Next Stop: Ancient Egypt!

The Great Pyramids of Giza... Aren't they amazing?

Dear Mom and Dad,

          “Rain, rain, go away! Little children want to do water play- rain, rain go away!”  

          And so, with the rainy weather, all we could do was stay indoors for the day. During free play time, we continued yesterday’s popular activity- hunting for dinosaurs under the ice with our hammers.  Some of our friends continued to make fossils and clothes for our toy dinosaurs. Some of them got encouraged by the delicious smell of the coffee playdough, so they made some cinnamon rolls.  

          The big table had interesting things in it; broken pieces of china (the edges were smooth, so they were not sharp and dangerous), shells, and smooth pieces of rocks. We examined them up close with our magnifying lens; some of our friends drew them, or made their own “artifacts”. Artifacts are things from a long, long time ago (like china, stones, etc.; whereas fossils are things from animals and other creatures that lived a long, long time ago (like bones, teeth, etc.)  

          During circle time, we reviewed the difference of an archaeologist and a paleontologist; Sammy was with us again to explain what she does as an archaeologist- one of the things they liked studying is ancient Egyptian civilization. She told us about the pharaoh, who was the king of Egypt; the most famous pharaoh was named Tutankhamun, as he became a king at 9 years old (Wow, he was so young!). We saw a picture of a beautiful Egyptian queen- her name was Cleopatra, and she was the most famous of all the Egyptian queens, because of her beauty. There was even a movie about her- yes, she’s that famous! So, when an Egyptian pharaoh or queen dies, their bodies get wrapped in paper or cloth- in other words, they become a mummy. Then their bodies get put inside a casket or sarcophagus, then it is placed inside a great building called the pyramid, together with treasures, food, and other things that they think that the pharaoh or the queen will need.   

          We also watched a short video, and we saw how the ancient Egyptians looked like; they gathered food by farming and fishing. We also saw the sarcophagus, and the treasure that they put inside the pyramids. Ooh! At the sight of treasure, most of us were thinking of being archaeologists- except that some of us didn’t like the idea of going inside caves and other dark places.   

          It was quite interesting that even if the rain confined us to our classroom today, we got to visit ancient Egypt- yay! But, we hope the weather will be fine tomorrow, it will be great to visit the park and play in the sandpit… Oh, do you think if we dig enough there, we might find some artifacts or fossils?      

Love,

All the treasure- hunters in Petals and Flowers Class