As I relish in the fact that I don't need to set my alarm in the mornings for awhile, I reflect on all of the amazing last days my classroom kiddos and I had together. Here is a look at all of our hard work to transform our classroom into Ancient Egypt for our Walking Museum. We used my Ancient Egypt: Nonfiction Close Reading & Writing Research Unit for all the activities below.
I made each of my kiddos a bag with their name written in hieroglyphics on the outside. (The numbers in the corner are for me to know which bag belongs to which kiddo) Inside each bag was a baggie of homemade dough and two toothpicks.
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I then placed all of the hieroglyphic bags all around my room and had my kiddos look for their name. I seriously planned for this to take 10-15 minutes, but all my kiddos found their bags within minutes! They were all so excited to open their bag and "carve" their name in hieroglyphics to make their own tablet.
I baked these tablets in my oven at home before our Walking Museum opened for the whole school. Here is how they looked on the day of our museum opening.
All the kiddos that came into our room got to match several of our bags hanging to the hieroglyphic tablets below. I know it is hard to see in the pictures, but our room included interactive QR codes that my kiddos were so excited to include on all of their projects and crafts. The QR codes on the bags would reveal the kiddos name it belonged to and the QR code on the information chart, next to the sink, gave a link to a YouTube video on Ancient hieroglyphics. We also had a table set up with hieroglyphic alphabet charts and blank paper and sand for kiddos to practice writing their own names in hieroglyphics. This was a favorite interactive activity...even for our 5th graders!
And after learning about kings of Egypt my kiddos turned their black and white picture into their own pharaoh oil pastel painting.
Here is how we took these oil pastel paintings and turned them into columns inside of our pyramid museum room.
Hanging from the ceilings is our oil pastel pictures held together by twine and left over cheesecloth from our mummy that we made. You can see each of my kiddos research reports on their tables. Each final draft was laminated and bound with QR codes attached to the front cover. When the kiddos from the school scanned these QR codes they would be able to hear my kiddos reading the research book. This took extra time to complete, but myself and my classroom kiddos were so excited with the end result!
Here are a couple more pictures from our Ancient Egypt unit.
This is a mummy mold of one of my kiddos that we had so much fun making at home. I almost had my classroom kiddos convinced that my son was actually inside of it! Both those QR codes include links to YouTube videos about mummification and amulets placed in the linen wrappings during mummification.
Behind our mummy you can see several canopic jars some of my kiddos made which hold the organs during the mummification process.
Our last day of school was filled with laughter, awards, recess, games, recess, sugar, recess, and a few goodbye tears. As we said our last goodbyes and had a huge hug fest my kiddos each got a little end of the year gift on their way out the door.
Each sand bucket had a label that said,
"Thanks for filling my bucket this year!"
I alternated the yellow and blue sand buckets around the room. Each bucket (Michaels for .49 each) had bubbles, a bookmark, a summer vacation Black Lagoon book, and a picture of all of our classroom kiddos holding a sign of what they want to be when they grow up. Here is a look at the end of year gifts at each table around our room.
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