Unit:
Who’s the Mummy?
Term:
Spring 1
Unit Overview
This Unit is based on a study of ancient Egypt. It would be impossible to cover all aspects of ancient Egyptian civilisation in such a short space of time so the main
focus is on mummification. You will need the first two lessons of history early in the first week to get the mummification process underway.
The pupils begin the Unit by becoming tomb explorers that find a series of mysterious objects that they need to identify and mysterious riddles that they need to
solve.
To do this over the four weeks they will discover how mummies were created by embalming a fish. They will recreate authentic Egyptian jewellery and make canopic
jars to ‘store’ the body parts of mummies.
Pupils will write their own versions of ancient Egyptian myths and discover why Egypt’s position in the world made it such a powerful country. The Unit concludes with
the pupils carrying out a ‘burial ceremony’ for their fish, which will help them to identify the mystery objects and answer the curious riddles.
©Cornwall Learning Publications 2013
Links
Who’s the Mummy?
This Unit is based on a study of ancient
Egypt. It would be impossible to cover all
aspects of ancient Egyptian civilisation in
such a short space of time so the main
focus is on mummification.
The pupils begin the Unit by becoming
tomb explorers that find a series of
mysterious objects that they need to
identify and mysterious riddles that they
need to solve.
To do this over the four weeks they will
discover how mummies were created by
embalming a fish. They will recreate
authentic Egyptian jewellery and make
canopic jars to ‘store’ the body parts of
mummies.
Pupils will write their own versions of
ancient Egyptian myths and discover why
Egypt’s position in the world made it such
a powerful country. The Unit concludes
with the pupils carrying out a ‘burial
ceremony’ for their fish, which will help
them to identify the mystery objects and
answer the curious riddles.
©Cornwall Learning Publications 2013

Outdoor Learning
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National and International links
 Visit to local or national museum with an Egyptian collection
 Link to The British Museum website which has a huge collection of Egyptian resources.
 Link to a school in modern Egypt for geography lessons
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Links to the world of work
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Links to learning and life skills
 Links to role of an archaeologist, embalmer, jeweller, jewellery retailer, Egyptologist, university lecturer,
Egyptian holiday tour operator or travel agent.
 Work with perseverance, concentrate, focus on task and ignore distractions
 Able to take turns when talking and make appropriate contributions
Who’s the Mummy?
Summaries
History
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Ancient Egyptian timeline
Family tree of Egyptian gods
Pharaohs
Mummification
Symbols and hieroglyphics
Pyramids
English
• Key features and purposes of myths
• Egyptian creation myth Isis and
Music
• Singing
• Adding accompaniments to
Osiris
• Pupils write their own creation myth
• Writing instructions for the
mummification process
songs
• Inventing and exploring rhythm
patterns
Geography
Languages
• Location of Egypt
• Geographic features
• Geographic fact file on modern Egypt
• Composing simple pieces
• Listening to music (related to
Egyptian theme)
• Practise vocabulary for parts of the body by singing a song
• Listen to a description of an Egyptian God or Goddess and deduce
meaning through previously learned language or cognates
• Match sounds to sentences and paragraphs
• Read and understand the main points and some detail from a short written
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passage about a selection of Egyptian Gods
Play’ who is it game’ and reply using a simple sentence
Understand the main points of a spoken and written passage from the
PowerPoint about Gods and Goddesses
Use knowledge of French words, text and structure to build simple spoken
and written passages about the subject of Egyptians
Create a PowerPoint presentation in French about Egyptian Gods and
Goddesses
Use knowledge of French words, text and structure to build simple spoken
and written passages
Check on how to pronounce unfamiliar words
Apply a range of linguistic knowledge to create simple written work
Perform their presentations to an audience
Constructively evaluate own presentations and those of others
©Cornwall Learning Publications 2013
Applied Maths
• Egyptian numbers – solve
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calculations
Rhind papyrus
Multiplication
Problem solving
Number puzzles
Art and Design
• Make authentically decorated
jewellery inspired by ancient
Egyptian jewellery
• Create realistic versions of
canopic jars
Summaries
English
Examples of Egyptian myths
Art and Design
• Photographs of authentic Ancient Egyptian jewellery
http://realhistoryww.com/world_history/ancient/Misc/Egypt/Jewelryb.
htm or search ‘ancient Egyptian jewellery’
• Sheets of craft foam (aka ‘funky foam’)
• Silver/gold wrapping paper or aluminuim foil
• Sketch books/pencils/colour pencils
• Air dry clay
• Coloured polymer clay
• Buttons/beads
• A range of leather thong or thick string/cord/thin rope/ribbons/wool
• Sheets of coloured craft foam
• PVA glue/glue gun / paper plates / gold/silver paint
• Thin wire- you can buy wonderful colour wires.
• Narrow Velcro
• Aluminium foil/gold wrapping paper
• Paints/sable type brushes.
• Toothpicks for engraving a cartouche
• Safety pins
• Black acrylic paint and/or gold glitterglue or piant
• Empty Pringles(or similar) tubes
• Materials for papier mache (newspaper and pva glue)
History
• Items to recreate ‘tomb’ including sand, incense sticks, battery operated tea lights,
‘papyrus’ scrolls, crochet hook, small jars, mummified toy cat, costume jewellery
• Blank family tree document
• Whole mackerel or sardines (with heads and guts intact)
• Salt and/or bicarbonate of soda
• Plastic Tupperware containers or empty ice cream tubs (big enough to hold the fish)
• Sharp knives
• Black bin liners to use as aprons
• Dried or fresh herbs (rosemary is good as it is strong smelling!)
• Strips of cotton or muslin cloth (an old pillow case works well)
• Examples of Egyptian hieroglyphics http://www.virtualegypt.com/newhtml/hieroglyphics/sample/alphabet.ht or similar
• Images of the Rosetta stone http://www.ancientegypt.co.uk/writing/rosetta.html
©Cornwall Learning Publications 2013
• www.laits.utexas.edu/cairo/teachers/osiris.pdf
• www.guardians.net/egypt/kids/myth_of_osiris_and_isis.htm
• www.egyptianmyths.net/mythisis.htm (LONG VERSION)
• www.educationscotland.gov.uk/passeportfrancophone/egyp
t/resources/creationmyth/index.asp (oral retelling of the
creation myth with transcript)
Music
• ‘Amazing Egyptians’ by Suzy Davies A&C Black (Music Express)
• A selection of Egyptian themed music:
o Steve Reich – ‘Desert Music’
o Varese – ‘Desert’
o Peter Gabriel – ‘Sandstorm’
o The Bangles – ‘Walk like an Egyptian’
o BBC School Radio - Music for Dance – The Civilisation of
Ancient Egypt
‘Desert March’, ‘World of
o http://www.ancientnile.co.uk/
Anubis’, ‘Tears of Isis’ (from CD Eternal River by Stephen
Wood)
o Verdi – ‘Grand March from Aida’ (fanfare/ceremonial)
o Steve Reich – ‘Pieces of wood’
o Copland – ‘Fanfare for the Common Man’
o Out of the Ark - That’s What I Call a Class Assembly
Geography
• Unlabelled maps of the world
• Prepared lists of true and false statements
• Online or printed country factfiles e.g.
www.factmonster.com/countries.html
Who’s the Mummy?
Resources
Languages
• Unit PowerPoints
• Presentation of Egyptian Gods
• Printed sets of mini PowerPoint slides ready for
listening activity
• A4 flashcards of Gods/Goddesses
• Printable planning sheet
• Access to computers with PowerPoint or Keynote
software
• Planning Sheets
• Bilingual dictionaries
• Optional: Additional reference sources such as Unit
PowerPoint slides or information texts
• Cross-curricular resources
• Evaluation sheets (photocopiable)
• Certificates (photocopiable)
• Pupil prepared PowerPoints ready to show to the
class (all on one computer ready for display?)
• Pupil prepared Fact Files
• Certificate or prize for best PowerPoint