“The beginnings of all things are small.”
-Ancient Roman Proverb
Welcome to our Ancient Rome homeschool unit! Here you will find ideas and suggestions for putting together a unit study for your K-4th students on ancient Rome. This unit incorporates history, language arts, science, geography, art, and music into a 2 week study. You can find a suggested schedule and supplies at the bottom of this page. We also studied rocks, minerals, and volcanoes alongside our Rome study. You can find the link to that unit here. Enjoy!
Books
Before every unit, I put books on hold from the library. There are so many great resources out there at the library that are completely free! I find project books, art books, science experiments, and more. For this unit, I pulled out many books on Pompeii, Rome, and Volcanoes. For the young kids, I almost always look for a Magic Tree House book on our topic. It’s concise and easy for the kids to understand. If the book has a read-aloud from YouTube, you can click the title for the link:
- “Magic Tree House: Vacation under the Volcano” – Mary Pope Osborne
- “Magic Tree House Fact Tracker: Rome” – Mary Pope Osborne and Natalie Pope Boyce
- “Craft like the Ancient Romans” – by Jillian Powell
- “Hands on History: Romans: – Fiona MacDonald
- “Step into Reading: Pompeii – Buried Alive” by Edith Kunhardt
- “National Geographic Kids: Volcanoes”
- “Projects about Ancient Rome” – by Karen Frankel
Videos
My kids really enjoy documentaries and historical shows about the ancient world. I will never forget my oldest as a first grader, asking to watch a documentary on the Roman Empire and loving it! Here are a couple of the ones we used this time around:
- National Geographic – Ancient Rome: a short 5 min video over viewing ancient Rome
- Ancient Roman Empire: this is a much longer almost 2 hour documentary on the Roman Empire
- Pompeii the Last Day: documentary about Pompeii, 45 min
- Magic School Bus Blows its top: available on Netflix
Geography
Most of our history units start with geography. Our ancient Rome homeschool unit was no exception. I like to give my kids an idea about where world cultures are located. We made an aged map of the Roman Empire using water and tea bags – instructions below. My kids made the map last week while we were studying ancient Greece, but we did the project again with friends!
To make the ancient map, we found a free printout of the Roman Empire. Then, we dipped the paper in into warm water with a couple of tea bags on a small tray. After about an hour, the tea gets soaked into the paper. Then you can take it out and let it dry before labeling it, or just using it as a demonstration.
Ancient Roman Life and Culture
To introduce more Roman culture to the girls, I find it fun to get into the kitchen. We enjoyed making the ancient Rome version of modern day French toast. This was a super easy dish to whip up for an afternoon snack. All you need is toast, oil, milk, and honey! I pulled the recipe out of one of our project books (listed above), but you can find the recipe on this website — just leave out the egg — or add it if you’d like.
There were a variety of crafts to choose from in the books, but we only had time for two. The first was to make a mosaic Roman shield. This tied together the history behind the Roman warrior shield, and the art of marking a mosaic. The shield was fairly easy to make with carboard, construction paper, and glue. We cut out the shape first, which was a bit like a rectangle with a rounded top and bottom. Then, the kids glued many small bits on paper on the shield to make a design. On the back, we secured a piece of thick paper with a stapler, so that it could hold someone’s arm.
The second craft involved making a bulla, or a roman coin purse. You could use a variety of materials for this project, but cloth fabric and strings works that best. The coin purse was special to the Romans, it was similar to a modern day locket. Male Roman children wore them around their necks, with a very special coin or object in the center. There is a short tutorial on how to make one here.
Pompeii & Volcanoes
It worked out perfectly to talk about and read books about Pompeii, while also studying how a volcano works! The step into reading book about the volcanic eruption in Pompeii (listed above) was a great introduction to the science topic of volcanos. One of the things we discussed together was the different between active volcanoes vs. dormant volcanoes and magma vs. lava. If you want to delve into lava a bit, Mystery Science has an easy to do at home experiment – all you need is some water, flour, cups, and food coloring! The lesson takes about 20 minutes, and it has kids blowing bubbles into the lava so the girls enjoyed that part of it.
Another of the beginning steps of studying volcanoes was to learn the different parts of a volcano. I created a labeling sheet for my older daughter that works for most elementary aged students. If you’d like to check it out, you can click the picture to the left.
Salt Dough Volcanos
We also made salt dough volcanos. You can find an easy recipe for salt dough on this website. We formed our volcanoes around plastic cups, but you could use a water bottle or any other object with a solid bottom and an opening at the top. The salt dough does have to dry overnight, so we formed them the day before we planned our volcano experiment and set them on cardboard to dry.
The next day we painted the outsides of the volcanoes and we filled the insides with baking soda. We then filled different little cups with vinegar & dish soap (just a drop!) — and food coloring! — to add to the volcanoes. My kids can never get enough of vinegar and baking soda experiments. You can keep adding more baking soda to the inside of the volcano and pour more vinegar mixture in. The paint mixed with the colors of the food coloring made for some really pretty volcanoes! Here are some of the examples:
Ancient Rome Homeschool Unit Writing Assignments & Wrap Up
That’s just about the end of our Rome unit! My kids loved this topic just like most of the others, especially the parts about studying Pompeii! Every Thursday, as you’ll notice in the schedule, we work on our yearly timeline. We use a construction paper piece and we note some important dates and draw. This time, we noted the fall of Ancient Rome (dates vary on this- but we used 395AD). the girls chose green paper and to draw Volcanos on it. I tape all the pieces together to make a huge yearlong timeline.
Of course, we have writing assignments each week as well, and I try my best to tie them into our unit! I did put together a Volcano packet for 3rd grade. Check out the Teachers Pay Teachers packet with our writing and reading comprehension assignments. Or click the picture to the right.
Ancient Rome Homeschool Unit Suggested Schedule:
Week 1
- Monday: Read Magic Tree House “Vacation under the Volcano book”, mystery science: Volcanoes. Make salt dough Volcano
- Tuesday: Rome Geography & Map, read about Pompeii, erupt volcano, writing assignment: volcanoes
- Wednesday: Read “Magic Tree House Rome Fact Tracker”, reading comprehension assignment: Volcanoes
- Thurs: Magic School Bus Episode – Blows its top
- Fri: roman crafts – Shield
Week 2:
- Mon: Parts of volcano, writing assignment: Pompeii
- Tues: Roman recipe, finish writing assignment.
- Wed: Crystals & geodes. Dr. Binoc & Earth’s Crust Project (see Rocks and Minerals Unit)
- Thurs: Rome timeline
- Fri: Roman Crafts – purse
Supplies:
- tea bags
- water
- toast
- oil for frying
- milk
- honey
- larger piece of cardboard
- markers
- construction paper
- scissors
- glue
- piece of scrap fabric
- string
- coin
- flour
- salt
- paint
- paintbrushes
- vinegar
- food coloring
- baking soda
- dish soap
- plastic cup or bottle