Egypt Unit: Hieroglyphics...

We finished our Pacific Isles unit, and I asked the girls "What next?"  They decided on Egypt.  I had to really search to find things about the South Pacific (that wasn't just only about Hawaii), but with Egypt I'm having the opposite problem!  So much to do...

I went to the libraries and got all the books, I did the pinterest thing, and I came up with a list of stuff the girls should be aware of.  Here it is:
     -The Nile
     -Cairo
     -Aswan
     -The Sahara
     -Suez Canal
     -story of Joseph
     -story of Moses
     -pharoahs
     -mummies
     -pyramids
     -papyrus
     -hieroglyphics
          -ankh
          -eye of Horus
     -sarcophogus
     -canopic jars
     -obelisk
     -senet
     -gods and goddesses
     -camels, hippos, and crocodiles

Some of these we will mention, some we will read about and a very few we will do pinteresty stuff about.  I was helped with this list by this page of definition cards, which will be good for a matching game too.

Luckily, I was introduced to the Good and Beautiful curriculum here.  Their first year history book here has an amazing section on ancient Egypt.  They have some really wonderful audio stories that we listened to, then did the corresponding lessons.  The lessons are just my style, meaning you open the book and read together, then there are some worksheets for the kids.  While they listened I gave them bowls of dates, dried figs, and dried apricots.  The book said melons and pomegranates too, but I didn't have any.

We read this book:


which, as you would expect from Tomie dePaola, is wonderful.  We also read the sequel, Bill and Pete to the Rescue, also good, although it takes place in New Orleans.  We need to find the first book, but it's not at our libraries...

This book was a really good overview of the country.  We made copies of the Egyptian flag out of scrap paper while looking at it.










Here is Miss A's:














And here is Miss M's:














We looked through these and talked about some of the photos.






Yesterday's Good and Beautiful (g&b hereafter) lesson had them read an article about hieroglyphics and the Rosetta Stone, then do a worksheet decoding the characters.  Today they came up with the idea to write on rocks, which we always have lying around in great supply, much to my husband's (and our pcs weight limit's) dismay...

Also, if you're looking to become fluent, we got this book from the lib:

Wow.  If I were teaching a doctorate course instead of 2nd and 4th grades, this would be great.  But again, it's fun to look at all the pretty pictures.  They would be good for tracing too.

We're supposed to make cartouches later, like these

from my pinterest board.  But... clay is messy, and they already did a hieroglyph craft, right?