Anceint Egypt

The girls are having a great year so far. They love their new curriculum, Tapestry of Grace. We are using year one and just finished studying ancient Egypt. Both of them learned an amazing amount from the wonderful books, numerous hands-on-projects and thought provoking questions and activities sheets. It would take much too long to tell you all we did so I will just hit on the highlights.

The picture above shows the girls in costume with their paddle dolls waiting the arrival of the other families for our end of Egypt feast. Their crowns are made of card stock and tinfoil. They made the beads for their necklaces out of sculpty clay, baked them and strung the necklaces. It is hard to see, but they are standing in front of our timeline. This has been a great project this year. It covers the entire door! Each Friday, we add the figures we studied that week. It is a great way to review!

Here Sarah works on her paddle doll. Both girls are glad they have American Girl dolls instead of these!

The girls had a blast creating these edible maps of Egypt. There are large sugar cookies that the kids frosted to depict the geography they had been studying. We used blue and green frosting for the Nile and the fertile land along its banks. Crushed graham cracker was perfect for the arid desert sand. Chocolate chips became pyramids. And red hots the cities. I'm not sure if the kids enjoyed making or eating the best.

Feast day finally arrived. All the kids had a great time and didn't think the food was too bad either. We had an Egyptian marinated chicken (thanks Molly), Tiger Nut Dates, Hummus and Pita Bread, Chicken Soup, Pomegranates and Mango. Each child had a cartouche with their name in hieroglyphics as a place card. Can you guess whose this is?

After feasting it was on to the main event - Mummification! Each of the kids mummified a doll. It was a lot of fun and a great learning experience. They performed each of the steps on their doll. First we talked about removing the organs. This we couldn't do, but the children drew a red heart to remind them that the heart remained in the body. Then they washed the dolls and massaged them with spice scented oils. Next they were packed in salt to dry them out. While they were drying, everyone cut amulets out of foam sheets. These would be hidden in the layers of linen wrappings. Next it was time to wrap the mummies. We use a water and glue mixture for the resin. This was great fun and I think everyone learned a lot.

The finished mummies look great! Some of them even smell pretty good too!

The day ended with the kids doing their best rendition of "Walk like an Egyptian." Aren't they adorable! A great success, we can't wait to get our families together for the next unit celebration.