Egypt

Gavin requested to learn about Egypt.  I love having the kids requesting things to learn about.  They get very excited about the projects and all the books that way.

Most of our project ideas were taken from Confessions of a Homeschooler.  Thanks for the great ideas Erica!

We started at the beginning of the week with this project to 'embalm' apple slices.  The kids suggested different things to put the apples in.  Gavin suggested Vinegar, and was very excited everyday to check on the process.  Salt and water worked the best to keep the color.  Vinegar kept it from shriveling.  Pickled apple anyone?

We practiced making pyramids

turned ourselves into mummies.  

By the way, it is hard to explain mummification to little kids.  I didn't want to gross them out or scare them, so we read books, talked about it, but tried to keep it interesting and fun.

turned rocks into scarabs

and did some hieroglyphic cave-writing

Field Trip

We braved taking the kids to an Egyptian Art Exhibit at the LA County Museum of Art.  We got there early enough to picnic and let kids run around outside.  Megan Warnick designed a 'treasure map on ancient Egyptian Papyrus' that had pictures of items that were at the exhibit for the kids to find.  The Egyptian exhibit was a 'look with your eye's only, and be quiet' section.  The kids did great and loved putting stickers on each item they found from their treasure map.  After the exhibit we went to the kid-friendly room where the kids could paint as many pictures as they wanted.

Books

I'm not a Scooby-Doo fan personally, but Gavin likes it.  So the kids get really excited when I get a Scooby-Doo book.  They also loved the book in the shape of a pyramid, because it was something different.

Also, the pictures in the Karnak book were beautiful.