My daughter made a “Hammurabi’s Code of Laws” craft by creating a slab of stone with a black poster board. She wrote a summary in her own words of some of the laws of Hammurabi, many of which were quite weird. She used a chalk pen, and she wrote in her best handwriting.
You will want to start by cutting a black poster board into a slab of rock by rounding the top portion with a pair of scissors. Write the title across the top, then try to emulate the etchings at the top of the original Code of Hammurabi. My 10-year-old daughter did a great job drawing these pictures! There is a figure sitting on a throne, and the man at the foot of the throne is Hammurabi, who is getting the law from one of the gods the people worshiped in those days. Hammurabi wanted his laws to be authoritative, so he said that the gods had given him these laws.
Here are some of the laws:
- If a man cuts down a tree not on his property, he will have to pay.
- If a man wants to throw his son out of the house, he has to tell it to the judge. If the reasons are not good, the son stays.
- If a doctor operates on a person and the person dies, the doctor’s hand will be cut off.
- If a builder builds a house and the house collapses on the owner and he or she dies, the builder will be put to death.
Here is an alternate activity on black cork board instead of poster board, where the child creates her own code of laws for her home. (Notice also that she drew a little girl instead of Hammurabi on the stone slab):
If you would like your kids to write summaries on colorful pages, here are some free Hammurabi notebooking and coloring pages:
For more hands-on activities for history, join the Unit Study Treasure Vault!
