The Silk Road Explore the World's Most Famous Trade Route with 20 Projects

Shedding light on a legendary passage between the Mediterranean Sea and China, this overview outlines the history, geography, and people of the Silk Road region. Spanning from Roman times until the Age of Exploration, this noteworthy route helped spread different forms of technology, various cultural traditions, and even academic theories across two continents and beyond. The merchants, conquerors, pilgrims, and diplomats who set out on the fabled route in search of wealth, power, and knowledge--including Marco Polo himself--are also documented, illustrating the vast deserts, towering mountain peaks, warring tribes, and marauding bandits they endured. Through entertaining activities that use everyday materials, this guide enables children to re-create the clothes and foods of the nomadic tribes and city dwellers who made their homes along the historical Silk Road. Illuminating a mysterious and more obscure part of the world, this narrative celebrates the Silk Road's important role in the development of human civilization.

Kathryn Ceceri teaches history, science, and art enrichment classes for elementary and middle school students and is a columnist for Home Education Magazine. Her crafts and articles have appeared in Child, FamilyFun, and Sesame Street Parents, and online at wired.com. She is the author of Around the World Crafts, Discover the Desert, and World Myths and Legends. She lives in Schuylerville, New York.