California Field Trip #3: The Rosicrucian Egyptian Museum in San Jose

It took a trip to California to really bring our study of Ancient Egypt to life. The Rosicrucian Egyptian Museum, right in San Jose, boasts an absolutely epic collection of Egyptian artifacts, and that's where we and the girls' grandpa spent one very happy morning:

I bought the girls these little "passports" that had questions and activities for the various exhibits, and stamps to collect in all the galleries. It was just the thing to keep the younger kid occupied and engaged--

--while the older kid and I shared an audio tour (it's a free download!):

Isis with Osiris' coffin, just like in The Story of the World!

Matt reckons that their Egyptian tomb recreation is an even more elaborate version of the one in the Children's Museum of Indianapolis--there aren't that many pristinely-preserved tombs to recreate, you know:

Look--cuneiform! We've read about it, we've copied it, we've downloaded images of it and pasted them on our timeline, but this is the first time that we've seen it in real life:

And as a counterpoint... look--papyrus!!!

California sunshine? It's verra bright.

giant Senet

 The girls gained a ton of valuable context to our studies here, and I got some more great ideas and great inspiration:

Model pyramids! Kid-made Senet games! Home-sewn Egyptian costumes! Mythology skits!

I'm more sure than ever that we will NEVER move beyond Ancient Egypt in our history studies, sigh.