Ancient History: Africa/Egypt

We spent quite a lot of time immersed in Ancient Egypt. The Kid did a homeschool history fair project on mummies, so there's more of a mummy emphasis here than we may have had otherwise. I have been reminded a few times already in our study of Ancients how little information there is regarding some parts of the world, and Africa is one of them. We found what we could, but truly could not find much that wasn't about Egypt.

We started the unit by reading:

• Usborne Internet-Linked Encyclopedia of World History, pages 172-173
• Story of the World: Chapter 11a (we have read Anansi stories before and therefore did not do the ones in SOTW)
• Story of the World: Chapter 2

We then read one more chapter of Story of the World each week for the following three weeks:

• Usborne Internet-Linked Encyclopedia of World History, pages 116-117
• Story of the World: Chapter 4
• Usborne Internet-Linked Encyclopedia of World History, pages 134-139
• Story of the World: Chapter 12
• Story of the World: Chapter 13

Nonfiction books we enjoyed:

• Egyptology: Search for the Tomb of Osiris by Emily Sands and Dugald Steer
• Kids in Ancient Egypt by Lisa A. Wroble
• Everyday Life in Ancient Egypt by Kirsten Holm
• Top 10 Worst Creepy Egyptian Mummies You Wouldn't Want to Meet by David Stewart
• Egyptian Mummies by Henrietta McCall and Dave Antram
• You Wouldn't Want to be Cursed by King Tut by Jacqueline Morley
• You Wouldn't Want to be an Egyptian Mummy! by David Stewart
• You Wouldn't Want to be a Pyramid Builder by Jacqueline Morley 
• Top 10 Worst Things About Ancient Egypt You Wouldn't Want to Know! by Victoria England
• Treasury of Egyptian Mythology by Donna Jo Napoli - we started out loving this, though it is really long and we moved on before we got quite through. 
• Pyramid by David Macaulay

Fiction books we enjoyed:

• Funny Mummy: Over 350 Jokes From Ancient Egypt by Steve Bertman
• Casting the Gods Adrift by Geraldine McCaughrean - wonderful longer read aloud telling the story of the pharaoh Akhenaten and his wife Nefertiti as seen through the eyes of a boy becoming a craftsman for the royal family
• I Am the Mummy Heb-Nefert by Eve Bunting
• Temple Cat by Andrew Clements

Activities we enjoyed:

• Making a chicken mummy
• Making canopic jars from air dry clay to store the chicken mummy's gizzard and liver
• Scientific Explorer: Our Amazing Mummies model kit
• Preparing a mummy presentation for a homeschool history fair 

Following along in history? Go back to the Ancient History main page.