Middle Kingdom of Egypt Lesson Plans

Students use maps, atlases, and Internet sites to learn about the geographic features and topographical features of Egypt. They compare and contrast the importance of the Nile River through the Pre-Dynastic, Old Kingdom, Middle Kingdom, New Kingdom, and Modern Egypt eras. Students design a booklet to compile information regarding the Nile River and its importance.

Seventh graders examine ancient Egypt. In this ancient history lesson, 7th graders collaborate to research advancements made during the 25th and 30th centuries. Students create presentations regarding their research findings.

Students develop a timeline of events associated with Egypt, Mesopotamia, Indus River, and Huang He. They prepare a clay, wood, or pper model of a representative artifact from one civilization. They write a description of their item. Students draw a representative fashion, and write an explanation of their drawing.

Students evaluate impact of Nile River on ancient Egyptian life, show how pharaohs contributed to continuity of Egyptian life, analyze changes in Egyptian society during Middle Kingdom, examine Hatshepsut's unique place in early Egyptian society, evaluate impact of Kushite conquest of Egypt, and analyze how trade helped Kush flourish.

Sixth graders create a human timeline. In this B.C. and A.D. time lesson, 6th graders examine the relationships among events on timelines as they use date cards to create a human timeline. Students also conduct research to design their own timelines regarding given time periods.

Explore the writing, art, and religious beliefs of ancient Egypt through hieroglyphs, one of the oldest writing systems in the world, and through tomb paintings. Hieroglyphs consist of pictures of familiar objects that represent sounds.

Ninth graders are introduced to the Prown's technique of describing various objects. As a class, they view pictures of the pyramids in Egypt and discuss how the size and shape of them show their belief in eternal life and religion. They describe them based on the Prown technique and create their own pyramids to end the lesson. They also complete the same steps with a Shawabti figure and another object of their choosing.

Seventh graders explore the history, geography, and culture of ancient Egypt. They research daily life and compare it with their present lives. Students, in pairs, trace their body outlines on poster paper and work individually to use them to create and decorate Egyptian pharaohs, gods or goddesses.

Eleventh graders conduct research about the development of technologies in Ancient Egypt. The research is used to make class presentations. The students work with the teacher in order to create a rubric for the assignment.

Students discover the writing, art, and religious beliefs of ancient Egypt through hieroglyphs. The class creates a pictorial alphabet of its own and then learns and uses the symbols of the Egyptian hieroglyphic alphabet. Students identify and represent in their own drawings figures from the Book of the Dead, a funereal text written on papyrus. Pupils identify ancient Egyptian gods and goddesses and explain their historical social and religious roles.