Week 17 Day 4

Book choices for today:

Hieroglyphs: The Writing of Ancient Egypt   Norma Jean Katan
Drawing Lessons from a Bear   McPhail
I Spy: An Alphabet in Art   Lucy Micklethwait

Geography: (first circle)

Need for lesson – A sample of papyrus paper and hieroglyph stamps, or any ancient Egyptian materials you would like to use.

Geography 29 (A)
The country of Egypt is in Africa. Can you tell me something about Ancient Egypt, the Egypt of long ago? What is the name of the river that was very important to the Egyptians? The Nile River. All along the banks of the river, two special plants grew that the Egyptians used to make other things with. One of them was a Flax Seed Plant. The Egyptians would take the stem fibers and spin them to make thread, which they then weaved into sheets of linen to make clothes with. The other plant was the Papyrus Plant. This plant was used to make paper. They would cut the long stalks and soak them in water. After some time they would take them out of the water and lay them next to each other, on top of each other and across each other. Then they would pound and pound the wet stalks flat and it the pieces would all mesh together. After these dried it was used for paper.
In Ancient Egypt they used a form of writing called hieroglyphs. Hieroglyphs are drawing of familiar objects. If it was a drawing of a sheep, it would mean just that a sheep. If there were 4 lines drawn next to the sheep it would mean 4 sheep. These pictures could also mean sounds. The letters of the alphabet we use today make sounds, so instead of letters for the sounds, they used pictures that made sounds. Let’s look at some of these word drawings.
Demonstrate hieroglyphs and other materials of Ancient Egypt.

Additional Works:

Hieroglyph Names – These are from activityvillage.com. Children can make their name with hieroglyphs.
Egyptian Objects
Papyrus Paper – Provide glue and strips of a brown paper bag for the children to make a piece of ‘papyrus’ paper that they can design once they dry. Children place pieces of paper into watered down glue and lay i ton a piece of wax paper. They will continue to dip and lay another piece next to previous one, and continue adding pieces and layering them on each other.

Art: (second circle)

Need for lesson – Samples of paintings or pictures that clearly show something in the foreground, middle ground, and background. Tree art activity.

Art 11
We have learned many things about art and some famous artist. We have talked about patterns and lines in art. When we look at a picture like this one, the arrangement of the things in it is called composition (using your picture highlight a few things in the painting). Some other words to describe a picture are foreground, middle ground, and back ground. This part of the picture, that is closest to the viewer, is called the foreground. What things are in the foreground of this painting? This part of the picture is called the back ground. What do we see in the back ground? This last part of the painting or picture is the middle ground. What can we see in the middle ground?
We can make a picture using trees, we can put one tree in each part of our picture. Then we can paint or draw other things if you would like after the trees are glued onto the three parts of a picture.