Customer Reviews

Fun with Hieroglyphs

5 star:		(14)
4 star:		(6)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

My third grade class was learning about Ancient Egypt. Last year several classes worked together, we used a stamp kit from another teacher which looked very similar to the one I purchased. The students stamped names in air-dry clay. Later they painted the hieroglyphics. The results were beautiful. The students enjoyed a fun,hands-on project. I purchased this kit and I am very disappointed. The hieroglyphics are tiny, they are too small to see in clay or paint. We stamped them on paper first, very unimpressive. The other version must have been older as it had much larger figures. It's a great idea but I would not buy this kit it just does not work.

As a homeschooler we really enjoyed the "hands on" approach that this book with ink and stamps gave us. It was great fun and it helped us to understand the first written language a whole lot more.

This "book" has a mini book inside with cool activities, an awesome stamp pad to make things funner and on the inside cover a full list of hieroglyphs, their sounds, their meanings, etc. This is a great book if you want to teach your kids hieroglyphs becuase Its fun, easy and very interesting.

I had hoped that I could use this set/kit in my second grade classroom as a center. It is a bit too advanced for the average second grader but I am able to use it with the four G&T children in my class. After intoducing the components and going over the text together they are able to have lots of fun on their own. It encourages critical thinking as the children experiment with communicating in an alternative form. I wish the flap that forms the 'box' to contain the stamps and pad were made better. It is difficult to close and will not withstand much use. Since the back inside cover contains an esential resource (alphabet/hierglyph/sound translations) it isn't really a good idea to just store the book and stamps in another container. I am thinking of having a color copy of the cover made and laminated but I don't think I should have to do that. Putting that aside, I recommend the kit for children in grades 3 and up.

This set was awesome. I love to read the book and then use the stampers to spell out the cool stuff I learn. All my friends at the tattoo parlor absolutely love it and they use it to make original designs for tattoos. I highly recommend it!!

This is a great little book and stamp set. The stamps are quite sturdy - the backs are hard plastic (not that cheap foam like in so many sets) and the images themselves are not rubber, more like a silicon or soft plastic. The stamped images are crisp and clear.

The book provides interesting information about the history of hieroglyphs - my children were riveted to the section about the Rosetta Stone. They loved using the stamps to write coded letters to each other, and trying to translate them.

Also, they made their own name cartouches (sp) using shrink plastic (Shrinky Dinks) - these turned out REALLY cool and they strung them on a black cord.

Highly recommended for any Egyptologist or stamping addict.

When I first heard of this title I thought it had the complete "How To" write or read hieroglyphs, but they were only stamps. There is a small book included but not what I expected.

I was excited to purchase this Hieroglyphs set to use in our homeschool as we study Ancient Egypt. However, I am looking into returning it now, after trying to use it this morning. I see that there are other good reviews, and I don't know if the nearly 100 degree heat has affected the stamps I received & they were damaged before I received them (the part you actually stamp with is a thin, rubbery type plastic), or if they are just poorly made, but we had trouble getting any kind of decent 'stamp impression' out of the stamps. My daughter was getting frustrated, because neither she nor I could get a the whole picture to print. For example, the owl's wing wouldn't stamp, or the head of the snake, etc. We quickly realized the ink pad it came with wasn't working so I got out a couple different ones we had already at home & tried them, and we did have a slightly improved experience, but we never got any of the stamps to leave their entire picture, or a clear impression. Like I said, I was excited to receive the set based on the reviews & that it is from the Metropolitan Museum of Art, but our experience was definitely not great.

As I write this, my fingers are still stained with the ink from making my own hieroglyphs with the stamps that come with this set.

Although it may seem that a set of rubber stamps may be geared more for children than adults, there is a lot for adults to enjoy about this brief overview of ancient Egyptian writing.

In addition to showing how Hieroglyphs relate to sounds and can be used to represent modern English words, the book gives a primer on ancient hieroglyphic writing. I learned a lot that I didn't know, and I would have considered myself an "interested amateur" before reading this book.

The text is written in an easy to understand manner than is entertaining and informative. The section on writing your own hieroglyphs puts you well on the way to interpreting them yourself, although the book doesn't get into the specifics of ancient Egyptian. It is possible to sound out what the words might be, but that gives you no clue to their meaning, but what can you really expect from a book that's called "Fun with Hieroglyphs?" It's not a textbook! It's FUN!

Fun With Hieroglyphs is a great way to get an education on ancient Egyptian writings. This book tells the history of hieroglyphics and goes on to identify actual symbols used in the writings on walls and in art work of the Egyptians. Charts are presented that identify the sounds of each symbol. I found it very interesting that when you see a picture of someone on a hieroglyphic, the way the person is facing is the way you would read the writing: if the person is facing left, then that is how to read that particular piece, from left to right.

There is a lot of information in this nicely presented book. It is easy to read and understand and it has a variety of exercises that help you learn the symbols.

Also interesting are the writings on tombs - the Egyptians wanted to make sure they had everything they needed on their journey beyond so on their tombs are lists of things they needed most in the afterlife. You can look at actual photos of tombs and learn to read them. If they wanted a particular bird such as an owl or other animal, often they were depicted without wings, or legs to keep the animal from running or flying away.

My daughter is in 6th grade and they are studying ancient civilizations. This is a great book for understanding how the ancients used their writings, many of which have lasted for centuries.

You can also make your own hieroglyphic messages for others to decipher with the included rubber stamps and ink!