Ancient Egypt Lesson Plans

We recently learned about the desert habitat and four desert animals from our Sassafras Zoology Curriculum. After we learn about the habitat and animals, we study the country where the animals live. This unit is focused on Ancient Egypt. To go along with our studies, we added in the Ancient Egypt Art History Course from Take Time for Art. Take Time for Art is a series of five art and history courses. The courses include Ancient Egypt, Ancient Greece, Ancient Rome, The Middle Ages and The Renaissance. Each course has 15-20 vides teaching art history lesson and tutorials for the projects. You can purchase all of the supplies you need directly from the website. Each course is Christian based and recommended for ages 10+ although we enjoyed them at ages 7 and 9. Read Cathy Duffy's Review on Take Time for Art. 

Below are the exact lesson plans we used for our unit study. It shows exactly where we added in the projects from Take Time for Art. This PDF download below includes the lesson plans PLUS a lot more ideas and printables we've used in the past as we've learned about Ancient Egypt. 

**Ancient Egypt Lesson Plans PDF** (includes additional ideas to study Ancient Egypt!)

Resources We Used: 

A Children’s Introduction to Egyptology by Heather Alexander

Take Time For Art - Ancient Egypt - This is an art history course that comes with four hands on projects. You can purchase the supplies directly from the website. We really enjoyed using the projects to go along with our Ancient Egypt study!

Monday - Introduction to Ancient Egypt

• Read p. 8-9 in Egyptology
• Watch Ancient Civilizations from Free School
• Label a Map of Ancient Egypt - there's a map you can use in this PDF (include upper Egypt, lower Egypt, Memphis, the Nile River, the Mediterranean Sea, the Res Sea, the Nile Delta, and deserts - Libyan, Sahara, and Arabian)

Tuesday - The Nile River

• Read p. 10-14 in Egyptology
• Watch Why Was the Nile Important? from Inspire Education
• Craft: Make Papyrus from Egyptology (p. 13) or from the instructions in this download. We have done this before, so we decided to “Flood the Nile” instead.
• Science: Flood the Nile. The website I found this activity on is no longer available. We placed tinfoil down the center of an aluminum pan to act as the Nile. On both sides of the Nile, we placed soil and grass seeds. My boys each poured water into the Nile and watched as the water overflowed onto the soil. After two weeks, our grass grew 4-6 inches. 

Before bed, we read Egyptology p. 15-28 to learn about Egyptian Gods.

Wednesday - Egyptian Hieroglyphs

• Read p. 29-33 in Egyptology
• Watch How to Make Papyrus Paper from mycompassTV
• Activity: We used our Egyptian Hieroglyph Stamps to stamp papyrus paper. If you “made papyrus paper" yesterday, it would be fun to draw or stamp hieroglyphs onto your homemade paper. If you choose to draw the hieroglyphs, there is a printable with the Egyptian Hieroglyphs at the end of this PDF.

Thursday - Pharoah

• Read p. 34-44 Egyptology
• Take Time for Art: Watch Videos 1-3. These videos include an introduction to Egyptian art, tomb art and the Pharaoh Mask Tutorial. 
• Activity: Begin the Pharoah Mask from Take Time for Art. For this activity, we pressed plaster gauze onto our mask and head piece. This needed to dry overnight before moving onto the next step.

Over the weekend, we watched videos 4, 5, and 7 from Take Time for Art. These videos show tutorials how to add a headscarf, beard and cobra to the Pharaoh mask.

Also, over the weekend I prepped our DIY mummies to learn about mummification. Click here to watch a video of this activity on instagram. The tutorial for this activity is found in my instagram highlights under “Egypt”. 

Monday - Afterlife and Mummies

• Read p. 45-54 in Egyptology. As we read, we colored canopic jars (file found at the end of this PDF). We taped the canonic jars onto empty baby food jars and then began our mummification!
• Activity: Egyptian Mummification. This activity teaches children which organs were taken out and placed in different canonic jars. We read the “step by step guide to making a mummy” on p. 50 of Egyptology as we dissected our bodies.

At bedtime, we read p. 55-60 in Egyptology to learn about animal mummification.

Tuesday - Pyramids

• Read p. 61-75 in Egyptology
• Watch Pyramids from Freeschool
• Activity: Create Rice Krispie Egyptian Pyramids. We used store bought rice krispie treats for this activity.. My kids cut each rice krispie into smaller squares and used them to build their pyramids.

Wednesday - Tomb Art

• Read p. 76-77 in Egyptology
• Take Time for Art: Videos 10, 11, 12. These videos teach about the color wheel, contrasting colors, blending colors and a tutorial of how to create tomb art. 
• Activity: Color Wheel and Tomb Art from Take Time for Art

Thursday - King Tut

• Read p. 78-84 in Egyptology
• Watch King Tut and His Treasures from Free School.
• Activity: Complete the Pharoah Mask.s We watched videos 7 and 9 from Take Time for Art to see ideas of how to paint the masks. Then, we painted and completed our masks.

Friday - Egyptian Sculptures

• Take Time for Art: Videos 15, 16, 17. These videos teach about Egyptian sculptures and include a detailed tutorial on creating clay hippos. We sculpted the hippos today and painted them over the weekend. 
• Read p. 88-89 in Egyptology to finish the Unit

**To see a visual flip through of our Ancient Egyptian Unit, please see the “Egypt” highlight on my instagram page @thenaylorhome**

**Ancient Egypt Lesson Plans PDF** (includes additional ideas to study Ancient Egypt!)