Escape to Ancient Egypt

The last week of camp we traveled to Egypt and of course we began our week in art by making Egypt's flag!



After reading some books about pyramids, we used Cuisenaire rods to build pyramids in the sand.

I also found a Egypt Toob at Hobby Lobby! I love those Toobs. This one had some really cool Egyptian figures that I added to the trays:



At art we build pyramids with blocks which was pretty tricky! They did a great job!





We also built pyramids out of chex cereal and then ate them, yum.



We learned that Egyptians wore collars as symbols of wealth and status. We made some collars out of paper plates and added bright colors and dots of gold to show we had an important status.



For our cultural snack, we tasted Naan bread and made an Egyptian snack. We found one that sounded yummy. Here's the recipe:

Salatit Zabadi

2 1/2 cups of Greek-style plain yogurt

1 smaller English cucumbers

salt

1 clove of minced garlic (you can omit this the first time if your kids do not like garlic- slowly add a little more each time you make it!

a handful of mint leaves, chopped

olive oil

 

Drain the yogurt of any liquid every time you use it, to make it as thick as possible. First slice the cucumbers into very thin slices, and then dice them.  Place them into a shallow bowl and sprinkle with salt. After an hour, you will see that the salt will have drawn out the liquid. Drain it, and combine the cucumbers, yogurt, garlic, mint, and finally the olive oil.



We tasted it with our Naan bread, and as usual all these children tried and liked it! It is amazing how they will try so many of these ethnic foods!



Next, we learned about mummies and there was only one thing for us to do! We made some of our campers into mummies!

As we went we discussed how the Egyptians mummified people and placed them in tombs. Pyramids are just tombs for very important people!



To give our campers some experience in mummy wrapping, we added gauze to the home center and they mummified the babies!



This was a very popular center!



Ms. Rachel checked some amazing Egyptian books out from the library for us!

There are so many interesting things about ancient Egypt.

To wrap up the week we offered Egyptian campers face painting similar to the make up the Egyptians used to wear.

We gave them fancy Egyptian make up!

LOVE it!



And here's a scarab beetle.

At the end of the week we said goodbye to Ms. Heather who had spent part of the summer with us. We really enjoyed having her and will miss her! Here she is with her friend Will, who is going to Kindergarten. Summer is over and everyone is moving on to new adventures.

All in all our travels this summer were exciting, adventurous, delicious and fun. We had a great time catching the traveling bug at the ECDC!



Amazon Adventure-Brazil

Next up was Brazil! We concentrated on one of the most fascinating parts of Brazil-the Amazon Rainforest! We started with the flag...

Next we learned about the layers of the rainforest. The kids LOVED this. Every morning we would ask what layer they wanted to live in for the day. Here's a chart of the layers:

Then we sang this song about one hundred fifty million times. :)

 Next we learned about Anacondas. It was disturbing and fascinating at the same time! We found they could grow up to 30 feet. Since our room is about 30 feet long, we rolled out butcher paper the length of an anaconda.

After cutting them into snake shapes, we added eyes and a mouth.

Next, we stamped our snake's skin with black spots.

This was such a big undertaking, we moved our anaconda to another area!

The campers were so fascinated with the length of the snakes that we used different toys to make chains to show us how long they were. *shudder*

We played a snake game, too.

Ahh! A two headed snake!

We added rainforest animals to the sensory table.

After learning about poisonous tree frogs we got frog tattoos!

They were pretty popular.

One really interesting thing we learned about tree frogs in the rainforest is that they often make their homes in bromeliads. A bromeliad is a tropical plant in the pineapple family They live on the branches and trunks of rainforest trees. They have a remarkable way of getting water and food. Their long, curved leaves overlap at the base, forming a tight little bowl -- a perfect water tank! The leaves act as gutters to collect rain, and the tank holds the water. The largest bromeliads hold up to two gallons of water. Many animals make their home in the bromeliads. We examined a pineapple for ourselves, then made our own bromeliads.



We cut paper to look like spiky leaves and taped them around a cup, similar to the hole the leaves create in a real bromeliad. Then everyone got to choose a tree frog to go inside!

We even put water in our cups!

We took an expedition down the Amazon river in a small boat...

Then we learned about tropical birds. One was the toucan. We made toucans at art.

Are these super cute or what?



Ms. Courtney made us this awesome waterfall that we walked under to enter our room.

For our cultural cooking project, we made Brazilian cheese puffs, called Pão de Queijo. You can find the recipe here.

This recipe called for tapioca flour, which I couldn't find! Ms. Heather came to the rescue and picked some up at Whole Foods for us. 

The batter turned out to be completely liquid, which we didn't expect.

But we poured the batter in and hoped for the best.

They puffed, then deflated, but here's the final product:

The consensus? Strange texture, but with two cups of cheese, let's be honest, anything that cheesy is delicious. 

That's the end of the rainforest days. Next up, we are escaping to Egypt!