Egyptian Unit Study

So, we have started with Egypt (a little bit of a skip-ahead in the Unit), for several reasons.  First of all, what's not to love about Egypt?  There is just so much to work with, from boats to pyramids to mummies.  There are so many resources about it, I've had to really narrow down the books and documentaries we are using.  Also, there was a large exhibit of Egyptian artifacts at our local museum - FIELD TRIP!

PBS's Egypt's Golden Empire series and website, the British Museum's Ancient Egypt site and the National Museum's of Scotland kids' site together gave us more lesson plans, information, pictures and interactive activities than we could get to.  The Boys have made a virtual mummy (which required some in-depth knowledge of mummification techniques), a real mummy mask, a mini sarcophagus with mummy.  We have discussed in depth the chaotic reign of Akhenaten and the brief reign of Tutenkhamun.  They have written in hieroglyphics, played Senet and built a pyramid.

Here's the mummy mask in progress.  We decided that plaster casts are a great project and they've already asked if they can do a mask from each civilization we study.

Here, they are starting on their folder books.  I was a little surprised at how well they took to the idea (even though it is a homeschooling staple).  They are having a great time putting them together.  I'll post pictures when they are complete.  Here they are starting with a map of Ancient Egypt.

Another very popular activity - bean bag tossing (see previous post about the Bal-A Vis-X program).  They are tossing bean bags while I read aloud from the Red Pyramid by Rick Riordian.

The Red Pyramid has been a great tie-in for reading.  We all really enjoyed the Percy Jackson books and this has been just as exciting.  It's also filled with references to Ancient Egyptian Gods.  The Boys are constantly jumping on the references as I read and filling in the details from what we have learned.  We're almost finished with our Unit - I'll post the final pictures of all the projects soon.