Drawing in Paint with Q-tips

We have these foam rollers with which the kids love to paint. I decided to add to it by putting out Q-tips. First the kids rolled paint onto their paper. (We used card stock.)

Then they took a Q-tip and drew a picture in the paint.

The paint dried pretty quickly, so they had to draw fast. When the Q-tip got too full of paint it didn't work as well, so the kids flipped it over to use the other end. They really seemed to enjoy "drawing" with something different.

It even looked cool with just some scribbles.

When the kids were doing this, it reminded me of pyramid drawings, so I think I will have to add this to my Ancient Egypt unit!

Dramatic Play Pyramid

When we learned about ancient Egypt, I put a pyramid in the dramatic play area. I made it several years ago (with the help of my brothers!) and it's still in great shape. We used a refrigerator box. Three sides of the pyramid are all one piece and for the last side, I taped on a half-sized triangle. That way I could see what was going on in there at all times!

I had little lanterns in there and some books about ancient Egypt. Two kids at a time could go in the pyramid to read the books. Later in the week I put paper on the inside walls and the kids drew on them, just like the Egyptians did.

Egyptian Pyramids

The last Ancient Egypt craft we did involved pyramids. I got the idea from here but I thought they were a tad plain as is, so I let the kids color on the paper before gluing on the Life cereal.

I explained to the kids that they were going to make Step Pyramids, which were the first pyramids built by the Egyptians.

And when we were done, there was plenty of cereal to eat with our afternoon snack!

Egyptian Mummy Masks

Oooh, I loved this project! It did take quite a bit of work on my end, though, but so worth it! Here's a glimpse:

I thought of this project after seeing King Tut's death mask. First I ordered some cheap plastic masks from Oriental Trading. Then I traced around them onto posterboard and then drew an oval shape around that.

I cut it out and taped the mask to the inside.

Some of the masks came a bit crushed, but once I taped it to the posterboard you couldn't even tell. I taped it in about 8 places so there would be no gaps. (Sorry these pictures aren't so great.)

After making all 24 (yes, we have a full class!), I took them out to the garage to spray paint them gold.

I wonder what the neighbors thought as they walked by! The first 12 I just sprayed normally, but then I went out and bought a spray attachment and used it on the second set of 12. What a difference! It sure saved my fingers! I have to thank my husband for helping me with the spraying. Even though the garage door was wide open, the fumes were getting to me so he took over.

They dried within minutes. I was able to stack them up right away. This is what they looked like when the kids got them.

I set out some acrylic paint and let the kids decorate them any way they wished.

We had some very surprised and impressed parents at pick-up time! Aren't they great?! And on a side note, later I played "Walk Like an Egyptian" and took pictures of all the kids dancing walking!

Egyptian Scratch Art

Yesterday we talked about all the drawings and carvings the Egyptians did on the tombs and on the inside of the pyramids. I ordered some scratch art paper from Oriental Trading and asked the kids to first scratch their name in it, and then to make a drawing that tells a story. Here are some of the finished pieces:

I love all the pyramids!

Ancient Egypt

We started our Ancient Egypt unit today. We made two small crafts. The first one is a cartouche, which is a name plate. The child's name is written in hieroglyphics and placed in an oval. I printed out the names using this website, cut them out, and put them on colored construction paper.

Then I set out some gems for the kids to glue on around the name. This first one still has wet glue.

I mentioned to the children that they could put them on their bedroom door or on their bed. They were pretty excited to do that!

The other craft was an amulet, or lucky charm. I went to Michael's and found some beads that looked kind of "Egyptian," if you know what I mean. They looked like they had hieroglyphs on them or carvings that Egyptians would have made.

Then I put out a bunch of beads and some elastic string and the kids made their own bracelets.

Sorry about the horrible picture. It's hard to get a good shot when the project is on a flat table that reflects the huge lights from above.