Ancient Egypt

We spend a lot of time on science, so I wanted to start branching out to other subjects, such as history. For our first historical topic, we decided to go with ancient Egypt. It is a subject that has always fascinated me, ever since I was a little kid. Evie is intrigued by mummies, so she was totally on board with this decision (though really, she's on board with every topic we try). She had encountered mummies in Scooby Doo cartoons and in books around Halloween time. Also, a favorite book of ours, Skippyjon Jones In Mummy Trouble, features ancient Egypt. We've read this book more times than I can count, and Evie will randomly quote it from time to time. I had a lot of ideas for activities for this topic. Evie is really enjoying sitting on the couch while I read to her from chapter books, so I knew that would take up a good chunk of time. 

The chapter book that we chose was The Magic Tree House: Mummies in the Morning. We also read the nonfiction companion, Magic Tree House Fact Tracker: Mummies and Pyramids. Evie loves the Magic Tree House books almost as much as she loves the Magic School Bus. There were only a few parts that I skimmed over while reading, due to her age, such as the removal of a mummy's brain through its nose. This is an interesting fact, but it can wait until she is older!

Books

• Skippyjon Jones in Mummy Trouble by Judy Schachner 
• The Magic Tree House: Mummies in the morning by Mary Pope Osborne
• Magic Tree House Fact Tracker: Mummies and Pyramids by Will Osborne and Mary Pope Osborne
• Ms Frizzle's Adventures in Ancient Egypt by Joanna Cole
• National Geographic Readers: Pyramids by Laura Marsh
• The Great Wonder by Annabelle Howard
• Make History: Ancient Egypt by Nancy Fister and Charlene Olexiewicz
• DK Eyewitness: Ancient Egypt by George Hart
• Hieroglyphs from A to Z by Peter Manuelian

Activities

• Craft: Egyptian Paddle Doll. While flipping through Make History: Ancient Egypt, which is a craft book, we found a page about Egyptian paddle dolls. We had seen one of these in the Eyewitness book, and decided to make one. Traditionally, a paddle doll would have been made of wood, and had mud beads for hair. Also, I'm fairly certain that they did not have googly eyes. We took some artistic license. We didn't have the materials called for in the craft book, so we improvised. Materials: empty cereal box, black yarn, googly eye stickers, plastic beads, scissors, markers. I eyeballed the basic shape of the paddle doll on the cereal box, then cut it out. I punched a few holes in the top of the head, and strung the black yarn through and tied it for hair. Evie chose beads to put in the hair, and I helped her tie them in. Then we used some markers to decorate the doll. Iv drew a few patterns on for her. She insisted that her doll have a blue face. I gave her googly eye stickers to stick on. We also found a rhinestone that was flat on one side, and glued it onto the doll's drawn necklace. 

• Pretend Play: Be a mummy! Materials: toilet paper or roll of burlap. I was going to use toilet paper, but at the last minute, I found a roll of burlap in my craft room, and decided to use that instead. I wrapped Evie up like a mummy, and helped her to lay down. Then I described how mummies were often buried with a few prize possessions. I laid her paddle doll and a strand of beads over her. Then I mentioned how sometimes they mummified their pets as well, and put a toy cat on her. Afterwards, I loosened her wrappings so that she could walk around as a mummy. 

• Craft: Egyptian necklace. I used more cardboard from the cereal box to cut out a collar-shaped necklace like in the pictures of the pharaohs. I punched a hole in each end, and threaded some leather string through. Then we glued popsicle sticks in a striped pattern, and used sparkly strip stickers in between. We glued on some stones, then let it set out to dry. Later, Evie put it on and pretended to be Queen Hutepi from the Magic Tree House book. 
• Art: We used the stencils in the Hieroglyphs from A to Z book to figure out how to write Evie and Mom. Then we used the same method you would for leaf rubbings to make cartouches. There is no "V" in hieroglyphics, so it was suggested that we substitute in the letter "F." While this was a fun book, my only problem was that you could only spell out English words with the symbols. It doesn't say anything about what the words were in Egyptian. So while it was good for writing out our names, it wouldn't be much use beyond that, except perhaps to provide a really good code for secret mail.