Parshat Shemot - Hieroglyphics

This week, we started the second book of the Torah "Shmot" and I told the kids to take out their passports and we "flew" down to Egypt. There are TONS of great ancient Egypt art projects out there to choose from.

I chose to focus on hieroglyphics because I thought that they would be super interesting and accessible for kids. I also think they are strikingly beautiful. There are endless resources online of facts, videos, crafts, and games relating to hieroglyphics.

I really wanted to make "papyrus" paper but it would require too much time for the glue to dry (a major downside of trying to do short projects). So instead of a scroll-like project, I decided to do a "cartouche"-style project. If I had prepared more in advance (which I never seem to get to do...), I would have liked to make these out of clay or dough instead of paper just for the sake of varying our medium. Maybe next year :).

I knew the kids would enjoy a project that involved gold material so I was very happy when I found super-cheap gold paper. I encouraged the kids to write their names in hieroglyphics but I came across two problems: 1) not all of the sounds/letters had a sign which frustrated some kids and 2) some of the signs were particularly hard for them to draw like the lion and the bird. But, as always, after letting them have a few minutes of venting their frustrations and inabilities, they started to get into it.

In addition to the individual projects, I hung up a roll of butcher paper to resemble Egyptian wall-writing art. They definitely enjoyed "writing on the wall...

Most of the final projects and the bulletin board came out really great.