The Colorado Adventure

Walk like an Egyptian

12 Nov 2010 1 Comment

by liese4 in co-ops, HS group, links

Today was that co-op that I forgot about last week, yeah a bit much on my plate. But, I did remember and got the books I needed and the craft supplies ready. I had 17 kids and I set up stations to do the crafts standing up, we read the books while sitting on the ground. If I have more than 10 kids I like to make them stand up at the tables, chairs get in the way with that many.

So, we started with this book.

I read while the kids made Egyptian collars. I had some symbols out for them to get an inspiration.

I punched holes and added yarn and we were ready to continue on. Next we read this book.

It’s cool because on each page they take a sentence and turn it into hieroglyphics.

We saw cartouche names and then went over to the table to make our own. I used ice cream spoons and jumbo popsicle sticks and I had a hieroglyph cheat sheet on the table.

Once that was done we grabbed our Egypt maps and a marker. We saw examples of step, bent and regular pyramids from this website. We looked at pictures of the Sphinx, pyramids and temples in this book.

Then it was time to play Nile crocodile. I had 2 chairs at either end of the room, this was the Nile. We started with 1 croc and the other kids ran from side to side. If they got caught they stayed in the Nile and tried to catch the others. Eventually Grace was the only one remaining. The game helped get the wiggles out so we could sit back down and read this book.

The pictures are gorgeous, we only read half of the book. We read about Seti and his funeral preparations and afterlife. Then the kids decoded 3 sticks of hieroglyphics that said, ‘the mummy is in the pyramid’. Did I mention that I built a pyramid out of cubes that the library has? And that I hid my newspaper/linen mummy in the bottom? Here he is before the tomb robbers attacked.

My pic of Grace holding it didn’t come out, too bad. The kids unwrapped it and took out the gold necklaces and brackets and then wrapped themselves up in the linen and walked around playing mummy tag (mummies don’t run that fast.)

It was super easy to make; ball up newspaper into a body shape and roll another ball for the head. Wrap with tape until you get a mummy shape and then wrap in torn linen strips, viola!

The last thing we did was make toothpick marshmallow pyramids. My marshmallows kind of melted so they weren’t great.

But, the basic pyramid shapes were there. I read this book while the kids worked.

It is a very gross book, they loved it! Then the kids built another pyramid and walked around mummy like saying, ‘Imhotep, Imhotep!’ (You know, like from the Mummy movie.)

Then it was time to clean up and gather crafts to go home.

Go here to find the British museum’s Egypt site. It has exploring, challenges and stories. Go here to make you own cartouche. And go here to find a plethora of Egypt stuff.