Flooding the Nile

I have been loving reading through Susan Bauer's The Story of the World, Vol I.  It is an excellent history of the world written in short, "story-form" chapters.  We are currently reading about ancient Egypt, and yesterday we did one of the suggested activities from the Activity Book One.  We made a simple replica of the Nile River in Egypt and then demonstrated how it floods each year in the delta area to make lush crops.  It's a super simple project that you can recreate with things you have around the house.

Get a baking large baking sheet (or an aluminun roasting pan would be even better).  Fill it with dirt/potting soil.

Have the kids collect rocks--small and large.  Create a Nile riverbed on top of the dirt, creating a "y" shape at one end to represent the delta area.  Place small rocks along the "river" to hold down the foil.  Place some large rocks along the right side of the baking sheet to show the mountains on the West.  Get playdough or modeling clay and have the kids form pyramids.  Place those on the dirt, along the river.

You can place fake flowers or grass along the bottom delta area to represent how the land in that area was extremely lush because of the yearly flooding.  You could also plant actual grass seed and "water" it weekly to watch it actually grow (but that was a little too much committment for me).

Flood the Nile.  Hold the end slightly up and let the kids pour water slowly onto the foil river.  Watch as the water flows down the riverbed and eventually floods all the dirt along the delta area at the bottom.