Class Project: Mummies

A project that can be developed with KS2 children, is the study of ancient civilizations. One possibility is that the kids research a chosen aspect of the culture you are studying (Greece, Egypt, Rome)

To do this, you can work with web quests, books, videos, maps, encyclopedias, etc.

The attraction of this way of working is that the children have a variety of information resources, which facilitate access to, and ownership of content. Research and editing is also necessary for the development of crafts in order to organize "the museum" for the final oral presentation. (The children can make models, maps, sculptures, prints, clothing apparel and accessories, mirror games, etc.)

Classroom projects like this make the teaching and learning process go beyond the classroom walls.

Here is  the idea of an activity you can carry out with your class during the study of Ancient Egypt.

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• Mummified Fruits and beyond!

Children , especially young boys, always feel fascination with mummies and the process of mummification. Explain the role of a natural salt, natron, in the desiccation of mummies. Help students experience, first hand, the drying power of different salt compounds by conducting the following experiment:

• Divide a fruit such as an apple, a pear, or a peach into quarters.
• Weigh each quarter; place each into a plastic cup labeled with its weight.
• Pour ½ cup baking soda into the first cup; ½ cup Epsom salts into the second; and ½ cup table salt into the third, making sure each fruit wedge is completely covered; leave the fourth cup as is for a "control."
• Put the uncovered cups in a location out of direct sunlight for a week.
• Remove each from its cup, brush off as much salt as possible (do not rinse!) and reweigh.
• Compare starting weights with those recorded a week later. Calculate the percentage of weight lost in each case.
• Ask students which salt compound seemed to work best. What information does the "control" fruit provide? How might results change if salt compounds were mixed?

Once they have learned the process, another possibility is to build a fake mummy with its sarcophagus. The mummy can be made with a newspaper ball for the head, and a rolled up  newspaper page then folded to make the body . You put both parts together using  masking tape. This step will make the structure stiff. Then you wrap the whole shape with bandages and use pins to hold the bandages tight.

When the mummy is made, the children measure it and draw the plans to make the sarcophagus, which they will love to decorate with  tempera or acrylic paint.

Curriculum:

• Science
• Math
• Art

                

I hope you like this idea! My experience was fantastic when I did it with 5th and 6th grade some years ago. Most of them still keep the mummy in their room and remember this as one of the best primary projects. Lara