Ancient Egyptian Unit and Art

The month of April in Grade 2 and 3 was dedicated to the study of the culture and life for Ancient Egyptians.  Our Social Studies Curriculum includes a unit of study of an ancient culture to compare and contrast it to our lives today.  We started the unit by collecting questions from the students for a "Wondering Wall".  Throughout the unit the students tried to answer the questions that they had been wondering about.

Our school library has lots of books on the topic that we were able to borrow and we also had some videos on loan from the Department of Education.  The internet also came in handy with some good websites that we could refer to.  Mr, Donn's Ancient Egypt and National Geographic Kids were two of our favorites.  We were also able to use Google Earth to see the pyramids and the Sphinx in Egypt today.

Another resource that we used to learn about their life and culture was through Art.  The pictures above show the Egyptian paper dolls that we cut out and painted the bright jewel tone colours that we associate with Egyptian Art.  We also looked at the tomb paintings to model how artists of the time drew people from the side.  They wore exaggerated eye makeup and we tried to copy that on our people.  Some students replicated amulets and other jewelery as well.

Our tinfoil masks based on the one found in King Tut's tomb was our favourite project, some students said it was the best one we had done all year!

To make the project, we covered the lines on a photocopy of the mask with string.  Then we covered over that with tinfoil and rubbed it until we could see the string lines.  Using some Sharpie markers (thanks Mrs. Gillander), students coloured over the tinfoil and added detail.  We had them hanging on the main  bulletin board by the office and received lots of compliments on them!