Egypt Uncovered!

A favorite subject for children is Egypt and King Tut.  For many years I held a summer program called Time Travelers.  Each week the children would participate in activities designed around a specific era.  Egypt and dinosaur days were the most popular.  During the class the children would learn through the hands-on activities planned for the era.  As a youth services librarian, I have planned for the 2013 Summer Reading Program (SRP) Dig into Reading, a program called Egypt Unwrapped.  The activities will be based on the tried and true activities used for all those years in my other life.

A  favorite book for making artifacts is by Andrew Haslam called Ancient Egypt from the series Make It Work!  The activities are detailed and more involved than can be done in a one hour program, but can be made ahead of time and used as artifacts.  This is the mask I made based on the one in the book.  I used a craft mask form with some plasticine clay to form the raised eyes, ears and beard.  The whole form was covered with papier mâché.  To make the hood I used a cardboard cut into the shape and then covered again in papier mâché.  Acrylic paint and a steady hand was used to paint in the details. 

 

Another artifact from the book was easier to make, the wall tile.  This was a copy copy decoupaged to a plaster plaque.  I used a box lid and regular plaster of Paris, and then dried.  The color copy was then applied with a decoupage medium.  I found that the ink on the copy wanted to spread, so a small amount of brushing of the medium is needed.  Since it is to represent a 1000 year old artifact, imperfections are fine. 

 

Children love to talk about the "yucky" stuff.  Pretend embalming is a big hit.  Have several stuffed animals (dollar store or second-hand store purchase) that can be "dissected" during the program.  Pre-cut open the stomachs of the animals and remove some of the stuffing.  Add in the "organs," such as bags of sand or bean bags to represent the liver and balloons for the lungs. If you are feeling gooey, add cooked spaghetti or lasagna noodles for the bowels.  If not, long skinny balloons filled with water make great intestines.  I used large plastic cups for canopic jars marked with the proper organ symbol to place the "organs."  The cavity is filled with tissue and gems (shiny buttons, fake gems, even sequins will work).  The whole animal is then wrapped with toilet tissue to mummify the critter.  If you feel adventurous, adding a sprinkle of sand to represent natron.  If you don't want to waste the tissue, you can use regular tissue paper cut into large strips.  

Other Program Ideas

1. Children can make and take a mummy.  Clothespins, the old fashioned kind, with a round head and two prongs are wrapped in plaster craft.  Plaster craft is a strip of gauze pretreated with plaster of Paris.  Adding gems or sequins to the wrapping makes the experience more like a "real" mummy.  
2. There are several coloring sarcophagus sheets available on the internet. 
3. An old-fashioned ice cream spoon (a flat wooden spoon shaped stick) can be covered with crepe paper, two wiggle eyes glued on the spoon, and a pin back makes a great mummy pin to wear home.  
4. A fun game to play is to wrap a teammate in tissue and have a race to see which team can wrap and run their mummy across the room.  
5. Play the song, Walk Like an Egyptian and practice your Egyptian walking.  
6. Dig for artifacts in homemade dough or a store-purchased  dough product.  
7. There are several kits available that look like a pyramid that can be chipped away to uncover an artifact. 
8. Write your name in hieroglyphics or decode a phrase written in hieroglyphics. 
9. Dip a folded coffee filter in tea to dye.  Dry and unfold and glue to both sides of a fan-shaped piece of card stock that has a craft stick glued to the middle of the bottom edge.  Add some raffia to the stick and slip on some pony beads and you have a great papyrus fan. 
10. Snack, dried fruit or fruit snacks.  Adventurous?  Beef jerky.