Well, the school year is starting to wrap up. Now that our Spring Break road trip is behind us, I’m focused on pulling together some unit study materials for the summer. Our family topics this year are marine biology and archaeology, and this year we’re really focusing on professions in those fields. We want the kids to start seeing and understanding what following your passion really looks like, day-to-day. What jobs do people do if they love history or ocean animals?

Archaeology started out as a bit of a stretch for me, resource-wise. I feel like I learn as much as the kiddos each year with these topics. And we always like to use some good fiction as the spine of our study to engage the kids with fun before we start throwing a lot of facts at them. Here’s a tip–fiction is not the first thing that pops up if you use “archaeology” as your search term. {smile} It can be a dry topic.

But then I thought–Indiana Jones, of course!!–and off to find more history treasure hunters I went.

You might remember that our equation for a simple, fun family unit study is…

Book + Movie + Field Trip = Unit Study

Optional Add-Ons: Food, Games, Crafts

So here are the resources we’ve dug up for studying archaeology and the job of treasure hunting history this summer.

Just a note, this topic can delve into murky areas when you start talking about the timeline of human history, the fossil records, and symbols and mythology. Make sure you’re matching your resources to your child’s maturity and you’re giving it the supervision it needs. For example, I know a lot of adults that speculated way too long and hard on the fictional claims in The DaVinci Code. 

1. Fiction Books about Archeology

• Will Wilder series. This is going to be our main book series for the summer. These are a mix of Indiana Jones and Percy Jackson, so they include some magic and mythology, and a lot of fun! We found both of them at our library and I was excited to see that they’re both available for Audible as well, since we love, love, love audio books now. These are the kind of books where my kids can’t wait to run outside and go adventuring when we put them down!

 

• Our other main books will be a couple narrative histories from Sterling Point Books.
  • Danger in the Desert: True Adventures of the Dinosaur Hunter. The story of Roy Chapman Andrews, an explorer and real-life Indiana Jones in the 20s and 30s that worked for the American Museum of History.
  • Lawrence of Arabia. This is a short, engaging biography of TE Lawrence–who was a PhD in Archaeology, although most of his life was spent doing other things. {smile} A little bit of fossil hunting and a lot of history! (This one is even available in Audible!)
• Addison Cooke series. Sort of an Indiana Jones spin with middle-schoolers. Fun, fast-paced adventure that also reminds me of Peter and the Starcatchers.
• Pyramid Hunters series. We reserved this one at our library. Honestly, the second one comes out this summer and sounds even better.
• Rocket Robinson series. Graphic novels are a big win around here! I like that the main characters are a boy and a girl with equal smarts and abilities. I’m not a big fan of the absentee parenting, but there’s no element of defiance or dishonesty and sneaking about that aspect of the story.
• Wilde and Chase series. These are adult fiction and I’m about halfway through the first one from the library. They are fun, adventurous, and the main character is a modern American archaeologist. So far I see no issue sharing these with the kids.

2. Non-Fiction Books about Archaeology and Archaeologists

If you remember from our unit study planning post, I just fill a basket or box with non-fiction resources and leave it out where everyone can find it. After watching a good movie or hearing a good story, you’ll usually find our kiddos diving in to check things without any prompting at all.

• Archaeology, Cool Women Who Dig. This one is all about the work of archaeology–yeah!
• The Practical Handbook for Archaeology. You can get this one for a steal, used.
• The Archaeology Book. Lots of graphics and real site pictures, biblical worldview. Also a good resources for parents that need a brush up. {smile} Honestly, the whole Wonders of Creation series are excellent resources if you can find them.
• DK Eyewitness Series: Archaeology. We love every book in this series and always buy them when we find them used.

 

• History of the World in 1,000 Objects. This is a great way to tie the work of archaeology back to the concept of people and culture.
• Then and Now Bible Maps. This is a great resource for a lot of things, but one thing archaeology does is show change over time–and this book is perfect for that.
• Make sure you have a good Atlas for this summer study! We use both the Children’s Atlas of God’s World and the Usborne Geography Encyclopedia.

 

3. Movies and TV about Archaeology

• Indiana Jones, of course! And how exciting that all the movies are FREE with Amazon Prime at the moment?
• Also available with Prime at the moment…The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles. Fun adventure and lots of history packed into these old shows from 1994–you know, back when TV was family-friendly. {smile}
• The Librarian movies–all 3 were fun and family friendly. (The trilogy is a steal at the moment at $8.35 for all three!) Sort of a mix between Indiana Jones and National Treasure. The TV series that followed is also a lot of fun, and I would keep an eye on Amazon video or cable channels like TNT for reruns.
• National Treasure (1 and 2) are family favorites here–although the kids are a little sick of it at the moment. These are great American History treasure hunt movies, totally family-friendly, and have some interesting details about things like how to preserve old documents.
• I’ll add Fools Gold and Sahara to this list, even though I think they should be watched with supervision and maybe some judicious use of the >>FF>> button depending on your kiddos ages. They are modern “treasure hunting” movies, fun adventure, and have some great ocean archaeology scenes in them.
• Time Team America by PBS. This is a great series about real archeology teams that travel to American archeology sites and either kick-off a new dig or try to rejuvenate an existing dig with new perspectives. It includes great information on the different roles and experts that come to the table on a dig site, as well as new technology for investigating and modeling finds. (Season 1 and 2 are included FREE with Amazon Prime at the moment.) A short follow-up season of Time Team-Set 20 was also very good.
• Museum Diaries. This is a very interesting series about the behind-the-scenes work in museums to preserve artifacts. It fits in well with showing the kids actual jobs that incorporate history.
• Secrets of Archaeology series is also very good, but more of a traditional, dry, documentary style. The info is very good, but a little less engaging for the kiddos so I plan to use it sparingly. {smile}
• Sci-Girls by PBS. Another great science show for kids by PBS and even though it highlights girls, our boys like it too. Season 1 has several archaeology-related shows and is included in Amazon Prime.

4. Field Trips about Archeology

This one is both tough and easy. In Virginia, there’s archaeology under every rock! {smile} I happened to luck upon the Jefferson Patterson Park and Museum–a public archaeology site up the eastern shore in Maryland that we are planning to visit.

And of course, Historic Jamestown is right across the river and we’ll be visiting there. (Check out our list of Jamestown study resources!)

Here are a few places to look for some field trip ideas near you…

• National Park Service Archaeology Program. Lists actives sites at National Parks you can visit. Most state parks have sites too! We found several on our road trip, including the Fort Boonesborough site in Kentucky.
• Natural history museums. Wikipedia has a list of local natural history museums, by state, that can get you started.
• Your State’s Department of Historic Resources should have a lot of facts and be able to share some recommended sites with you. (Here’s a link to VDHR Archaeology section.)
• Society for Historical Archaeology

5. Crafts, Projects, and Fun Activities about Archeology

• Metal Detecting. Mr. Fix-It sometimes uses a metal detector at work (finding old pipes underground) and also on the farm (finding pins and nails and screws and other parts that get lost in the fields and gravel) so we already have one at home. The kids have been having a blast hunting and digging through our yard and fields, finding old nails, broken farm equipment, and tool pieces. Occasionally they even come across something we lost and are glad to get back, like a cotter pin or lynch pin. Ours is a Garrett 250. It’s very easy for the kids to use and pretty sturdy–as long as they don’t get overexcited when it starts beeping and fling it to the ground! {smile} This National Geographic metal detector that folds up and fits in a backpack looks awesome though! Our’s doesn’t fold and we have toted it around a few times. Ugh! 

• Interactive Puzzles! We love family puzzles, and this new 4D technology takes it to a new level. How cool are these new, multi-layer, interactive learning puzzles from National Geographic? They have Ancient Egypt, Ancient Greece, and Ancient China to get started with. They come with the puzzle to build, plus access to a learning app that meshes with the puzzle when it’s completed to share historical facts.
• Family Board Games. Something like Incan Gold or Fortune and Glory would be fun to add to your collection. We like to mix up our weekly family movie nights with game nights once in a while and we’re building quite a collection.
• Young Archaeologists Club in the UK has some fun crafts we might try, like mummifying a orange, and making a cave painting.
• Make your own fossils, and then bury them and host your own dig site in the backyard!
• Or create your own pottery sherds and have the kids dig them up and put them together. We’re definitely doing this one, and to make it a little tougher, I think we’ll have the kids each make their own pot, and put ALL the pieces in the dig site together so the reassembling is a little more challenging.

 

You can also find more idea over on our Studying Fossils and Artifacts board. If you’ve got a great archaeology study or project, let me know! I’d be glad to check it out and add it to our list!