This is our second history unit study for the year, and we are having so much fun! We just wrapped up studying Ancient Egypt and I’m so excited to share with you what we did these last two weeks.
For more information on how I plan a unit like this, check out my planning video here.
This post contains affiliate links. If you follow one of my links I earn a small commission at no extra cost to you. Thank you for supporting my blog!
Where are the Great Pyramids?
We are basing our history units off of the “Who Was…?” series. So, our daily reading came from “Where are the Great Pyramids?” by Dorothy Hoobler. I love these books because they are so easy to read aloud to kids. My children are eight years and younger, and they are able to stay engaged and keep up with the facts.
There are also lots of black and white pictures throughout the pages that make it easy to visualize what we are reading.
We read our chapter book during our morning time, and I aim to read just one chapter a day. This gives us plenty of time to finish in about two weeks. We have great discussions and we learn so much!
Library Books
I try to keep the process of adding extra books for our units simple. The nonfiction section at our library had an entire shelf dedicated to Ancient Egypt, and this made it easy for me to just grab and go.
I like to look for books that will be easy to read aloud to my age group. I don’t want too many words or books I know won’t catch their interest. There’s almost always kid-friendly books in the nonfiction section and I grab as many as I can get!
Sometimes I’ll look through the children’s section to see if there’s anything related I might want to add. Even fictional books can be a great way to enhance a unit.
Once we have the books, I’ll display them so they stand out to my kids. This always catches their interest and drives them to want to read more!
Food/Snacks
I can’t deny a cute, themed snack. There’s something about them that makes the unit so memorable. I also love that you really don’t have to add extra time in your day for it. You already cook meals and provide snacks. Now, you’re just changing it up! Easy peasy.
Egypt Rice Krispies Treat
This geography lesson was so delicious. I made a batch of Rice Krispies treats and poured it onto a baking pan. Using a printout of a map of Egypt, I shaped the dessert to look just like the country! We used blue icing to add a Mediterranean Sea at the top, a Red Sea along the side, and a Nile River.
Next, I used a toothpick to label and to teach the kids about the different parts of Egypt. We labeled all the bodies of water as well as where the pyramids were located.
I kind of want to do this with every country we study. Yum!
Mummy Dogs
We made these one year for Halloween, and they were so perfect for this unit!. The best part is it’s just two ingredients – hot dogs and crescent rolls. Head to this website for detailed instructions. (We did ours without cheese)
My 3-year-old was even able to participate and wrap the hotdogs which made this all the more fun. It’s very easy for kids to do! If you’re a fan of hot dogs, you can’t go wrong with this. No extra time, no crazy prep. We just ate mummy dogs for lunch one day and it was a blast!
Sugar Cube Pyramids
Although this isn’t really something you want to eat, I’ll still put it with all of my food stuff. And you better believe they all begged to taste a sugar cube!
There was a chapter in our book that talked about the process of building the pyramids. The Egyptians would carry these big heavy stones, and it’s still a mystery how exactly they accomplished such a great task. As we started placing sugar cubes on the plate, we talked a little bit about this and shared our ideas.
I saw somewhere on Pinterest that a family did this and squirted their pyramids with water they dyed yellow. We did this too and the girls loved seeing the sugar cubes start to dissolve. If you have multiple kids, it would be fun to let each child try a different temperature of water to see how it would affect the pyramid dissolving. Make it into an experiment!
Mummifying Apples
I always have apples at my house, so this one was easy to throw together last minute. The point of this experiment is to see what substance will preserve the apple the best.
I just used what was around our house and we were able to test six different substances:
- Baking Soda
- Salt
- Honey
- Vinegar
- Water
- Nothing-Apple Only (our control)
We left the apples alone for seven days and we were so surprised by our results! Not one apple looked the same! Did you know that scientists are still asking questions and trying to discover unknown facts about the mummification process?
Crafts/Activities
I love a good craft, but I don’t want to be stressed out. When I start a unit, I make a wishlist of things I want to do and fit them in our day as it feels right.
Unfortunately, we didn’t get to everything on our wishlist. However, that’s the benefit of making the crafts an option! Reading books alone is so wonderful for us to learn. Anything extra is a bonus. I’m sharing all that we actually accomplished but I’ll also share what we hoped to do, but didn’t quite get to at the end of this blog.
Toilet Paper Mummies
This happened on a total whim, but it was one of my favorite mornings learning about Egypt. We had just finished a chapter about how the Ancient Egyptians wrapped bodies in linen cloth. The book went into detail about what scientists know about the process. It was so interesting…weird…but interesting!
So when we finished I had one of my kids bring me a roll of toilet paper and we just took turns wrapping each other up. It was hilarious! The kids laid on this little bench we have in our home and acted like they were mummies. We loved it. Honestly, it really wasn’t a huge waste. I wrapped all four of my kids and it was only one roll of toilet paper.
King Tut Footprint Art
We have these books that my kids write notes to each other in at the beginning of the school year. My 6-year-old wrote to my 3-year-old that the best part about preschool was that you got to paint your hands and feet and make pictures. (ha!) Well, every since writing it, she begged me to do an activity like that for my preschooler. That’s how this crazy piece of art came to life.
Using a library book, I made an outline of the top of King Tut’s coffin (see below) and drew the face with a pencil. I let my kids color it on their own. Next we did some footprint art. I pasted the piece they colored on top of the footprint and it actually turned out pretty cute! It may be a stretch, but I love taking something they really want to do and add a little more meaning to what we are studying.
Notebooking/Narration
I’ve been trying to do this at the end of each unit we do, and so far I’m loving the results. I heard about it on a podcast and I loved the idea of being able to look back on all the things we learned over the year.
I usually let my kids watercolor. There’s something unique about watercolor, and if you use the right paper, it really turns out so nice! I let them color whatever they want about our unit.
Finally, they narrate to me some things that they remember about what we studied. Depending on the age, I write (or my child writes) the narration on the back of the paper when it dries. It has been so neat for me to see what they remember from our units.
More “Wishlist” Items We Didn’t Get to…
When we start a new unit, I usually have a list of ideas that I think would be really fun to do. I add them into our days as they fit, but sometimes I don’t always get to my whole list. It’s not worth the stress to try and shove them in at the end. I’d rather end the unit on a positive note.
I do love the activities though and wanted to share with you in case you’re looking for a variety of simple Ancient Egypt activities.
First, I would’ve loved to make paper as the Egyptians did. I saw a variety of ways to do this online, and I‘ll share it with you here. Ultimately, it was a little bit messy, and I had a hard time fitting it in when babies wouldn’t disturb. Maybe we can save it for a rainy day.
Next, was the simplest little construction paper craft. I thought this was so perfect because it was minimal supplies! However, when we had time to do something from my wishlist, there was always something else I’d rather do with the kids. So, this one didn’t get completed. It would be so simple to throw together though!
Movies/Videos/Shows
We do enjoy a good video or show about the topics in our unit. We saw a couple great YouTube videos, listed below:
We also enjoyed a couple family movies that weren’t focused on Ancient Egypt in particular but had some slight relation to it in a small way.
- Night at the Museum
- Prince of Egypt
Bonus Read Aloud
This next part of our unit actually happened when it was over, but how awesome that we can continue learning even past the unit study!
The idea came to me when I was trying to think of chapter books my daughter would enjoy. It turns out the Magic Treehouse series AND the Imagination Station Series have books specifically about Ancient Egypt.
I was so excited for this find. I decided to read the Magic Treehouse book (#3 Mummies in the Morning) out loud to all the girls (We do our read aloud time before bed.) My daughter is going to read the Imagination Station book (#7 Secret of the Prince’s Tomb) on her own. I love that she’ll be able to connect with the story based on what she’s learned.
Future Unit Studies
Is this information helpful? Let me know in the comments or connect with me on my YouTube channel to let me know. I really hope to do this in order to give families ideas on how to throw together a unit study that’s fun and simple and low-stress.
As I mentioned before, we plan to loop our science and history, but I love sharing them here with you when we finish.
Be sure to check out one of our science units as well.
3 Responses