Ancient Egypt

I think my kids have really enjoyed and learned even more than I could of imagined during our study of Egypt. The other day ago I walked into the classroom and both kids had the tangram blocks out and had them erected up like a triangle. I had no idea what they were doing. When I asked, Ann said, "mom these are all pyramids, over here is the Valley of the kings and this here is the pyramids at Giza with the queens pyramids. Can't you tell Mom? It made me smile. Sometimes I wonder how much they really pay attention. It is so refreshing when something like this happens. As a mom who educates her children it's moments like these that you know that all the hard work is paying off. I wish I would have had my camera ready. David decided to do a demolition to the site- much to Ann's dismay.

Pyramids lapbook

This is our latest lapbook we have been working on. It's a mini-lapbook. This lapbook is from Handle on the Arts. It focus on just the pyramids. It is part of the activities for Hands on History Core 1 that has been created just for Sonlight Core 1. It has lots of different hands on activities that the kids are loving.

We are studying Egypt with the Sonlight curriculum Introduction to World History Core 1 and also in Mystery of History- Creation to the Resurrection. The kids are really enjoying learning about Egypt. Tomorrow we are going to the museum of World Treasures. They are excited to see some real things from Egypt. I have never been to the museum out here. I hope that they have lots of artifacts from Egypt.

Our heavenly home

I love listening to my children's conversation with each other. After a long afternoon of running errands David said, "Ann look we are almost home! I am so happy, at last we can just be home and play all night." Ann, was very serious and said, "this is not our real home. You see this is just a temporary home. The real home is in heaven with Jesus. He gave us this home to live in now. In heaven it will be no more tears, hurts and the place will be sparkled clean and shiny like mom's ring and Jesus will take care of us." David yelled, "that means I will not have to pick up my toys no more because, Jesus will clean it all up!"

I had to laugh out loud! You got to love it. Only from the mouth of a child can that sound so adorable. I love the fact that Ann recognizes that our home is going to be with the Lord some day and that she is teaching her brother some of the things that she has learned. So, I told David when we came inside that everything that we own is going to stay here and toys are not going to be something we are going to be to concerned about. He was not so keen on that idea.

David is writing his name

David is pretty proud showing off his name. This is his first time freestyle on a sheet of paper. He has done some freestyle letters of sorts for awhile. He has been tracing his name on a sheet that I laminated. I used construction paper with two sentence strips. The top strip I wrote his name and the bottom strip is blank. He traces it and then writes in on the bottom strip. I love my laminator and it has been one of the best investments that I have made. Then again I have to laminate just about everything with Ann. I think I will start having David more involved with the wood pieces for Handwriting Without Tears, he has pretty good motor skills and he should pick it up real fast. Ann is still doing so good with her handwriting. It is not as much of a struggle for her.
David wanted me to post his picture with his handwriting-so here it is David. Mommy is so proud of you!

What is an archaeologist lapbook

We are loving the books this year with the Sonlight Introduction to World History Core 1. As soon as I seen the book Archaeologists dig for clues I knew I had to do a lapbook. We also checked out the Kids dig reed and followed them along an adventure.

We did an excavation dig on paper. I made squares and in each square I had pictures of varies artifacts and Ann had to keep a record of each item on her clip board. She first had to label the square, count the items and then write a description of the artifacts on her clipboard. We did a lot of the things that they did in the book. We talked about what is an archaeologist and what they do. We also talked about what kind of things someone would find in our trash. Ann thought that part was neat and she had some interesting observation about our family. We counted items in our backpack and made sure we had all our supplies needed to go out in the field.

Some of the things that they didn't talk about which we touched on included what the bible says about the age of the earth. Talked about the differences between an paleontologist and an Egyptologists. Then we found out which president was an amateur archaeologist. Do you know? Hint-it was our third president.

We measured artifacts and added some famous archaeologist. I added some that had biblical discoveries. I had to include the discovery of Kings Tut's tomb.

We had fun with this book. In a few weeks we are going to dig in the dirt and unearth our own artifacts.

Learning the basics

This is not a new concept for the little ones learning their letters, numbers and other skills. There are a lot of different programs out on the web and even books you can buy. This is just my version of how I am teaching David and Sierra. I also used this concept with Ann, it just was not as well organized. With her we just kinda picked something for that week and went from there. I had nothing hung up as a visual for her to see all week. With David and Sierra we will also have coloring sheets and activities that go along with that week. I am also doing some Rod and Staff workbooks with them. Everything came from the dollar store, except the flashcards which I already had. I really like the pockets for the cards. They are the perfect size for the flashcards and David likes to pull them out throughout the day and look at them. So, it makes many teaching moments. Which with David I need many because, he doesn't want to sit for long.

Egyptian Barbie Mummies

Barbie goes into the afterlife after being mummified. We had three Queens. We had no recently deceased Ken or GI Joe to use as a Pharaoh. Good thing for them.

We are using Mystery of History from Creation to Resurrection. They recommended making a mummy out of a toilet paper roll. Well, that sounded boring to me. After searching the internet for other ideas. I found how to mummify a chicken, mouse, rat, and even an apple. If you are more realistic and not afraid to use an animal-go for it! One site used clay and made a shape of a person and wrapping it up like a mummy. That is how Barbie came to me. I didn’t want to mess with a dead animal . Shaping clay to look like a person is another idea on the web- I don't think Ann would get it. I will save the animals for biology in a few years. Around a month ago I ran across this homeschool blogger while looking at her lapbooks. She had also mummified a Barbie. So, I am glad to see that I am not that crazy and other homeschool moms think like me!
We also read this book“ You wouldn’t want to be an Egyptian mummy! Disgusting things you’d rather not know.” It made us laugh out loud. It explained the mummification process with a lot of humor. Like the three different mummification process according to what you can afford and someone trying to shove the intestines in the canopic jar. Lots of crazy stuff like that. I highly recommend it. Thanks, Desiree for showing me your book. I couldn’t resist and had to have my own copy.

Making the incision to remove the organs. Ann has a Barbie knife. I used a red permanent marker for the cut.

The kid's are washing the body with natron (table salt) mixed in water. Afterwards we let them dry out for 40 days (40 seconds) We had to wash it off afterwards.
We actually did this first before the incision. But, for some reason I can't move the picture around

Ann is pulling the intestines out of the incision which we used brown yarn.

We are now pretending to remove the brain through the nose and discarding it afterwards

The white beads are the pretend onions for the false eyes. Prince Philip is the priest wearing the Anubis mask to over see the embalming process. Mixing up the flour solution. We used 1 yard of muslin cloth for 3 Barbies. The flour mixture was 1 part flour to around 3 parts water. It was thinner than pancake batter. I would say the strips are around 1 inch width.

What a mess! I had to scrub the kids and myself. I smelled like dough all day and I'm still pulling it out of all of our nails!

The Canopic jar's for the organ storage .

Here is an overview of what we did-

1.The Queens first had to be taken to the ibu “tent of purification” We had to put the names of Barbie on each one by labeling the bodies with wooden labels so we wouldn’t mix up the bodies. (paper labels) First we had to come up with names. Ann named her Queen Ann, David named his Queen Girly dog(don‘t ask I have no idea where that name came from), and Sierra Queen is Elizabeth.
2. We used Natron in water (table salt) to wash and had a priest wearing the Anubis mask (Prince Philip from Sleeping Beauty) to ritually purified Barbie’s body. Anubis we learned is the god of the mummification process and of the dead. Let it sit for 40 days ( yea right, more like 40 seconds)
3. We had the other Barbie’s take the deceased to the Wabet, “the place of embalming” to remove the inner organs. We had to get a “slicer priest” to cut a slit in the left side of the body. We marked the incision with a marker. We removed the intestines ,(string) the liver, (peanut), stomach (fruit snack), and the lungs (raisin). We pretended to remove the brain (fruit snack) with a hook through the nose. Threw the brain out and soaked the other organs in natron for 40 days (40 seconds) We also drew a heart on the chest.
4. Ann wanted to reenact having the “slicer priest” pretend to run away after he made the cut in Barbie side while throwing rocks at him. Because, his work was insulting to the gods with all the blood. ( see they do actually listen when you read to them) what mom can turn that request down.
5. After the body has dried for 40 days. We take the queens to the per Nefer “beautiful house” and rub the dolls with palm wine, juniper oil. (we used oil with some cinnamon) and put frankincense (nutmeg) on the body. Another of Ann’s request is putting in false eyes. Since no onions available to fit Barbie’s eyes we found white pony beads and pretended to put them in the eye sockets. We then stuffed the body cavity for the mummification process and put a carving of the protective eye of the sun god, Horus on the incision . (paper picture of the eye). We pretended to wrap the organs in linen and put the organs in the canopic jar’s for storage. (baby jar) If Ann had it her way we would have actually had to wrap the organs in linen. the” maybe next time worked.”
7. Since Barbie is plastic we had to clean off the oil, which isn’t done in the mummification process. We put finger and toe caps on since we have three queens. (yellow marker)
8.We pretended it took 15 days for 20 layers. We wrapped the head first and then the groin in the linen. Next was the chest and then we did the limps. Make sure you take the excess mixture out of it each time. I just threw a bunch of the strips in the mixture and let them sit. I also found out that after the first layer you can put a dry linen on and then squeeze Barbie and it coats that strip. I had to rub a little of the mixture on it with my fingers. After all that wrapping was done. We added amulets into the linen wrapping. I just used sequins and foam pieces. Then one final wrap all around the body. We didn’t have enough cloth to wrap them in shrouds. Then we put on our gold face. ( A piece of paper they colored and then we taped on)
9. We hired professional Barbie mourners to weep and wail and carry the Queens possessions during the funeral procession. We can’t forget the priest to burn incense and his other duties like the weighing of the heart ceremony. Which was attended by Anubis and Thoth and used the scarab beetle for the ceremony. Barbie’s dog Tanner and cats were spared until next time. Ann wanted to add them in the mummification process.

David and Sierra got a little tired during the wrapping part and needed a lot of help. I am sure they didn't get it. But, they had fun and will remember something about the Egyptians. David would of loved the real animal mummifications.

Here are our three queens. It took around two hours.

Of course, during are study of Egypt and of all their gods, the afterlife we had a good discussion of what the bible says about these practices. We talked about what God says about idol worship and what happens to the believer in Yeshua after we die. Then we talked about those who do not know about Yeshua as their Lord and Savior and what happens to them. I was happy to see the kids bring up some things that they noticed in the Egyptian practices even before I did.
I don’t think the kids will ever forget this day and how to mummify a Barbie . We had a lot of fun and got real silly. I am thankful to see that my kids can recognize at such a young age what God says in His Word, the Bible. We have been study Ancient Civilizations this year and have ran across many different beliefs. My desire is for the kids to have a good understanding of history. I love how the Mystery of History has both biblical and the other civilizations mixed together chronologically. History is one of my favorite subjects that I am passionate about and I think it is rubbing off on the kids
Now the only problem is that Ann wants me to un-mummify the Barbie’s so she can play with them! I don’t know about that! They have harden pretty good, we may experiment with that later. I can image Barbie’s hair being moldy and smelly. Maybe we can pretend to be archaeologist that find the tomb. Next, we make a lapbook on what is an archaeologist. We will just have to be Egyptologist instead an take Barbie's wrappings off. That might work.