Our Class Museum!

Thank you to everyone who came to visit our St. George's Class Museum! The children were very proud to show off all of the hard work they have completed this half term. Be sure to ask them about the Ancient Egyptians- they are all experts now!

Exploring the Tomb of Tutankhamun!

Yesterday, after break, we arrived in our classroom to find that it had turned into Tutankhamun's tomb! We had to be archaeologists and work in teams of four to complete a Reconstruction Relay.


We took turns to enter the tomb and crawl through the corridors between the chambers. We had to use a torch to look at the artefacts in the tomb, then rush back to our teams and 'draw what we saw'! We had to be very careful because we could only enter the tomb for 10 seconds at a time. Due to the tomb being sealed for thousands of years, it was filled with poisonous gasses- we could only be exposed for 10 seconds at a time.

We had to work well as a team to look for each of the 6 artefacts and to draw them in detail. At the end of the challenge, the judges chose two winning teams. The winners had clearly looked for the details on each object and one team had even labelled what they had seen! Well done to the winning teams!

Beautiful Egyptian Silhouettes

 
Yesterday, we made some beautiful Ancient Egyptian themed artwork.

Firstly, we learned what a 'wash' is and how to make one. We used inks to make these beautiful backgrounds, as they blend so smoothly and give really strong colours.

Once the backgrounds were complete, we designed our silhouette foregrounds. We wanted to set them in Egypt, so most of the children chose to include an iconic pyramid and many included a camel or a palm tree.

After we had carefully designed the silhouettes, we cut them out and stuck them onto our backgrounds.

Pyramids and Lego Stop Motion Animation!

This week we have been learning about the pyramids, particularly those in Giza. We used this excellent website to look around Giza and learn about some of its features.

Source: http://www.childrensuniversity.manchester.ac.uk/media/services/thechildrensuniversityofmanchester/flash/pyramid_panorama_stamp.swf

We also watched some short BBC clips about the building of the pyramids. We learned how archeologists have been able to discover how the pyramids were built.

Can you remember why the Ancient Egyptians buried their dead on the West of the Nile?

Yesterday, we combined the animation skills we have been learning in Computing with our knowledge about Ancient Egypt to make these wonderful videos. We used an app called 'Stop Motion Studio' to produce these stop motion animations. Instead of stone, we used Lego to build our pyramids!

'Pyramid Marvellous' by Group 5

'The Pyramid of Four' by Group 4

'Pharaoh's Lego Pyramid' by Group 3

'Building of the Great Pyramid of Lego' by Group 2

'Khufu's Epic Lego Pyramid' by Group 1

Fantastic work, St. George's! These animations are very impressive- well done!

A Fantastic Trip!

On Thursday, we went to the Horniman Museum for a fantastic workshop. We had a wonderful teacher called Danny who helped us to become Egyptologists for the day. He began by telling us all about Mr Horniman and how he started his museum. Can you remember where the museum was when he first opened it?

Mr. Horniman travelled to Egypt to collect some items for his museum. When he was there, he met a student who helped him find what he needed. Can you remember which famous Egyptologist it was?

We were incredibly lucky that Danny decided that we were 'serious students' of Ancient Egypt. He was very impressed with how sensible everyone was and with your fantastic knowledge. You were able to answer every single one of his questions and shared some excellent information!

As we were 'serious students', we were able to touch some very special objects from Ancient Egypt. Some of the children couldn't quite believe that they were real! We had to wear special gloves before handling the objects, so that we didn't damage them. Some of the very fragile objects were in small glass cases.

We got to hold and look closely at some real amulets, a piece of a wooden coffin with tomb paintings on it, a mummy mask and a scarab beetle amongst other items.

We also got to see a real mummified falcon, just like Horus! It was fascinating to see the falcon's body and some of the bandages still remained on it.

 Some of us felt like doctors or scientists, when we were able to look at the x-ray of the falcon and we could identify its rib cage, feet and spine.

Following our session with Danny, we went down to the 'African Worlds' exhibition. There is a small collection of Ancient Egyptian artefacts in the museum. We were all very excited to see some real Canopic Jars, as well as a sarcophagus, some shabtis and most interesting of all... a mummy!

If your parents haven't seen these items in the museum, perhaps you could take them one weekend or during the Christmas holidays and tell them all about what you have learned!

Mummifying Barbie!

Last week, after learning about how the Ancient Egyptians mummified their dead, we decided to have a go ourselves! However, our version wasn't quite as gruesome!

Each small group was presented with a 'dead' Ancient Egyptian. We had to pretend to remove the organs and follow the instructions for mummification that we wrote last week. Then we wrapped them in bandages.

Then we learned about the tombs in Ancient Egypt and discovered what might be buried with the dead person. We looked at this fantastic website to learn all about it:

Source:

http://www.salariya.com/web_books/mummy/coffins/pages/coffins_goods.html 

Once our dolls had been mummified, it was time to make their tombs. We made the tombs, then used plasticine to make all the items that they would need to take with them into the afterlife.

We made shabtis, which are small statues of people, who the Ancient Egyptians believed would come to life and be your servants in the afterlife. We also made food, weapons, furniture, pets, jewellery and many other items that the Ancient Egyptian believed a person might need when they reached the afterlife.

On Friday, we decorated the tombs in the style of the tombs that have been discovered by Egyptologists. We wrote spells like those found in the Book of the Dead and made sure that the Eye of Horus and the life symbol were on the outside of every tomb. On the inside of the tomb, we added wall drawings of the person when they were alive, in their favourite clothes doing things they enjoyed, such as dancing or eating!

Mummification!

 Source: 123gifs

Last week, we started to learn about mummification in Ancient Egypt. We played this fantastic (if rather gruesome) game, then wrote some detailed instructions, informing our readers how to mummify someone. Click the picture below to play the game again:

 Source: http://oi-archive.uchicago.edu/OI/MUS/ED/mummy.html

Then, we found out about the Weighing of the Heart Ceremony, which the Ancient Egyptians believed was the final test to see whether a person's spirit would reach the afterlife. We made some fantastic cartoon strips to explain what the Ancient Egyptians believed happened during the ceremony.

Source: gwydir/jo/egypt/anubis.htm

Can you remember which gods were involved in the ceremony?

Keep an eye on the blog- there will be some pictures of your instructions for mummification and your cartoon strips about the Weighing of the Heart Ceremony soon!

This week, we will be learning more about the afterlife- and starting a "mummification" project of our own! On Thursday we will be visiting the Horniman Museum to see some real Ancient Egyptian items- it will be a very exciting experience! Make sure you have returned your permission slip!

More Animation!

On Thursday, we continued learning about animation. This week we used a program called 'Voki' to create some speaking characters. We had to work in groups to decide how the character should look, what they might wear, where they should be and how they would speak. Then, we used 'text-to-speech' to make our characters talk. It was quite tricky, as some words had to be spelled one sound at a time (phonetically) so that the computer could pronounce them properly.

Click the pictures to see each table's fantastic animations. These are all animations of Rhodopis from our class book- click to see what they think she would be saying!

 Table 1

 Table 2

 Table 3

Table 4

Table 5

Ancient Egypt: Hieroglyphs

We've had another fantastic week exploring Ancient Egypt in St. George's Class. This week we learned about the Ancient Egyptian gods, learned how to read and write using the hieroglyphic alphabet and even played an Ancient Egyptian game called Seega.

We used this fun website to learn some of the 700 hieroglyphic symbols, then used them to write our own names. Click the picture to play at home:

We learned that pharaohs would have tablets with their names carved in hieroglyphs- they have often been discovered in tombs. These special tablets are called 'cartouches'. On Friday, we made some cartouches with our own names using clay.

Here are some great examples:

We played Seega this week- which is similar to noughts and crosses mixed with draughts! It was lots of fun and is easy to play at home if you would like to. Perhaps you could show someone in your family how to play.

 

Source: BM&AG