel"  and "The Ice Age" underneath each illustration. We chose to place a small summary (typing practice) underneath each one of our timeline entry clip arts so that we could go back in time and remember each event more vividly by our descriptions.

"All humans are descendants of Noah's three sons. After the flood, God commanded Noah's family to spread out and fill the Earth. Some of Noah's descendants disobeyed God's command. Under the leadership of a man named Nimrod, they banded together and built a tower that reached into the sky. God responded by causing groups of people to speak a different language. This was the beginning of many different nations."

~ Draw and Write through History Book (Creation Through Jonah)

The first item on the list was to link the last two time periods together in the mind of the student. We commenced with copy work found in the Draw and Write through History Book (Creation Through Jonah) and followed it by the drawing assignment of the Tower of Babel (Bible, art, language arts, world history).

Once that was established, we read the account of the Tower of Babel in Genesis (Bible, history). We also watched this short video clip about Babel from the Creation Museum DVD series (warning: it might scare toddlers). Doing a picture study on a painting of the Tower of Babel is also a nice addition. Here we show Pieter Bruegel the Elder - The Tower of Babel (art history).

This is also an excellent opportunity to share how the different people groups came to be. The Tower of Babel plays an important role in this. I recommend watching Only One Race by Answers in Genesis. Note: This movie is geared toward a more older audience.

We didn't have much resources on the Tower of Babel so once these activities were completed, we spent the remaining time on the major historical event that followed next, "The Ice Age".

"The flood was not just a local flood. It covered the whole earth... causing a dramatic climate change all over the world. In some areas there was an ice age. Wooly mammoths may have lived at this time. Scientists have found frozen wooly mammoths so well preserved that they could even tell what they had eaten!"

~ Draw and Write through History Book (Creation Through Jonah)

To begin the Ice Age Study, we drew pictures of the woolly mammoth for our notebooks and included the copy work shared above (art, language arts, world history, science).

Life in the Great Ice Age by Micheal and Beverly Oard was an excellent resource for this study and we used it as our read aloud title. I am not scientific minded so this book really simplified the Ice Age through a beautifully illustrated story (language arts, Bible, science, world history) and with a biblical perspective. Something we do splurge on is purchasing these types of books for our home library because this isn't something you will find in your local library.

We made a list of ice-age animals. You could also have your older students alphabetize this list when they are finished (science, basic skills).

We created a map based from the information from Life in the Great Ice Age which indicated where Ice Age fossils were found (geography).

Next we drew "cave men and women", using the Draw and Write Through History Series. We also did the corresponding copywork that these books provide (art, Bible, language arts). Cave men and women or the "Stone Age" people we learn about can simply be the malnourished people who lacked sunlight and fresh food during the challenging Ice Age.  Life in the Great Ice Age by Micheal and Beverly Oard goes into more detail on this. Very interesting topic!

"There are more references to cold, snow, ice, and frost in the Book of Job than any other book in the Bible. Is is possible that Job and his friends had heard tales of the glacial sheets bounding the northern lands even though they had not seen them."

~ Dr Henry Morris, The Remarkable Record of Job

We did some bible verse copy work from the Book of Job that corresponded with Ice Age weather. We used Job 37:9-10 and  Job 38:29-30 (Bible, language arts, science).

For a picture study concerning the Ice Age, you can study the Columbian Mammoth by the Victorian Era artist, Charles R. Knight (fine art).

We also made up poems about the Ice Age for some language arts fun.

Lastly, we found this song about the Tower of Babel and this song about being One Blood that your children may enjoy by Buddy Davis (from Answers in Genesis). You can download it and incorporate it into your study (Bible, history, music). It would be fun to play while the children are drawing or coloring. We enjoy learning through songs in our homeschool. Songs stick!

One field trip we recommend when studying Genesis topics is the Creation Museum. Jonathan Park Audio Adventures are also a fun way to learn Creation Science in general. And if you would like more scientific information which is tied to the Scriptures, then I recommend visiting the Answers in Genesis website.

Though on the shorter side, this was a very fascinating study and opened up a lot of ideas of how history could have taken place with scientifically sound information and a Biblical worldview.  Ah, the joys of home education!

History of the World Notebook Study/Part 1 (Introduction)

History of the World Notebook Study/Part 2 (Recommended Ages and Such)

History of the World Notebook Study/Part 3 (How to Conduct One)

History of the World Notebook Study/Part 4 (Practical Ideas)

History of the World Notebook Study/Part 5 (Preparation and Binder Printable)

Creation Study ~ History of the World (Study 1)

Noah's Ark & The World Wide Flood ~ History of the World (Study 2)
The Tower of Babel and The Ice Age ~ History of the World (Study 3)

Next in our "History of the World Timeline/Notebook" Series:

Ancient Egypt

This post may be shared with some or all of the following link-ups: The Art of Home-Making Mondays, Modest Mom Monday's, Monday's Musings, Make Your Home Sing Monday, Good Morning Mondays,  The Scoop, Titus 2sdays, Titus 2 Tuesdays, Roses of Inspiration, Tuesdays with a Twist, Raising Homemakers, Wise Woman Link Up, Homestead Blog Hop,  Wow Us Wednesdays,  Coffee and Conversation, Homemaking Thursdays, Home Sweet Home, Our Simple Homestead, From the Farm Blog Hop, Front Porch Friday Blog Hop, Awesome Life Friday Link Up, Five Star Frou Frou Friday, Simply Natural Saturdays and Clever Chicks Blog Hop. Thank you lovely ladies for hosting these. This post contains affiliate links.

Teaching Your Children Good Habits ~ Charlotte Mason Series

"The mother who takes pains to endow her children with good habits secures for herself smooth and easy days…"

~ Charlotte Mason

The thought of home education can be daunting to many mothers. Perhaps they are imagining children hanging from the ceiling fans, running circles around the learning center and living a sloppy, tangled, disorderly life. The truth can be anything but that when mother puts the actual training of her children at the center of home education. These important lessons on character building to instill good/godly habits will bless all other areas of the parent's and child's life. Because you have created an orderly environment (and our magnificent God is a God of order), your home is now a fertile ground for education! You will be able to successfully teach and your children will successfully learn.

"The habits of the child produce the character of the man, because certain mental habitudes once set up, their nature is to go on forever unless they should be displaced by other habits. Here is an end to the easy philosophy of, 'It doesn't matter,' 'Oh, he'll grow out of it,' "He'll know better by and by,' 'He's so young, what can we expect?' and so on. Every day, every hour, the parents are either passively or actively forming those habits in their children upon which, more than upon anything else, future character and conduct depend."

~ Charlotte Mason

"Consider how laborious life would be were its wheels not greased by habits of cleanliness, neatness, order courtesy; had we to make the effort of decision about every detail of dressing and eating, coming and going, life would not be worth living. Every cottage mother knows that she must train her child in habits of decency, and a whole code of habit causes a shock to others which few children have courage to face. Physical fitness, morals and manners, are very largely the outcome of habit; and not only so, but the habits of the religious life also become fixed and delightful and give us dues support in the effort to live a godly, righteous and sober life."

~ Charlotte Mason

"But all the minor moralities of life may be made habitual to him. He has been brought up to be courteous, prompt, punctual, neat, considerate; and he practises these virtues without conscious effort. It is much easier to behave in the way he is used to, than to originate a new line of conduct."

~ Charlotte Mason

"In conclusion, let me say that the education of habit is successful in so far as it enables the mother to let her children alone, not teasing them with perpetual commands and directions--a running fire of Do and Don't; but letting them go their own way and grow, having first secured that they will go the right way, and grow to fruitful purpose. The gardener, it is true, 'digs about and dungs,' prunes and trains, his peach tree; but that occupies a small fraction of the tree's life: all the rest of the time the sweet airs and sunshine, the rains and dews, play about it and breathe upon it, get into its substance, and the result is --peaches. But let the gardener neglect his part, and the peaches will be no better than sloes." 

~ Charlotte Mason

Perhaps we can glean from the well known verse (Matthew 6:33 paraphrased), "Seek the kingdom first and the rest will follow." In the world of home education, we can also adopt this similar thought, "Seek to train in good/godly habits first, and the rest {academics, etc.} will follow!"

"Train up a child in the way he should go:

and when he is old, he will not depart from it."

~ Proverbs 22:6

Visit here for more posts in the Charlotte Mason Series.

You may also be interested in:

Biblically Principled Picture Book List

"Help Me Be Good" Book Set ~ Child Rearing Gems

Miller Family Series ~ Biblical Character Building Basics
Our Favorite Elementary Bible Studies {Affiliate Link}

Reading the Bible and Narration ~ Charlotte Mason Series

Queen Homeschool Supplies, Our Favorite Charlotte Mason Curriculum

{Note: We are affiliated with them and do receive a small commission if purchased through our link.}

This post may be shared with some or all of the following link-ups: The Art of Home-Making Mondays, Modest Mom Monday's, Monday's Musings, Make Your Home Sing Monday, Good Morning Mondays,  The Scoop, Titus 2sdays, Titus 2 Tuesdays, Roses of Inspiration, Tuesdays with a Twist, Raising Homemakers, Wise Woman Link Up, Homestead Blog Hop,  Wow Us Wednesdays, Wildcrafting Wednesday, Coffee and Conversation, So Much at Home, Homemaking Thursdays, Home Sweet Home, Home Acre Hop, From the Farm Blog Hop, Farmgirl Friday, Front Porch Friday Blog Hop, Awesome Life Friday Link Up, Simply Natural Saturdays and Clever Chicks Blog Hop. Thank you lovely ladies for hosting these.

Noah's Ark & the World Wide Flood ~ History of the World Study

"But Noah found grace in the eyes of the Lord."

~ Genesis 6:8

Our "History of the World" timeline study has now brought us to Noah and the amazing ark. We are sharing a peek into the activities we did and resources we used (we will put the subjects taught in parenthesis so you can see how a variety is taught through one study) in case you are interested in doing something like this in your homeschool.

To begin, we read from Genesis, chapters 6-10 (Bible, language arts, world history, character building). We chose some key verses and used them as copywork (language arts, penmanship). We also discussed the character of Noah. What traits were necessary to build the ark (faith, perseverance, patience)?

{Here is some clip art to copy and paste into your "Timeline Binder".}

We also pasted down an entry into our timeline at approx. 4500 B.C. (you will find more information on our binder timeline notebooks here) (world history, Bible).  You could either type in a description of Noah and the flood and paste it underneath your timeline picture or simply write in "Noah's Ark and the World Wide Flood" underneath the illustration.

We chose to place a small summary (typing practice) underneath each one of our timeline entries (as shared in first picture) so that we could go back in time and remember each event more vividly (see our timeline entry above).

             

Timna by Lucille Travis was our chapter book (read aloud title) for this study. It is a historical fiction story which depicted Noah's family on the ark (8-12 years but suitable for younger children) and was very "light" reading (and geared more toward girls). We also really enjoyed Noah's Ark, Noah's Flood: Lots of Water, Lots of Mud by John Morris (ages 6 and up) and the True Story of Noah's Ark with audio CD by Tom Dooley which has some beautiful, life-like illustrations. Younger children will love the character building book called Not Too Small at All: A Mouse Tale about a little mouse on the ark that finds he is just as important as the "big" animals (ages 4-8).

Our favorite book and highly recommended was In the Days of Noah by Gloria Clanin. This could also be your read aloud title. Though it is a "picture book", it has a lot of text and is loaded with information. It brought a whole new perspective on the flood history. It showed Ham, Shem and Japheth finding godly women to marry and had Noah's wife being a "teacher to the younger women". The story made history come alive in a sweet but savage way since the author also depicted the wicked world and what you would find in it at that time (an interesting parallel to today's society). The book also gives a fictional account of how things may have happened using biblical history and creation science support. The second half of the book focuses on questions and answers regarding why the author wrote the things she did in the story and the historical and scientific reasons for the scenarios. Included are many creation science facts discussed to give the readers information about flood geology in an easy to understand format. 

We placed all our paperwork behind the "World Wide Flood" section in our History of the World Student Work Binder. Using the Draw and Write Through History Series, we drew a picture of Noah's Ark and did the corresponding copywork (art, Bible, language arts).

Using the information in Genesis, we wrote down specific information about the ark and labeled our picture (math, basic skills, Bible). This was a real vessel and we wanted to bring it into reality!

We also did some mathematical work based off of the assumption of what a cubit stands for (math). This was a perfect time to put our new skill of multiplication into practice!

I was so busy checking the math, I forgot to check the spelling. This is the real "stuff" I am showing here today ;)

We also measured out how long a cubit was onto construction paper using a ruler. We pasted this measurement down onto our "cubit" page to make a measuring stick of our own (math). I love bringing practical forms of arithmetic into our studies. Constant uses of rulers and such will make your children more relaxed and proficient.

Note: A cubit is supposedly 18 inches or the length of a man's fingertips to his elbow.

We had some dinosaur stencils (arts/crafts) and made a point to show how they were included in the ark. God did say two of each kind (but He certainly would have been wise enough to bring smaller and younger ones)! We also added some appropriate copywork (language arts, Bible).

If this information seems far fetched to you, consider reading here for some scientific and Scriptural insight.

Note: If your children are interested in dinosaurs, you may want to do a Dinosaur Unit Study before this study like we did.

Where could the ark be? Genesis writes the "mountains of Ararat" so we used a blank outline map and found where Ararat was located and marked it (geography, Bible). We added the appropriate verse to this page too (language arts).

We also watched a very interesting video that sheds a different light on the location of the ark titled, "In Search of Noah's Ark". This added some spark into our study. I highly recommend this video as a geography and world history source. It also opens up the brain waves to see all this Bible information in a "real" light with this modern day, true-Indiana-Jones-type documentary (geography, Bible, world history). Though I am not "sold" on the location of the ark, I really enjoyed watching the hunt!

                                                           

Other videos we enjoyed was the "Flood Geology" from the Creation Museum series (the cinematography was gorgeous in this) and "Noah's Ark: Thinking Outside the Box". We also watched the "Jurassic Ark Mystery" that is geared for little children (though a bit on the cheesy side for adults).

We chose a painting to do a picture study on (art, Bible). There are many on Noah's Ark if you do a Google search. Older children can write an art review while the younger children can share their opinions orally (language arts).

The final assignment was to pretend you were Noah or his wife. What would you say to try and change the hearts of the people (Bible, language arts). This was a rather dramatic exhortation to say the least!

Field Trip Ideas: If you live near Kentucky, you can visit the Creation Museum. If you live in California, you can visit the Cabazon Dinosaurs which is creation based as well.

If this information is new to you, you may be interested in reading the article, "Was There Really a Noah's Ark and Flood". You will be very blessed!

History of the World Notebook Study/Part 1 (Introduction)

History of the World Notebook Study/Part 2 (Recommended Ages and Such)

History of the World Notebook Study/Part 3 (How to Conduct One)

History of the World Notebook Study/Part 4 (Practical Ideas)

History of the World Notebook Study/Part 5 (Preparation and Binder Printable)

Creation Study ~ History of the World (Study 1)

Noah's Ark & The World Wide Flood ~ History of the World (Study 2)
The Tower of Babel and The Ice Age ~ History of the World (Study 3)

Next in our "History of the World Timeline/Notebook" Series:

The Tower of Babel and The Ice Age

This post may be shared with some or all of the following link-ups: The Art of Home-Making Mondays, Modest Mom Monday's, Monday's Musings, Make Your Home Sing Monday, Good Morning Mondays,  The Scoop, Titus 2sdays, Titus 2 Tuesdays, Roses of Inspiration, Tuesdays with a Twist, Raising Homemakers, Wise Woman Link Up, Homestead Blog Hop,  Wow Us Wednesdays,  Coffee and Conversation, Homemaking Thursdays, Home Sweet Home, Our Simple Homestead, From the Farm Blog Hop, Front Porch Friday Blog Hop, Awesome Life Friday Link Up, Five Star Frou Frou Friday, Simply Natural Saturdays and Clever Chicks Blog Hop. Thank you lovely ladies for hosting these.  Painting of Noah's Ark by Currier and Ives.