Posts Tagged ‘Ancient Egypt’

Egypt Cookies

Monday, September 13th, 2010

Egypt-cookies

My kids decorated cookies to represent the country of Egypt. First I mixed up a batch of sugar cookies and put them in the fridge. The next day, I took half the dough and rolled it out. I cut out four rectangles using a knife. With a spatula, I tried to transfer the dough rectangles onto the cookie sheet. I said “tried” because a couple of them fell apart. (I’m not good at making pie crust either.) I smooshed them back together on the greased cookie sheet, with no one noticing. I baked them. They cooled.

cookies

Then I called the children over. They cheered and jumped up and down with glee. “Are we having this for lunch?” they asked.

frosting-cookies

I didn’t answer. I told them to sit down. I handed each kid a butter knife, and I put the white icing in the middle of the table. The kids covered their cookies with icing as the base or “glue” that would hold everything else in place.

pounding-cookies

When no one needed white any more, I dyed the rest of the icing green. The children used their knives to make an upside-down triangle on the top of their cookie, representing the fertile Nile Delta. They made a fat line going down the rest of the cookie, about the thickness of the butter knife.

cookie-crumbs

Normally to make sand on a cake, I crumble up generic graham crackers from Walmart, the ones that cost $1. But I was in Rosaurs, and their cheapest graham crackers were $4. So I bought generic lemon cookies. We scraped off the stuff in the middle of the cookie and put the bare cookies into a ziplock bag. We pounded the cookies to smithereens. (One of my sons used the wrong end of the mallet and punched lots of tiny holes in the bag, so watch which end you’re using. A hammer would work just as well. Use a nice, thick bag, not a cheap one.)

eat-cookie

I snipped off the blue tube of icing – it’s called “writing gel”– and you can find it at your grocery store near the icing. Otherwise there’s no way for you to make the thin line that the Nile River needs to be. The kids squeezed it like a tube of toothpaste down their cookie.

We added three chocolate chips for the three great pyramids. And voila! Edible Egypt! I fed my children vegetables, fruit, and protein before they ate the enormous cookie. What a delicious history class! The kids ate their homework, and no one got in trouble.

Ancient Egypt Unit Study

Thursday, September 9th, 2010

ancient-egypt-unit-study

Here are some activities we are planning for our Ancient Egypt Unit Study. I made up lots of hands-on activities to bring to life this fun time period. Click on the links below the video to see how we did each activity. Watch the video to see even more ideas for bringing this time period to life:

Ancient Egypt Unit Study: Hands-on Activities

  • LEGO Ancient Egypt: Create a map of Egypt with LEGOs sprinkled with sand.
  • Cuneiform on Clay: Paint black on top of etched cuneiform on self-hardening clay.
  • Egypt Cookies: Bake cookies in the shape of Egypt, frosting blue with the Nile River and using crumbled Graham crackers for the Egyptian desert.
  • Hieroglyphs: Paint gold hieroglyphs on black card stock paper.
  • Drawing on Papyrus: Tips and tricks for drawing on real papyrus.
  • Sarcophagus Craft: Make pencil sketchings on a small hinged box, paint with metal paint, and put a mummy doll inside.
  • Mummy Dolls: Grab an ugly doll, strips of white cloth, cinnamon, and glue. Wrap your mummy.
  • Videos About Egypt: These are the library videos we liked and disliked about Ancient Egypt.
  • Sugar Cube Pyramids: Hot glue sugar cubes and throw sand on it.
  • Embossing: Ancient Egypt Craft: Make indentations on copper sheeting, and turn them into ornaments.
  • Egyptian Feast: Dress up like an Egyptian and taste the foods of Ancient Egypt.

For more Ancient Egypt hands-on ideas, join the Unit Study Treasure Vault!