The class had great fun building their own abacuses, built a Cairo Market where they learned to barter for what they wanted, and learned a little about mummification. The students were a bit surprised that the pyramids were for burial and not actually the houses of the wealthy in Ancient Egypt! They also honed their hieroglyphic skills by writing their names in hieroglyphs.
One of the class’s favorite activities was building their abacuses and learning about how they are used! They decided that children back then had a more complicated time learning math than we do today. I also posed a question to the class, “If you lived in Ancient Egypt would you rather be a Pharaoh, a normal kid, or a cat?”. Their answers were pretty interesting and ranged from “I would want to be Pharaoh because I would get to be boss!” to “A cat… they thought they were important and people would just bring me food”.
They also learned more about the life of Scott Joplin, the latest composer we are studying. When they watched a short video detailing his life I asked the kids, “If Scott Joplin were here right now, what would you want to say to him?” They gave great answers including “I would give him a hug and say I’m sorry he had such a hard life!” and “I would say ‘some people might not have liked your music then, but we really like your music! We even have your picture in our classroom!'”.
After a restful spring break the class came back and it was review week! We spent the week looking back at some of the sight words we had covered. The class also did a lot of painting, and they started working on a sewing project making their own dolls! Their patience, focus, and concentration for this project was really quite remarkable.
