Showing posts sorted by relevance for query ancient egypt. Sort by date Show all posts
Showing posts sorted by relevance for query ancient egypt. Sort by date Show all posts

Monday, November 14, 2011

Ancient Egypt at the Indianapolis Children's Museum

As if a day of play there isn't educational enough (it IS!), the girls and I occasionally sign up for the homeschool classes offered monthly at the Children's Museum of Indianapolis. I've found that these classes work best for us when they're covering a subject that's already in the girls' areas of interest, so that they have some context in which  they can place all of the information that they're cramming in, and all of the projects that they're working on in that short hour and a half.

Fortunately, this recent class that we attended on Ancient Egypt is right in my girls' backyard, academically speaking. They LOVE Ancient Egypt:

There are three really nice things that generally occur in homeschool classes:

1) The kids are of all different ages, and their parents are with them, and it always seems to be a really good mix, so that everyone has a lot of fun with each other.
2) The kids pretty much all want to be there, and all participate eagerly.
3) No matter the subject of the class, at least some of the kids there have obsessively, passionately studied that subject, and so there's always someone able to answer a question.

In this Ancient Egypt class, I happen to have one of the kids who's obsessively studied the subject, bringing to life a fourth pleasure in homeschool classes:

4) You get to watch your kid raise her hand and speak up with answers. Seriously, how cool is that? I imagine that kids are doing that all day long in institutional schools, but on the occasions when my kids are in that particular situation, I'm generally nearby, watching and beaming with pride and reporting their triumphs back to Matt in the evenings.

In the laboratory, the kids got to help the scientist with the dummy mummy. When the scientist was discussing the removal of the organs, Willow shouted out, "But not the heart!" and cackled at her joke, along with a bunch of other little Ancient Egypt obsessives. She was fine with helping to remove the liver, though:

Sydney helped take out the intestines:

While they were in the lab, the kids all started their own experiment:

1) You take four pieces of apple, and put each piece into a little lidded cup.
2) Leave one apple as the control, so all you do is put the lid on that one.
3) In each of the other containers, cover the apple completely with one of three substances available to the Ancient Egyptians--salt, sand, and natron (our natron did not come from the banks of the Nile, but was made in the museum's laboratory):

Check the apples daily, and unlid them in a week to see which substance (if any) preserves the apple the best. Remember that we're not concerned with DRYING the apple, necessarily, but with PRESERVING it, since preservation was the true goal of the Ancient Egyptians.

We also learned about the amulets that the Ancient Egyptians made, particularly the process that they used. Basically, if an Ancient Egyptian carved a really super amulet, they'd press that amulet into clay to make a mold of it, which we did. Then whenever they wanted a copy of that amulet, they'd press more clay into the hardened mold, which we also did:

We got to take our amulets AND our amulet molds home so that when the clay hardens, we can use them to make even more copies of authentic Ancient Egyptian amulets.

We discussed hieroglyphics, specifically cartouches. We took a tour of the museum's exhibit on King Seti I, and found and translated his cartouches (two, of course, since a pharaoh has a given name and a throne name).  The girls used a hierogplyphics alphabet to create cartouches of their names--

--and then they carved their cartouches into clay:


Recently, one of our relatives (after listening patiently to the girls describe their class, and inspecting their salt dough maps of Ancient Egypt and their other work that only those obsessive and passionate about a subject of study can produce), told me that at the school where she works, children study Ancient Egypt in the sixth grade. This brings me to another pleasure, not in homeschooling classes, per se, but more in regards to homeschooling as a whole, for us:

We can learn as and when we choose. Willow and Sydney don't have to wait until the sixth grade to study Ancient Egypt for their school. They don't have to wait until after school and the weekends to study Ancient Egypt in their "free time," while doing a serious of interesting and uninteresting things at school for the greater part of each weekday. When they study Ancient Egypt, they can study as they wish, reading about gods and figuring out whose canopic jar is whose and building pyramids and relief maps and exploring the saga of Moses--they don't have to only do the projects that a teacher asks, in the time that is allowed for the project, producing something that's not as special on account of everyone else is doing the exact same project at the exact same time.

And yes, they can NOT learn something when and as they choose. I don't give a flip that Willow can't tie her shoelaces or tell time. She CAN tell you exactly how the Nile's flood process works, and why the Nile delta is named as such, and which is Lower and which Upper Egypt.

And after she does that, she can take you to ride the vintage carousel three times in a row, because her class just took place at the Children's Museum!

Tuesday, August 29, 2017

History of Fashion: Wear the Eye Makeup of Ancient Egypt

In our History of Fashion study so far, Syd and I have:

worked with leather, embellished shells, and woven on a loom in Prehistory.

And now it's time to travel to Ancient Egypt!

Our spine for this study is The Complete Book of Fashion History, which is already well-thumbed by everyone in the family. For this unit, Syd and I re-read the pages for Ancient Egypt, and while there are loads of cross-curricular activities that you could do here--you could use the Story of the World chapters and activity book resources for Ancient Egypt, read biographies of Cleopatra and Nefertiti, study mummification, make a pharoah's costume or models of their elaborate jewelry--we've actually spent a LOT of time on Ancient Egypt over the years, so I zoomed in on the one thing that we haven't played around with yet: their eye makeup.

Eye makeup was a big deal for the Ancient Egyptians, and not just for cosmetic reasons. Just like football players do now, putting on dark eyeliner reduced glare on the eyes of the Ancient Egyptians in the bright sunlight, and the fact that the eye makeup contained lead, while it was terrible for their long-term health, did protect them from loads of eye diseases and infections.

Why would Ancient Egyptians get so many eye infections, you ask? It's because of all that freaking sand! It got everywhere, including in their eyes and into all of their food. Ancient Egyptians also had terrible teeth, because they ate so much sand that got into their meals that it wore down the enamel on their teeth.

Syd and I watched this video that shows images of Ancient Egyptian artwork, focusing on their eyes to provide the evidence that yes, indeed, dark eye makeup was a thing (at least on the artwork!)--



--and then we watched this video of a makeup artist recreating the look on her own eyes:



And then Syd tried it for herself!

Eyes open.

Eyes closed!
This was a fun activity for Syd, and inspired a whole week's worth of makeup play. It has never occurred to me for a single moment to ever want to put on even a smidge of makeup, but honestly, looking at Syd sitting across the table from me at 10 in the morning, sulking over finding the percent of difference between two numbers... I think she's wearing a little makeup right now, actually.

Here are some other ways that we've studied Ancient Egypt over the years:


Apparently, we like mapmaking!

Sunday, January 6, 2013

Story of the World Chapter Two Timeline Review

Our Story of the World Study looks mostly like this:
  1. Week One: Listen to our current chapter on audiobook. Answer the quiz questions and review all prior quiz questions. Add the current quiz questions to the girls' list of material to practice daily that week.
  2. Week Two: Listen again to our current chapter on audiobook. Complete the map work from the Story of the World Activity Book. Compare the completed map to our other geography references--Google Earth, our Montessori puzzle maps, our family atlas, etc.
  3. Week Three: Read a picture book or watch a documentary related to our current study. Add new timeline cards to our materials, and glue them to our big basement timeline. Order all the timeline cards covered so far, and add ordering the timeline cards to the girls' list of material to practice daily that week.
  4. Weeks Four and Beyond: Read more picture books, watch more documentaries, and complete other unit-based hands-on studies and related memory work until at least one of the kids feels ready to move on.
I always think it's exciting to add new material to our big basement timeline: 


It's still not a project that the girls ever show a lot of interest in outside of the school-time study that we do with it (although they do always perk up when I suggest putting something that they're otherwise interested in, some book or myth, on the timeline), but it makes me, personally, very happy to have it, and I think that one of these days they'll grow into it and get excited about it and take ownership of it.

Since we come back to Egypt again in Chapter 4, for Chapter 2 we'll be doing projects that deal specifically with the geography and mythology of Ancient Egypt. For books, I've checked out every single story about Egyptian gods and goddesses from our public library (yes, I AM that obnoxious!), and my hope is to have the girls record some sort of family tree/genealogy for each figure, as well as a summary of some of their stories. I'm not yet sure how this will work--a homemade book with a page for each figure and brief summaries, as well as video recordings of the girls re-telling their stories, perhaps?

Other projects that are in the running, as long as interest holds out:
Okay, that's a crazy amount of projects, but it's okay, because we only have to do the fun ones.

And two chapters later, we can start mummifying things!

Friday, January 18, 2013

Our Giant Cookie Map of Egypt


Chapter two of Story of the World discusses the geography of Ancient Egypt, as well as its gods and goddesses, so I wanted to do another map project, but we did salt dough maps of Egypt in 2011, and paper maps as part of The Story of the World Activity Book for chapter two just a couple of weeks ago.

We got into the habit of turning things into giant cookies way back with the Giant Cookie Solar System of 2010, and we've discovered, since then, that many, many, many things make EXCELLENT giant cookies.

Egypt, for instance? Turns out that it makes an EXCELLENT giant cookie.

We used this cut-out sugar cookie recipe for our dough, although I'll warn you that it needs to be more exact than the recipes that I usually use for kid cooking are. Syd accidentally poured in 1 cup of milk instead of 1/4 cup, and I futzed around to try to save the recipe any other way than quadrupling it, but in the end we actually had to dump it out and re-make it. Normally, I only give the kids recipes that are very forgiving for that exact reason, but this recipe DOES result in a great cut-out cookie, so there you go.

For the template, I printed this 2x2 Egypt map, which, when assembled and cut out, was the perfect size:

We printed and cut out the one-page map first, but it was way too small for a shared project, so I told the girls that if there was enough dough leftover, they could each make their own personal Egypt cookie and decorate it silly.

The dough, rolled out--

--and cut to shape with an x-acto knife--

--looks like this!

It's very important to roll it out and cut it over parchment paper; otherwise, I don't know how on earth you'd get the damn thing on the pan.

Obviously, you're never going to be able to figure out the baking time for this beforehand. I just keep an eye out, and even then there was no way not to burn the area of Egypt east of the Red Sea inlet, but otherwise the cookie was perfect about 20 minutes in. 

Decorating the cookie was a family affair, with the adults researching on computer and ipad, and the kids, with their messy fingers, calling out monuments to be researched, modeling them out of marzipan (other edible play dough would also work), icing, and M&Ms, and placing them on the map:
checking her work on Google Earth as she places the Nile

Setting M&Ms to follow the course of the Nile
Here's the finished masterpiece!

The Nile Delta is done in green icing and green M&Ms; modeled in marzipan are the Sphinx and the larger three pyramids of Giza (the three small ones are made from M&Ms alone):



The bent pyramid, the Valley of Kings, and the Tomb of Ramses II are also modeled in marzipan; modeled in marzipan and red M&Ms is the red pyramid:

And Syd made a valiant attempt to write "UPPER" in M&Ms and icing to label Upper Egypt.

 The great geographers are very proud of their work:

They're quite fond of how it tastes, as well:

I tidied away the excess dough, and on another day, the girls were ready and willing to make their own personal "silly Egypts":



I might personally think that they look a little less appetizing than the carefully constructed extra-large version-- 

--but the girls reported that they tasted just as yummy.

Friday, August 19, 2011

Montessori Mapwork, Now Poster-Sized!

How do you make a good thing better?

Supersize it!

The girls enjoy doing Montessori mapwork projects regularly, but in order to get a little more context into the activity, I upgraded the size of our canvas:

Each kid still colors a map of her chosen area, but then I give her a poster-sized sheet of Strathmore drawing paper and a glue stick, and she gets to glue her map onto the poster, and then add on other images around it to provide context. Some of the images, like the Ancient Egypt labels that Willow's placing onto her mapwork of Egypt, are from printables that I've collected online here and there (remind me someday to show you my organized library of homeschool printables, stored on my external hard drive), other images are from my stash of cutter texts--old National Geographics, out-dated travel guidebooks, etc.--and some images the kiddo draws for herself, such as the Great Pyramid of Khufu that Will is putting onto her poster, sand brick by painstaking sand brick:

I also show the girls where their chosen area is on our globe, and I do expect them to remember it (Will more so than Sydney, obviously), and when the girls have finished their posters, we always hang them up in a prominent position in the living room for a while:


Will actually references her Egypt poster occasionally, since Ancient Egypt is one of her current areas of interest and so she's always playing some online game or other (always gotten to from my Little Pumpkinbear Links) in which she needs to know the sons of Horus or what was contained in which coptic jar or whatever. Even Syd, who can't yet pick out any of her locations on the globe independently, can tell you all kinds of things about which animals live in Africa, and Indiana, and South America.

So there you go.

Thursday, September 7, 2017

History of Fashion: How to Put on a Doric Chiton in Ancient Greece

In our History of Fashion study, Syd and I have:

worked with leather, embellished shells, and woven on a loom in Prehistory.
put on the eye makeup of Ancient Egypt.

and now here we are in Ancient Greece!

We've done a LOT of studying on the subject of Ancient Greece, including dressing the part--doesn't Syd make an adorable Spartan?


--so we didn't spend a lot of time on this particular unit in the study. Syd read the chapter on Ancient Greece in The Complete Book of Fashion History, found a rectangle of fabric (it just happened to be the My Little Pony blanket that I gave her for Christmas last year), and I helped her assemble her chiton.

It's really very simple. The fabric gets wrapped under one armpit, and the edges are pinned at the opposite shoulder--don't pin them right at the corners, which will make the neckline gape, but at a comfortable spot for a nice boatneck. Pin up the other side at the shoulder, as well, and there you have your chiton!



We have neither made the decorative overfold nor added the belt--if your fabric is too wide, either or both of those will take care of the excess, but that My Little Pony blanket was made to be this kid's chiton!



For extra embellishment, the clips that hold the fabric at the shoulders can also be fancy. And if you were male, your chiton could be knee-length.

Here are some more hands-on projects for studying Ancient Greece:

P.S. If you like hands-on homeschooling projects, check out my Craft Knife Facebook page, where I share all the awesome homeschooling and hands-on resources that I come across.

Friday, January 17, 2014

Homeschool History: Make a Sarcophagus

Creating a model sarcophagus is an excellent enrichment activity to add to an Ancient Egypt study, and it fits in well with chapter four of The Story of the World: Ancient Times, the chapter on Ancient Egypt that includes information about mummies and pyramids.

I found little cardboard... pencil boxes?... on clearance one day in one of the big box arts/crafts stores that I frequent as little as possible due to my tendency to buy things on clearance that I don't need and probably won't use for years, and kept them on a shelf in the study/studio for, yes, years before realizing that they were the perfect material for this craft. Can a time lag of three years still be described as serendipity?

Any little box that's longer than it is wide will work for this craft, however, whether it's cardboard or wooden--I don't think plastic would work well, but you can make your own cardboard box that's the exact size that you want. For a very miniature sarcophagus, you could even make a matchbox work, and that would be super cute!

Before the kids began their own sarcophogi, we researched a bit and did a Google Image search in order to study examples. Based on that, we talked about having a facial portrait on the sarcophagus, including decorative elements and patterns, drawing symbols or representations of the meaningful gods, and recording important scenes from their lives. We also talked about the importance of the sarcophagus being their best work, and thoughtful, and including a lot of details and creative embellishments. I introduced the idea that artists often create sketches or rough drafts of their work before they begin the piece itself, and to that end I gave them these sarcophagus design sheets and asked them to create a draft of their piece first. Will fussed at this, of course, because she hadn't focused yet and thus didn't feel invested in the project, and actually tried to scribble her sarcophagus out as fast as possible on the cardboard box, but I erased her work, done quickly and shabbily to try to make a point, and required her to do her design sheet first. 

While working on her design sheet, she finally focused and found herself invested in her work, and worked hard and happily until she finished:
Seriously, though--school in Cinderella pajamas? That kid doesn't understand how good she's got it.

The kids copied their designs onto the cardboard sarcophogi in pencil--I reminded them to be mindful of the scale, but that's a concept we clearly need to keep working on, since both of their drawings ended up pretty small--colored them with Prismacolor and Sharpie markers, and, since their designs left extra room, I had them each research and write the cartouche for their names on the boxes, as well:

I actually think that I will have the kids use these sarcophagi as pencil boxes, and if this alone serves to stop their bickering over who stole whose pencil, then it will be three bucks well spent. This does bring to mind, though, my favorite thing to do with a kid's finished project--use it! For us, at least, a project used or displayed is a project that brings greater overall enjoyment, and a project that eventually gets worn out or messed up in some way, and therefore a project that eventually gets thrown away, guilt-free. Guilt-free de-acquisition? YAY!!!

Possible extension activities for this project:
  • Sarcophogi were sometimes decorated on the inside, as well (in the Rosicrucian Museum in San Jose, we saw a sarcophogus made by a coffin maker for his daughter. On the inside, he'd written all the information from The Book of the Dead that his daughter would need for her journey--a beautiful relic of his last act of service to his beloved child), so you could also decorate the inside of your sarcophogus, perhaps even with hieroglyphics.
  • You could create a mummy to live inside the sarcophogus. Some homeschoolers have symbolically mummified Barbie, and I don't think that's such a bad fate for her.
  • A matchbox sarcophagus could be entombed inside a model pyramid.
This project is shared with the After School Link Party over at Relentlessly Fun, Deceptively Educational.

Friday, September 30, 2011

Painting the Salt Dough Maps of Egypt

The Nile is blue, and runs to the Delta and then into the Mediterranean (which they finally remembered!):


Willow decided that the Nile is in flood during the time of her map, so that's more blue:

Sydney is representing the rest of Egypt as one great, sandy beach:

Will has a reputation for grousing a bit whenever I want her to begin a new project (or brush her teeth, or leave the house, or do anything, really), primarily because she never wants to stop whatever it is that she's currently engrossed in. However, she also has a reputation for then becoming completely engrossed in that new project, and thus enjoying it, too, immensely.

Therefore, although there was a fit of gripes when I asked her to come over and paint her map, since Syd was already painting hers and so all the paints were already out and Usborne Quicklinks would still be there when she'd finished--a fit of gripes, I tell you--Willow's map has not just land and water painted, but also the Nile flood plain, representations of the areas ruled by the Red Crown and the White Crown of Egypt, the white limestone covering the pyramids, and the gold capstones:

And no, we're still not finished! Currently, the girls are having a fabulous time putting together a set of little lapbook minit books about Ancient Egypt, and they don't know it yet, but my papyrus order just arrived, so there are many more good times ahead, indeed.

Saturday, December 7, 2013

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.