Art & Early Civilizations is the sixth unit in the Art Beginnings course. This unit covers the art of ancient Mesopotamia, Egypt, and China. It contains sections on:
- Mesopotamian Art
- Ancient Egyptian Art
- Ancient Chinese Art
Layers of Learning is an activity-based program. The mentor chooses from among the activities in the unit to create mental hooks for learning. Some of the activities in this unit include:
- Creating your own cuneiform writing in clay
- Making a relief painting with cardboard and clay
- Sketching a pyramid
- Drawing hieroglyphics on papyrus
- Crafting a canopic jar
- Decorating your own sarcophagus with Egyptian symbols
- Sketching in frontalism style like the Egyptians
- Make your own paper Ancient Chinese style
- Plus much more!
Each Layers of Learning Arts unit includes library lists of books, a family read-aloud suggestion, hands-on activities, printables and paper crafts, sidebars for extra learning, and tools to help you assess student’s progress and mastery. You can learn more about how Layers of Learning works in the Curriculum Guide or learn to teach art with the Arts Guidebook for mentors.
See Inside
Here is an inside view of a double page spread from Art & Early Civilization:
The center is filled with lesson plans, hands-on activities that cement the learning and make it fun. The sidebars are for extra tidbits, rabbit trails, and writing and reading ideas. The mentor chooses among the activities and sidebars to design a custom learning plan for your family or class.
Flexibility
This unit was written to be used for a month but contains plenty of content for many more weeks of learning if you choose. This is a pick-and-choose curriculum, meant to be cycled back to in the future when your child is older. As such, it intentionally includes far more material than you can possibly cover in a month.
Art & Early Civilization is also part of the overall Art Beginnings course, the first Year of the four year Layers of Learning Arts cycle. If you use the program in order, it will take you though the art in chronological order, tracking with the Layers of Learning History units. However, each unit stands alone and can be used independently of any other unit.
Printable Pack
This unit comes with a downloadable Printable Pack that includes all the student worksheets. The printables can be copied as many times as needed for your family or class.
You can download the Printable Pack from your receipt or from your account at Layers of Learning.
Extra Resources
This unit comes with extra weblinks and a YouTube video playlist on the Art Beginnings Resources page.
Niki S. –
This was a whim purchase to go along with Ancient Egypt unit. It is definitely not required for Egypt but it did add a few things to complete the unit. This one also covers more than Egypt so it was a good purchase.
katemichelle07 –
This unit not only covers Egyptian art but also other early civilizations including Sumerian and China