Quantcast
Channel: Adventures in Mommydom
Viewing all articles
Browse latest Browse all 37

Challenge your kids to make a shaduf

0
0

I’m about to do something controversial. Are you ready? When teaching ancient history for our history lessons a few years ago, I put the invention of the shaduf with Ancient Mesopotamia rather than Ancient Egypt. But Ticia, isn’t the cradle of civilization in ancient Egypt, not Mesopotamia? See, here’s the thing, it’s an argument. I’ve seen great arguments for both locations, and ancient Egypt gets so many things, and so I decided to put it in the ancient Mesopotamia unit rather than Egypt. So, let’s look at how to make a shaduf.

Design a shaduf history lesson

(there are affiliate links in here)

What is a shaduf?

Shaduf is some early technology. Now looking at it, we would say shaduf is not technology but mechanical working, or we probably wouldn’t even think about it as something impressive, but thousands of years ago, it was the height of technology.

illustration of shaduf

A shaduf attaches a bucket to a lever that is then strung from a tripod or a Y junction to easily pull water from a river or well.

 

 

While doing my research for our ancient history lessons, I found this great video explaining how to make a shaduf and use it for an elementary class (4th grade).

Sources used for the shaduf lesson

Supplies needed to make a shaduf

For mine, I gave the kids a bucket full of recyclables and told them they could do whatever they wanted, and they scrounged around the house to grab a few other items.

But, if you’re going to be a bit more organized: dowel rods, yarn or twine, dixie cups, scissors, hot glue gun

 

How I thought they would make it

design a shaduf ancient history ancient mesopotamia ancient egypt 8th STEM

This is what I thought made the most sense. You put together a tripod, though admittedly the kid chose 4 dowel rods, and a bucket (why he chose to cut a soda can down I don’t know, I was thinking a dixie cup would work so much better, but that was his choice).

However, the kids went through a whole slew of different ideas. I’ll also add, I gave them a few different projects to work on at the same time. So while one child was designing a shaduf, another was designing an irrigation system, and I think a third was creating another bit of technology.

 

How my kids designed a shaduf

sketching out how to make shadufWe started off with a history lesson on what a shaduf was. I’m not really sure why Making the Grade is on the table, but it is. It was a short lesson, but that made for more time to start their plans.

how to make shaduf plans

As part of our ancient Mesopotamia unit I put together a simple planning sheet, which I need to get ready to upload sooner rather than later. You can see Batman’s drawing for his plan is not what he actually ended up with. His plan would not actually work for how a shaduf should be designed.

Once they had drawn out their plans, they got to building.

working on making his shaduf

This took lots of fiddling and concentration. You have to adjust the legs of the shaduf just right so it maintains its’ balance.

creating a bucket for the shaduf

You also have to create a bucket that will not tip as you fill it. Which is harder than it sounds. Have you ever tried to put holes in a bucket at just the right place to make sure it won’t tip over as you fill it? It’s tricky.

I just spent two minutes being distracted by Lindybeige ranting about assassin figures. This was probably not the right video to have on in the background as I’m writing.

experimenting with his shaduf

Also completely unrelated to this post, I’m writing this about two years after we finished this activity and it’s amazing how much the kids have grown and changed since these pictures were taken. The boys were actually shorter than me when we did this. That is no longer true. BY A LOT!

The end results of all their work were successfully transferring water from one location to another just like a shaduf should.

shaduf ancient history lesson

More history lessons

King Tut tomb art ancient history Ancient Egypt mother teresa lesson modern history church europe Invisible ink project science chemistry history american revolution preschool kinder book and activity Why is this man holding these tools news at 11

 

Images used: shaduf, shaduf illustration

The post Challenge your kids to make a shaduf appeared first on Adventures in Mommydom.


Viewing all articles
Browse latest Browse all 37

Latest Images

Trending Articles





Latest Images