Making a Sumerian Seal

We finished up reading about The First Sumerian Dictator in Story of the World this past week.  The art project in the activity book for this chapter was making a Sumerian seal.  Back then, most Sumerians did not know how to write so they each had their own unique seal that they used to identify themselves when writing in clay. We decided to make ours out of Roseart modeling clay, but didn't realize until it was too late that we didn't buy the air-drying variety.  No matter--- Red stamped with it anyway.

We also read a couple of the recommended books --- The Three Princes and The Golden Sandal.  Red and I especially enjoyed The Golden Sandal because it was a Middle Eastern version of the Cinderella story.  It had cute illustrations to boot!  One more thing to add about this lesson --- I let the kids watch Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope and Red asked me, "Is Darth Vader the leader of a military dictatorship?"  I guess these Story of the World lessons are really sinking in. :-)


We had a snafu with our plan to see which one held up better --- the hieroglyphic scroll vs. the cuneiform tablet.  When we checked on them a week after putting them in the yard, the scroll was still there but the tablet was nowhere to be found!  Perhaps some wild animal likes the taste of Play Doh tablet?  Since it is the tablet I made that is missing in action, Red is debating whether or not she'd like to do some of the other experiments about seeing which one lasts longer using her tablet.  We've already decided not to leave it outside though.


On an entirely separate note, I finished the long process of removing the wallpaper border from Tom Thumb's room.  It was a bittersweet moment for me.  Before Red was born, I spent hours poring over wallpaper books at a small paint and wallpaper store in the downtown area of our city trying to find the perfect border.  I fell in love with this one.  Even after she attempted to rip it off the wall a few times during her 2 year old destructive phase, I pasted it back up.  When she and Tom Thumb swapped bedrooms in the spring we left it up.  He has been begging me since then to paint his room yellow (his favorite color) so it was time to say adios to the baby border.  Here are some photos before I took it all the way down.  Sniff, sniff...

It was so difficult to remove (I scraped at the adhesive for HOURS) I told Red that no matter how many years pass that if Mommy ever says she wants to put up wallpaper again she is to tell me NO!  I think we finally have a shade of yellow selected that matches what is already going on in Tom Thumb's room without burning our eyes out.  I had to immediately talk him out of the neon yellow he really wanted.  T.G.I.F.!