Mummies and Pyramids

I know Madeline enjoys history, but I'm starting to really enjoy it as well!  Recently we read through the chapter about Egyptian pyramids.  We've learned that they were built for the mummified pharaohs to protect the jewels and treasures that were buried with their sarcophaguses.  Sarcophagus is a really funny word to hear Travis pronounce, by the way! When the great pharaoh, Cheops, built his pyramid to eventually be buried in, he wanted it to be the biggest of all.  His is known as the Great Pyramid because it is the largest of the 35 other Egyptian pyramids.  It took Cheops 20 years to build, and was made with over 2 million stones, each weighing nearly as much as an elephant.  I can't believe it!  It seems with all the technology that we're surrounded with and dependent upon, that we would never be able to accomplish that without use of machinery in today's world.  He was even buried with a boat and other furniture in hopes that he would be able to use them in the afterworld.  Madeline built a pyramid made out of sugar cubes and came up with a good idea to build the Sphinx next to it to protect and watch over it.  Then she said, "Well that didn't take me 20 years to build!"

We also spent a good amount of time reading through a number of books on Egyptian pyramids that we've borrowed from the library.

Travis attempted a pyramid as well.  Here is a picture right after one of his sugar cube towers fell down:

Haha....Love that face!

In addition to the pyramids, we also mummified an apple slice.  The Story of the World (SOTW) Activity book suggested to mummify a whole chicken, but there was too much ick factor involved that would be sitting on my kitchen counter for weeks.  An apple slice, however, I could handle! 

 When priests prepared a mummy, they took out the organs, covered them with special spices, and stored separately from the body. The heart was taken out, prepared and wrapped in linen, and placed back into the body.  We pretended to be priests and cut out the core in our slice to represent the organs.  Madeline added the apple to a mix of baking soda, salt, and a few special spices, and sealed it up.  Ours was left undisturbed for 1 week instead of the 40 days required for a real mummy. 

At the big reveal, Madeline thought the apple smelled gross; I thought it smelled stronger than an old apple, but no different.... if that makes any sense.