Our homeschooling journey: Ancient Egypt-Round Up

Tuesday, November 1, 2011

Ancient Egypt-Round Up

I am a bad blogger lately, our days are much more demanding this year comparing to Kindergarten.

We did have a good Ancient Egypt Unit study though and I would very much like to share it here.

Lesson 1 and Lesson 2 were posted on this blog earlier.

Study Plan:

Geography of Ancient Egypt: locate on a map, talk about Nile river and its importance for a life in Ancient Egypt. Look at artwork from Ancient Egypt.
Talk about everyday life. Importance of flood. Typical occupations, food, clothing.
Talk about pharaohs, name the most important ones. Talk about Pyramids, palaces.
Discuss mummies.
Gods and Goddesses.Myths and legends.
Hieroglyphs
Overview

Books about Ancient Egypt

Crafts

In addition to the crafts we did in our first two lessons we made:

1.Great pyramid. The Pyramid can be built out of cardboard or air-dry clay (in this case it is best to make walls thicker so the pyramid stands, use a nail to scratch marks on the surface. A small treasure can be buried inside during assembly.When the pyramid is dry it can be painted with acrylic or tempera paint and the tip can be decorated with glitter.

2. King Tut's portraits. Look at the picture of King Tut's mask, discuss details of the headpiece and other decorations, discuss and pick colors.

Portrait 1: Paint a Nemes (pharaoh's headpiece) on the newspaper using crayons and watercolors, set aside to dry. Paint Pharaoh's face on a large watercolor paper sheet, paint background, pay attention to the details such as colors and face features. When Nemes is dry cut it out and paste on pharaoh's head. How to draw King Tut tutorial can be found on Art Projects for Kids.

Portrait 2

Create King Tut's portrait out of lego- use a large base board and flat pieces to create a mosaic.

3.Ankh. Make an ankh- symbol of good luck out of air dry modeling clay, paint with acrylic paint when dry.

4. Cartouche. Create a cartouche (nameplate in Ancient Egypt) out of air dry clay or Sculpey, use a nail to scratch out child's name in hieroglyphs (Egypt Hieroglyphic Name Translator), or stamps can be made out of potatoes. Let dry. Paint with acrylic paint and decorate with golden sharpie.