It’s that time again. School is coming to an end and summer break is here! As usual, the time just seems to fly by. The first day of school/last day of school pics really got me this year. Not that they don’t every year. Maybe because my boys grew like 6 inches at least, so it was a pretty good visualization of them growing right in front of me. Time, please stop. Summer, hopefully means some vacation opportunities and other fun options for kids. If you are like me, there are various camps available and one of our challenges is finding a schedule that is a good balance. Allowing them to attend some, but also allowing them to be able to just enjoy some much-deserved time to play and run free like spring cows coming out of a stuffy barn. Another challenge is that for those of us working moms who are not also teachers that get the benefit of summer break, we have to balance managing the kids and work. I have mentioned before that I have a wonderful mother-in-law that helps out so much in this department year-round. A jack of all trades, really. I call her Nanny McPoppins. Wonderful with the kids, but also able to magically get stains out of, well anything. Whether you have help in the childcare department or are juggling it all yourself, you still may want to add some structure to some of those free days, so they are not mindlessly filled with too much screen time. Kids really do thrive in structure. It’s good for us all to let loose but doing that for 2 months straight would personally make me nuts. During the pandemic, I worked hard to put together some educational, yet fun themed units to supplement the virtual learning. My boys were finishing up pre-K and first grade and the virtual learning was taking all of about an hour and a half at best. So, I added some focused activities to close out the morning so at least the entire day was not sacrificed to the video game gods. One of those weeks we learned all about Ancient Egypt. Pyramids, Pharaohs, the Nile, hieroglyphics and more. This post includes 5 days of activities for your little ones to learn all about this ancient culture. Read on to see the outline of what all we did and in case you’re wondering if we walked like Egyptians, we did. I can honestly say we had a lot of fun, and my boys still remember and talk about some of the things we did together. Time to go back in time. About 4,000 years, give or take.
Monday: The Great Pyramids
We started the week off with an introduction to ancient Egypt. There are two links below to videos we watched to set the stage for this ancient culture we would be learning about all week. The first one was a good overview of the subject and the second was more focused on the pyramids. Watching these 2 videos gave us lots of interesting facts about Egypt and one of the great wonders of the ancient world. We tried to make a list of the facts we learned about the pyramids. Who built them and why? How big were they, what were they made of and how in the world did the Egyptians accomplish this feat given the available technology of their time? After our videos, I gave my little ones a challenge to build their own pyramid. Legos? Jenga blocks? Whatever they wanted to use. They got a chance to get creative.
We also kicked off our week with a very appropriate Bible story from Exodus chapter 2. A little baby named Moses in a basket floating in the Nile. Where is the Nile? That’s right! Egypt. Who found Moses? The pharaoh’s daughter. Which pharaoh, of course is not exactly specified. I would have to defer to Biblical scholars who have researched the timeline of various significant events, such as the exodus of the nation of Israel and are therefore able to work backwards or forwards from such events as a best guess. My English Standard Version (ESV) study Bible has some notes that puts the exodus at around either 1446 B.C. or 1260 B.C. There is a range of pharaohs in there that could possibly have been ruling at the time Moses was born. You do the research and see what you think. Pretty fascinating. We decided to tackle a memory verse for the week, and I chose Psalm 16:1, “Keep me safe, my God, for in you I take refuge.” Short and sweet for little ones and a great reminder of who we can cry out to in times of trouble. As a mom, I can’t imagine what Moses’s mother went through during what was a very horrible time for the people of Israel. God certainly protected her baby and her family on that day. I wonder what prayers she and her daughter were whispering as they stood by and watched over him. With our new verse, we got to learn a new vocabulary word: refuge, meaning a safe place. We made a little baby in a basket floating down the Nile to go with our story. This is a great craft for teaching at home, Sunday school or even vacation Bible School depending on the theme. The link is below. Another cute idea for an activity on this day is to play the $25,000 pyramid with your kids. If you are not familiar with this gameshow, it’s about as old as the actual pyramids as evidenced by the prize money being only $25,000. I think the modern version is $100,000 and is hosted by Michael Strahan. Anyway, the concept is the same. You have categories that you try to get your partner to guess in a certain amount of time. There are three or so categories on the bottom row, less on the second and the final one on top, hence the pyramid. You will say things like lipstick, wallet, and phone, trying to get your partner to guess the category “things that you find in a purse.” Make up some categories and see how many your kiddos can guess. I leave the choice of prize money up to you. We always round out our day with some scheduled reading time and of course, recess.
Video: Ancient Egypt
Video: The Great Pyramids
Tuesday: The Pharaohs
On Tuesday, we decided to figure out how the other half lived, ancient Egypt style. We had a lot of fun imitating royalty. There is a link to a short video below about King Tutankhamun and a link to a site with information about Ramses II for kids. The site about Ramses even includes a link at the bottom to a 10-question quiz if you feel like testing your pupils. We had a great time discussing King Tut. The boys really thought it was cool that he became Pharaoh at 9 years old. We learned all about the discovery of his tomb and why that was such a significant find. Then, we played “if you became king as a little boy, what are some things you would do as ruler?” Enjoy the answers that come out of this exercise. We would be eating a lot of ice cream and staying up late in our kingdom. One thing that will help them get in to character is making their own headdress. There is a link below to an article with a simple template to turn your little ones into a ruler. I also created an old-fashioned mad lib to add to our already silly day. Find the link below that you can print off and enjoy filling out during your day of the Pharaohs. We rounded out our day with a movie: Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian.
I must tell you that once you put the headdress on your little one, they may not want to take it off. Even when they do, they may still act like they’re in charge. Speaking from personal experience. We had a blast though, and they still remember their headdresses and can still walk like Egyptians.
Video: King Tut
Ramses Facts: Ramses II
Wednesday: Hieroglyphics
We started off our Wednesday with a review of our Bible story and memory verse from day 1. Then we dove right into learning about hieroglyphics. From the Egyptian alphabet to sounds and symbols, hieroglyphics are fascinating. We learned about papyrus too. After watching the video below, I really feel like I could make paper. Such a simple, yet proven process, all from the reed of the papyrus plant. I also taught the boys that a cartouche was an oval tablet bearing an inscription or the name of a ruler in hieroglyphics. The kids were pharaohs now, after all, so they needed a cartouche. We talked about some symbols in our world today that are very recognizable by most everyone. A heart, the poison symbol or toxic symbol, an officer’s badge, the peace sign and a cross. For reading, I actually introduced a couple of new books that I found on Amazon, links below. One is all about hieroglyphics and even includes a stencil in the back to use as you practice your ancient writing skills. The other is a National Geographic’s kids book on ancient Egypt. It has vibrant pictures and fact boxes on all the pages with information on just about every aspect of the culture. We used our stencil to practice some writing and loved reading our new books. For the cartouche craft, we actually made ours out of salt dough. 1 cup of flour, ½ cup of salt and add ¼ cup of warm water. You can add a bit more water if needed until you get the desired consistency. Roll the dough and then cut out the shape of the cartouche. You can use the link below for the cartouche name tag to view a picture of the overall shape. The name tag link is a good option for using paper to make your cartouche as an alternative. If using the salt dough, help your children carve their name in hieroglyphics into the center. Then, preheat the oven to 250 and bake for 1-2 hours depending on thickness. After baking, you can use acrylic or watercolor paint to add some color. If you would like an idea for another fun movie, I suggest Mr. Peabody & Sherman. It is really cute, and they go back in time to several places, including ancient Egypt.
What are hieroglyphics? Some facts: hieroglyphics facts
How was the first paper made? papyrus
Books: hieroglyphics, National Geographic Kids All About Ancient Egypt
Thursday: The Nile and Mummies
On Thursday, we learned about the Nile River. It was time for a little geography, so we got out our world map and did some discovery. We found the country of Egypt and the Nile. I’ve included links below to a short video about the Nile as well as a link to a site with some interesting facts to focus on about this famous river. In the hot and dry climate of Egypt, the Nile allowed for cities to grow and farming to flourish because of the annual flooding of the river and the irrigation techniques the Egyptians developed. I threw in some information about mummies as well. The boys are familiar with the mummies that make an occasional appearance in a Scooby-Doo episode, or the ones all dressed up for trick-or-treating, but they did not know about the origin of these wrapped figures. Below is a link to a short video for kids about what mummies are and the purpose of the pyramids, which we now know of course, is to serve as tombs for the pharaohs and their families. A very lengthy, fancy, burial ritual. We got out our paper and markers and decided to incorporate some art as well. So far, we had learned a lot about ancient Egypt and since they love to draw, I let the boys choose something and create their own Egyptian art. As a special treat, I made sugar cookies and shaped them like a sarcophagus and then used some Wilton candy eyes and drizzled white icing on them to create an edible mummy. Another cute book I found was Escape This Book: Tombs of Egypt. It’s a combination of a choose your own adventure and doodle book. You can follow along on an adventure and help complete some of the pictures at the same time. Perfect for my little artists.
Video: the Nile
Nile facts: Nile River Facts
What is a mummy? Mummies
Friday: More about Ancient Egypt
We made it to our last day of learning about ancient Egypt and this day was packed full of activities. Specifically, we learned all about some inventions the Egyptians used to tell time and to count. Archeologists discovered an ancient sundial in the Valley of the Kings that dates back to the 13th century B.C. A great learning opportunity to share with the boys how they were able to tell time so long ago. We followed the simple instructions at the link below and created our own. We were able to go outside and check the position of the shadow at different times of the day. A very cool hands-on way to see how the sun was used to keep track of time. Moving on from telling time, we also learned an ancient method of counting. Now, the abacus goes way back to Babylonian times but the Greek historian, Herodotus mentions the use of the abacus in ancient Egypt in his writings, or so I read. There is a link below to an article with instructions for making your own out of popsicle sticks, bamboo skewers, large pony beads and wood glue. Admittedly, I had to google how an abacus works to remind myself of the concept. You and your little ones can practice some math using this homemade, colorful version of an ancient counting tool. In the process, everyone gets to learn even more about this fascinating ancient culture.
If you are really feeling adventurous, you can also undertake making a basbousa cake, which is a sweet, syrup-soaked semolina cake that originated in Egypt. I have a link below from the site https://www.themediterraneandish.com which includes recipes from Suzy who was born in Egypt. Finally, there is a link to a short video that does a good overview of ancient Egypt as a recap for the week.
Recap video: Ancient Egypt
This week was full of education, activities and the perfect amount of silliness as we jumped back in time to see what things were like in ancient Egypt. Whether you are a full-time homeschool instructor looking for some fun ideas to supplement scheduled learning, or a mom of virtual learners needing to fill some time with things other than screens, this post provides a great opportunity to teach your kids about a fascinating time in history. Another interesting detail about this ancient culture that is just for moms is the Egyptian contribution of cosmetic make-up. Egyptian women were known for the dramatic make-up that we see so often depicted in paintings and even movies. They also used creams and oils to fight against wrinkles. While they were very concerned about their personal appearance, the profound eye make-up in particular, was in part to protect the eyes from the sun. Next time you are getting ready for a night out, just remember who you have to thank for that smokey-eye look. The 2022 version of Death on the Nile is a great movie night pick for mom and dad too. 1986 was a pretty iconic year for the entertainment industry. Top Gun, Pretty in Pink, and Ferris Bueller’s Day Off were all released. Iconic songs included “Walk This Way,” “True Colors,” “Everybody Have Fun Tonight,” “If You Leave,” “Bizarre Love Triangle,” “Kiss,” “Fight For Your Right,” and of course, “Walk Like An Egyptian.”
“All the bazaar men by the Nile
They got the money on a bet.
Gold crocodiles (oh whey oh)
They snap their teeth on your cigarette.
Foreign types with the hookah pipes say
(whey oh whey oh ay oh whey oh)
Walk like an Egyptian…”
Thank you for visiting Mockingbirdmom.com!
