Customer Reviews

Pyramids!: 50 Hands-On Activities to Experience Ancient Egypt (Kaleidoscope Kids Book)

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This book is packed with many wonderful creative ideas to help children become very involved in learning about ancient Egypt. I was really impressed. We homeschool and found this to be one of the best purchases we've made while learning about this ancient civilization. I should note that online the recommended age is 9-12. However, on the back of the book it is clearly printed for kids ages 6-12. My daughter is 7 and we found it to be age appropriate.

I freely admit that as soon as I saw the over of "Pyramids: 50 Hands-On Activities to Experience Ancient Egypt," that I immediately saw in my mind's eye teachers yoking their students to harnesses so they could drag giant stone blocks around the playground (think of the scenes from "The Ten Commandments"), or subjecting a most unruly student to mummification. Now, all of this would be wrong, very wrong indeed, so you should just stick to what Avery Hart & Paul Mantell come up with for young students to do in this Kaleidoscope Kids book.

Ancient Egypt is presented in these pages as the land where magic and mystery meet, and young students are encouraged to "Egyptianize" themselves, forgetting about things like cars and televisions to focus on what sort of objects (e.g., rope, jewelry, balls, etc.) that were a part of the life of people living in ancient Egypt. You can play Egyptian-Style Tug 'o War, make your own scarab (so you can honor the beetle), and make up your own spell having being inspired by the ancient spell for a stomach bug. You can even make a pull horse toy or Egyptian lady (or goddess doll). Consequently, by the time you finish the opening section where you learn that kids are still kids, even when separated by thousands of miles and thousands of years, teaches and students alike will find these activities to be fun.

Granted, a class is not going to get to do four dozen activities for a unit on Ancient Egypt, but teaches can certainly pick and choose. Besides, some of these activities, such as making a Time Line, can be done for any culture or period being studied. Some, such as making a miniature Egypt or a reed boat, are pretty specific. No surprise here, but the section on Pyramids has some of the most interesting activities, such as making a sledge, to understand how they moved around those giant stones, creating a little clay or cardboard pyramid, a pop-up pyramid with a pop-out pharaoh, or actually making a Lego or block step-pyramid. I also like the instructions on how to "Draw Like an Ancient Egyptians" (are the Bangles still in vogue with elementary school kids?).

Actually, I think you can easily work in a dozen of these projects in the classroom, perhaps having different students do different activities. While some are making a cartouche, others can be making a Soul House model or an amulet. Students might be impressed if the teacher shows up wearing the White Crown of Upper Egypt one day, the Red Crown of Lower Egypt the next (with a Silver Cobra added on), and then a Nemes. You can also throw an Ancient Egyptian Costume Party and play Senat, an ancient board game, not to mention dance like an Egyptian. Certainly teachers looking for activities that are both fun and educational will find several to their liking n this book and the others in this series. The bottom line is that I wish we had books like this when I was in grade school.

THis book is jam-packed with great activites and information. I have went through it numerous times and found new things everytime I pick it up. The activities are not difficult and do not require alot of expense to create. I really enjoyed the animation and colored type. It is nice to look through a book that is made appealing and is well illustrated.

This book will keep a child entertained for days on end. There is a huge wealth of fun and interesting information within, plus great activities. As a children's librarian I was able to plan a whole program around this title complete with activities. Loved it.

***Check out our results in the customer images!****

We have used three Kaleidoscope Kids books written by Carol A. Johmann: "Going West" (pioneers/covered wagons), "Lewis and Clark", and "Bridges!" I can not say enough good things about those three books -- we studied them and used them as the basic texts for our homeschool units. The quality of the writing and the excellent craft ideas made learning from the books a hands-on joy.

So, having experience with those three books, "Pyramids!" was a disappointment to me. The text is poorly done. Lots of psychological stuff and magical weirdness that is not age-appropriate for young grade schoolers. For two examples, read on.

Page 68: Weigh your heart: write down names of people you are angry at, murmur some "magic words", and cross out the name on your list. That's being forgiving!

Page 21:
"Believe, believe, believe in the magical forces of nature!
Believe with all your heart, mind, and soul!
Believe that you have a special place and play a special part in this magical world!"

Oh, and many more.
Like Page 28: "Do you think that people would be happy now if they were assured good weather, food, wise leaders, and peace among nations? Would that make the neighborhood you live in crime-free? What about greed (always wanting more)? Why do you think the Egyptians weren't greedy?"

I didn't leave this book in their hands for long -- we just used it to get the craft directions, then put it away.

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Having noted all that, I will say that the CRAFT IDEAS in this book are terrific, and they really work with (Important!) minimal help from mom. My children range all the way down to kindergarten age. We have done a lot of the crafts:

carving a scarab from a bar of soap (even very little children can do this craft with good results) (see photos)
making pyramids in clay, and cardboard, and Legos (see photos)
making a sledge
making crowns, nemes head coverings, and jewelry
making timelines
making art that tells a story
making a 3-D map of Egypt (see photos)
making reed boats (dried grass) (see photos)
writing hieroglyphics, making secret messages
make a pop-up pharoah card (we used hieroglyphics to write messages on the cards)
making a cartouche (clay)
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We spent some money buying supplies for the projects. But I think it's worth it; kids learn the best when they get to do activities. All told, we spent:

$ 10 cost of book
$ 4 plaster of Paris kits
$ 5 air-dry clay (white; paintable!)
$ 5 for poster board (red and gold)
$ 2 several packs of Ivory soap
$ 4 bundle of dried grass

$ 30 BOOK PLUS ALL SUPPLIES

This would have cost more, but I had coupons.

We also followed internet directions for making a shaduf (used by Egyptians for irrigation) out of Legos. And we wanted to mummify something -- we picked flowers from the garden, and buried them in a deep layer of baking soda (to simulate natron), left them for two weeks, and got perfectly preserved flower blossoms.

Used this product when studing Ancient Egypt with my homeschooled 1st grader. He like the activities, and many were educational (not just busy work/or arts)

Pyramids: 50 Hands-On Activities to Experience Ancient Egypt is one of the best books of this kind out there (and there are lots of them!)

What sets this book apart from the others is how complete it is. If you worked it with your child from cover to cover, it would be like completing a full semester study in-depth on Ancient Egyptian culture. Clothing, food, religion... It's all here. No study of a culture would be complete without knowledge of its religion!

I can't recommend this book highly enough, if you want your child to have the full scope of understanding of Ancient Egyptian culture. (And there's plenty for the parents to learn here as well!)

This book was purchased to provide my daughter, who teaches in elementary school, a resource for teaching ancient history to children. She tells me the activities are fun, easy to use, and very helpful.

Tries to get children to imagine being a child in ancient Egypt. Talks about praying to Egyptian gods and goddesses and includes activities on making up spells and carving idols.