Magic Tree House #3- Mummies in the Morning Unit

King Tut's Sarcophagus at the California Science Center
This was a really exciting unit. We spent about two and a half weeks learning about ancient and current day Egypt. We were very lucky to have the King Tut exhibit currently running at the California Science Center and saw some of the wonderful treasures kept in King Tut's tomb. The IMAX movie showed us the story of Ancient Egypt and how the tomb was discovered. We all learned so much.


We learned so much more than history and geography in this unit study. We studied geometry as we learned about the Great Pyramids. Discussed the social structure of the Egyptians and compared it to ours and also briefly discussed social injustices. We built our vocabulary and became junior Egyptologists!
We used the MTH History and Geography Notebook to track our learning and concluded by writing in Annie's Adventure Diary.








Like always, we checked out a bag full of books from the library to learn more about our topic.
Some of the titles we read:

  •  Mummies in the Morning by Mary Pope Osborne
  • Mummies and Pyramids Research Guide (Magic Tree House)
  • National Geographic Kids: Everything Ancient Egypt
  • National Geographic Kids: Pyramids
  • Usborne Encyclopedia of World History
  • Who was King Tut?
  • Where are the Great Pyramids?
  • If you were a kid building a Pyramid, by Lawrence Schimel
  • The Boxcar Children: The Clue in the Papyrus Scroll


I found the following online videos helpful and informative:



Magic Tree House Diary Entry
The diary is a great creative writing tool. It encourages kids to get into Annie's shoes and write the way she would with details, exciting adjectives, and a little exaggeration. Before writing the diary entry we discuss all the notes/jottings we wrote on our Jack Files page. These notes give the kids ideas to elaborate on in their diary. For example, if they wrote "black cat with yellow eyes" as a note in their Jack Files, then in their diary I encourage them to use more excitement, adjectives, and details like, "When we looked out the window, we saw a black cat staring right at us with bright yellow eyes."


Making Papyrus
I like to end every unit with a fun activity, and this time we made papyrus paper. Papyrus is one of the cool inventions created in ancient Egypt. Obviously, the Egyptians were very intelligent and amazing architects and engineers. Their craftsman were very skilled and their community was efficient in getting things done. It really was one of the greatest civilizations ever due to their technological advancements. 
There is a specific plant called the Papyrus plant which grows near the Nile and from this plant the Egyptians made strong paper. Since we discussed the Egyptian social structure in  our notebook, we talked about who would make the paper (craftsman) and who would use the paper (scribes).

We watched this very informative video of a man making paper from the actual papyrus plant.

I found this easy craft on the Crayola website. I watered down the glue a little more than they asked. Then the children wrote their names in hieroglyphics. 





Ancient Egypt in Islamic History
One of the fantastic benefits of homeschooling is being able to tie faith into our lessons. Ancient Egypt has such a rich history of Prophethood with Yaqub, Yusuf, Musa, Haroon, Dawud, & Sulayman (may Allah's peace and blessings be upon them all).
We started with learning the family line from Ibraheem, to his son Ishaaq, to his son Yaqub and his son Yusuf. My kids and I love learning through audiobooks so we listened to the beautifully told story of Yusuf (as) called "The Bowing of the Stars", by Mehded Maryam Sinclair. We followed that with the story of Musa by Ustadha Maryam Sinclair as well. Both these audio stories can be purchased through https://www.stories-of-light.com/nur-al-qasas/mehded-maryam-sinclair/ The Bowing of the Stars is also available on Amazon Music.

Ustadha Maryam Sinclair does an absolutely beautiful job retelling these stories of the Holy Quran. We listen to them in the car, during breakfast, and before bed. She transports us back in time and helps us appreciate and truly love the Prophets (Alayhimu Salam).

After, I shared the stories of Dawud (as) and his son Sulayman (as), both just and divinely guided rulers of Egypt. I am currently working on producing short stories on these prophets and will post them here soon, inshaAllah.



One of the most wonderful and deepest conversations I had with the kids was comparing our beliefs to the beliefs of the ancient Egyptians, particularly about their afterlife. Sometimes parents are hesitant to talk to their kids about these issues in particular, however, I feel, if told correctly, it motivates and encourages children from a young age to do well. I compiled this to guide parents and teachers in having the important conversation about Islamic beliefs versus Egyptian beliefs. It is a read aloud for an adult to read to children. This link will direct you to the PDF →Islamic Beliefs vs. Ancient Egyptian Beliefs for Kids

There is so much more than can be done with this unit, but my kids get bored of learning about one place and time for too long. Now we will brave the waves all the way to the Caribbean as we read about Jack and Annie's next adventure 'Pirates Past Noon'!



















Comments

  1. HDSeptember 21, 2018 at 5:02 PM

    Amazing! Your lessons are very intera tive and well thought out.

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Juggling Homeschool, House, Family, Activities, and Me-Time

Image
Folks always ask how I manage homeschooling, taking care of the house, the kids, the husband, and extended family obligations. I try to give the most practical advice, and this is pretty much how it goes.... There's an episode of The Office where Will Farrell's character does a juggling routine with invisible balls. It's a hilarious scene as he goes around the room intensely focused on the invisible balls while the rest of the office staff look at him like he's a total maniac! This is exactly what homeschool mothers look like! We have so much to juggle that other folks don't see. We are responsible for teaching our children manners, emotional management, life skills, their extra curricular activities, and the added responsibility of their academics; all while still having to manage the household duties, and the needs and concerns of everyone else around us. It feels like an impossible task, but in my experience the first step to being able to manage all of your resp
Read more

The Human Body Unit

Image
Learning about the systems of the human body was the most exciting unit we have done this year. The kids were just as interested and engaged as I was and that is always a plus. When I did this lesson with my oldest son some years ago, we enjoyed it but not this much. Although I repeated some of the same activities with him, there were so many more we incorporated this time around. I decided to share everything here in one blog post to help all you busy homeschoolers. It's time consuming looking for books and sifting through relevant videos on YouTube. Below you will find the books we read and activities we completed along with links and PDFs. It was a lot of fun for us, I hope you find this post useful!
Read more