This week in our Mystery of History studies we read about Moses and the Exodus out of Egypt. It was a story we have read many time in our Bible, but this week through some historical fiction and other activities, we were able to gain a deeper appreciation of this Biblical event.
The first book we read was Tirzah by Lucille Travis. This book tells the story of the Israelites leaving Egypt through the eyes of a 12yr. Hebrew girl. What I liked about this book is that it made us think about what it might have been like trekking through the desert with Moses. Many times I have read this story in the Bible but didn’t think about details. How did the Israelites feel when they were being chased by Pharaoh? What was it like seeing the cloud lead them through the desert?
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Moses had instructed the people to quickly pack and be able to leave at a moment’s notice. He told them to make bread without yeast, since making bread with yeast took a long time to bake. Bread without yeast is called unleavened bread. After reading in our Bible and our history book, I handed my older kids the Old Testament Days: an Activity Guide by Nancy Sanders and told them they were in charge of making unleavened bread for our family.
They gathered the supplies: flour, salt, milk, oil and honey and started making the bread.
First the flour was measured.
Then the salt.
All the wet ingredients were mixed in a separate bowl and then mixed together with the dry ingredients.
The girls mixed the dough with their hands and then placed small circles onto a cookie pan. They pricked each circle with a fork and placed into the oven.
After 20 minutes, our bread was done!
We ate ours with a little butter and honey. Yum!
While eating the bread, we talked about how Jewish people remember the miraculous way God delivered them from Egypt by celebrating Passover. We could probably spend a couple more weeks just learning all about the symbols and significance of Passover!
We’ve actually spent 2 weeks longer on this unit than what was scheduled. I do this often. 🙂 Many times there are so many cool projects, books, and activities that we want to do that won’t fit in the schedule. If my kids are interested in going deeper, we make time in our schedule. Once we are done with our rabbit-trail studies, then we go back to the next history lesson. It took awhile for the box-checker in me to get to the point of sometimes abandoning the schedule, but I’ve found that it’s ok! 🙂
You might be interested in:
Illuminations: Getting Started with our new History Program
Mystery of History and the Ancient Egypt and the Minoans
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This is great! We made unleavened bread last year when we did our passover lesson, but didn't try it with butter and honey. Yum!
I love the ideas that you share! Your site is a great source of inspiration for me. Thanks for all the hard work you put into it!
Oh the dilemmas do I pin this to Exodus or to Creation to Christ? Oh the choices…….
Great post – thank you! I saw it on Pinterest just now, or otherwise I would have missed it! (i follow the blog on FB, but have dropped FB for Lent. Ouch.)
We are also using MOH1, and just finished Gilgamesh. I am finding that we are spending lots of time on projects, but I tend to get to the end of it all and realize — We didn't write anything!!! Isnt' that terrible!
I was wondering how you balance the hands-on part of MOH with the notebook-writing side of the learning. Thank you!