Ancient Egypt Project: Part 1

My sixth grade smarties just finished up a unit on Ancient Egypt.

We spent over a month studying about this Ancient Civilization, and the culminating project was a recreation of King Tut's Tomb which parents came to visit.  I have LOVE LOVE LOVED working on this project with them!  It has really provided me the opportunity to see students in new leadership roles, and differentiate specific instruction for students, especially the students I would consider Gifted and Talented.
Throughout the unit we worked on informational reading and writing skills.  Cause and effect was a big skill, and one thing we wanted our students to make sure they understood was how the Nile River effected life in Ancient Egypt.  We use an interactive notebook, so we had our students work using a foldable.  My teammate teaches our science classes, so she was teaching about land formations, and related all of the pieces to the Nile River.  Our students could explain why the Nile appears to flow North, and why the Egyptian Delta was so important to agriculture.  I am always so grateful to my teammate!  She has great ideas, and we really work well as a team!  Our smarties were really interested in the mummification process.  We used this foldable to reinforce the cause and effect piece.
The template is from Erin at I'm Lovin Lit.  We differentiate depending upon our students.  Some of them get everything blank except the Essential Question, others get the causes but not the effects, etc.
We also have them use the information and write a summary paragraph on the outside of the foldable after we have shared our information.  Sorry I don't have a picture of that.  I need to be a better picture taker at school!
After we finished what we call the "Pillars" of Social Studies (Geography, Culture, Economy, Legacy and People) we had the students pick a topic they were interested in.  We spent about 6 days in the library doing research on our individual projects.  During that time we taught information writing structures focusing on summary.  

We wrote a report and a museum card.  Our smarties were so into this project!  It was amazing how much time they put into it.  It really paid off in the final product!  Stop back to soon to see what happened when we opened Tut's Tomb!


2 comments

  1. Wow, a month. That is my problem with social studies, sometimes I feel the unit goes on too long. But you seemed to have great engaging activities so I am sure that it flew by. Thanks for all this info - I need to teach ancient civilizations in the spring!

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  2. It's fun to read about your creative ways to teach Ancient Civilizations; I just finished teaching Ancient Egypt and will begin Greece soon. I've been teaching these for some years, but I'm always looking for fresh ideas. Keep up the great work!

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