Kindergarten Visits Ancient Egypt
Kindergarten boys took a trip to the Metropolitan Museum of Art to explore the collection of ancient Egyptian art. Their teachers created customized tours which highlighted objects and themes they had studied in the classroom. When the boys first stepped into the Egyptian galleries, they paused to look at a map in which they quickly identified the Nile River and reminded their teachers that it runs from the south to the north into the Mediterranean Sea. As they moved through the galleries, their teachers pointed out examples of cartouches, oval engravings or drawings containing Egyptian hieroglyphs. Many of the boys were able to identify specific characters by name because they had spent time drawing them at school.
As they made their way toward the Temple of Dendur, Kindergarten teachers and boys discussed the process of embalming, preparing for burial, and the afterlife journey. Together they identified objects used throughout the process, including canopic jars, and taught parent chaperones that the entire embalming process took seventy days on average. The boys were quite excited when, at last, they found a room full of real mummies! They carefully examined each one, making sure to point out every detail to each other. They noticed the Eyes of Horus (a symbol of protection) on almost all of the enclosures.
Another highlight was finding “William” the hippo. Made from faience, a ceramic material made of ground quartz, this sculpted hippopotamus was familiar to the boys because they had read the book William and His Friends before visiting the museum. When the boys looked closely at the sculpture, they found outlines of river plants painted onto the skin.
On the walk back to school, the boys carried on their conversations from the museum. Some counted the number of cartouches they had seen while others discussed how easy or difficult it would be to knock down a pyramid. The boys seemed to have thoroughly enjoyed seeing a subject they had been studying come to life at the museum.
