E-School: Mud Brick House Project

Carter was studying ancient Mesopotamia a few months ago (in the first grade--I thought that was a bit advanced, but times are a-changin'), and was learning about mud brick houses, shadufs, and the importance of the rivers, so my husband wanted to create a mud brick model. When you think of a mud brick model, you probably imagine using brown clay, or something of the sort, but no. When my husband wants to do something, he's going to do it with passion.

So, he literally went outside, dug up some dirt, added water (and a little flour, for good measure) and he and Carter created true mud bricks. Of course, they weren't set out to dry in the sun (it was cold), but they were really hard bricks made of mud.

Oh...it doesn't end there.

He looked into the type of mortar that was used back in ancient Mesopotamia and found that one of the ingredients in today's mortar was found in the mortar used way back when. So, he and Carter used regular white mortar (it's not the prettiest when paired with the brown mud bricks, but it helped teach an important part in the construction of mud brick houses) to build the house.

They laid out sand all over the counter to represent the desert area outside of the fertile crescent...

They created a river model with a functioning shaduf...

They created an area for gardening...

They even added little figurines (well, they're soldiers, but my husband explained to Carter when using our imagination, they become ancient Mesopotamians)...

Did I mention there was a little mountain range at the end of the river?

Carter had an awesome time learning about ancient Mesopotamia, and as you can see, so did my husband. ;)