Year 4 had a very exciting visitor last week! ‘Jonesy’ came in to spend the entire day with us and launch our new topic ‘Ancient Egypt’. The day started off with us learning all about the Pharaohs of Egypt. We learned that the famous Cleopatra is closer in history to us than she was to the very first Pharaoh! This helped us to understand how far back Ancient Egyptian history goes. After this, we were split into 3 groups. There were 3 different activities for us to rotate around. The first was a quiz, we were given lots of information on different subjects relating to Ancient Egypt, such as the Gods and different tombs. The next was a game that was played in Ancient Egypt. It was even played by the Pharaoh Tutankhamun! This game was found in his tomb. We enjoyed playing it, it was actually very similar to the modern game ‘Snakes and ladders’! The final activity was artifact-related. We were given the opportunity to look at real bandages (behind glass!) that had come off a mummy in a tomb, some jewelry, a scarab beetle, and a real heart stone! We had to be extremely careful, as some of the artifacts were replicas, but some were real!
In the afternoon we went to a birthday party for the Pharaoh, but something awful happened! His favorite soup had been poisoned. So instead of a birthday party, we got to watch him go through the process of mummification. We learned what canopic jars were and what was put in them. We then got to be part of a funeral procession for the Pharaoh and put on our best-crying faces as we were being professional mourners! Overall, we had a brilliant day and it really got us excited about our new topic. Thank you to Jonesy and Portals to the Past for joining us.
