Lauren Maciag

ED 450
Ancient Egypt Thematic Unit




ED 450: Thematic Unit Project Template
This project should be planned with the intent of potentially teaching this unit in the spring
during formal student teaching. Therefore, it is highly suggested that you confer with your
mentor teacher and consult the current curricular materials when selecting a topic.

Topic: Ancient Egypt

3 content areas you will integrate: Social Studies, Language Arts, & Art

Planning for Student Learning: Review the grade level state and district standards (CCSS) and
think about what you want your students to learn, know and be able to do as a result of this unit.
Begin gathering student and teacher resources and start thinking about how you will teach and
assess students' learning relative to the content standards you select. Ask yourself:
What do I need to learn myself in order to teach this unit well?
What kinds of resources will I need to teach this unit?
What types and genres of childrens literature are available?
Are there artifacts, simulations, songs, photographs, etc. I could use?
What human and material resources are available in my community? What
guest speakers may be appropriate? What field trips may be planned as a
preview or culmination of the unit?

Introduction Students and teachers need to know what will be learned as a result of
participating in this unit. In this section, explain why your unit topic is an important one for
young learners. Describe how students might use this knowledge "in the real world". How is
this unit relevant to your current students?
Ancient Egyptian civilization is an important topic for students to learn about. The ancient
Egyptian civilization lasted for around 3,000 years. They made many contributions to
architecture, engineering, art, military, politics, medicine and writing systems. Students
might use this knowledge in the real world that they will learn from this unit study by
seeing how some of those contributions affect our lives today.
Essential Questions: What questions should students be able to discuss, address, and analyze at
the end of the unit (consider higher order thinking, big picture questions).
How does geography affect civilizations?
What kinds of contributions and achievements did the Ancient Egyptians make, and how
do those contributions and achievements affect us today?
What was life like in Ancient Egypt? How did their culture, beliefs and religion impact
their lives?
Activation: Focus students attention and assess their prior knowledge (upon introduction of the
unit).
Picture Preview- Students will be shown a series of pictures that deal with Ancient Egypt
(see attached sheet). Teacher will lead a discussion about the photos to assess students
prior knowledge of Ancient Egypt.
Teacher will also show students the rap video about Ancient Egypt and have students listen
for words they recognize. Teacher should use scaffolding questions to see what vocabulary
words students understand from the video and what they need to go over.
(http://www.flocabulary.com/ancient-egypt/)
Common Core State Standards and Illinois State Standards (if applicable) addressed.
RI.6.1-Cite textual evidence to support analysis of what the text says explicitly as well as
inferences drawn from the text.
W.6.3-Write narratives to develop real or imagined experiences or events using effective
technique, relevant descriptive details, and well-structured event sequences.
W.6.7-Conduct short research projects to answer a question, drawing on several sources
and refocusing the inquiry when appropriate.
RH.6-8.2- Determine the central ideas or information of a primary or secondary sources;
provide an accurate summary of the source.
RH.6-8.4- Determine the meaning of words and phrases as they are used in a text, including
vocabulary specific to domains related to history/social studies.
RI.6.7-Integrate information present in different media or formats (eg. Visually,
quantitatively) as well as in words to develop a coherent understanding of a topic or issue.

Lesson Ideas:
Lesson 1
Content Area(s): Social Studies/Geography Focus
Lesson Objectives: Students should be able to identify how the Nile River helped to sustain
the Ancient Egyptian Civilization.
How does this lesson adhere to your essential question(s) and how does it empower your
students to further consider the question? This lesson will adhere to the first essential
question (How does geography affect civilizations?). This lesson will create a space for
students to learn more about how the geography of Ancient Egypt had an effect on the lives
of the people there, specifically the Nile River.
Instructional Materials: Map of Egypt that shows the Nile River, youtube video and
textbook.
Instructional Strategies: Students will be able to use their textbook and cite textual evidence
that support their claims of how the Nile River affected the lives of the Ancient Egyptians.
A strategy that students will need to use to complete this lesson is to be able to cite their
evidence from the text.
Assessments (Formative and/or summative): For formative assessment during this lesson the
teacher should be listening to what the students are saying during their group work.
Teacher should be listening to make sure students are using vocabulary appropriately, (ei.
Silt, Kemet, fertile, bazzars, etc.). Teacher should also collect their notes to make sure that
students are using evidence from the text to support their ideas on how living on the Nile
affected the Ancient Egyptians and helped sustain their civilization.
Summary/Brief Description: In this lesson students will be discussing how the Nile River
affected the lives of the Ancient Egyptians. The lesson will begin with the students being
shown a map that shows the Nile River and where it flowed through Ancient Egypt.
Teacher will then show students the youtube video about how the Nile River affected the
lives of Ancient Eyptians and lead a discussion about the video. Teacher and students will
then read section 1 in their textbooks, The Geography of the Nile. Students will then
break into groups and use their textbooks to answer the question How did living on the
Nile have an effect on the lives of the Ancient Egyptians and help sustain their
civilization? Students should cite evidence from their textbook to support their claims.
For example students can write, When the Nile flooded, it left silt which made an area that
was good for farming. (p.70).

Lesson 2
Content Area(s): Social Studies
Lesson Objectives: Students will complete a webquest and answer questions about 6
different topics dealing with life in Ancient Egypt. Through this activity students will be
able to understand and discuss these different aspects of the life of Ancient Egyptians.
How does this lesson adhere to your essential question(s) and how does it empower your
students to further consider the question? This lesson addresses the 3
rd
essential question
(What was life like in Ancient Egypt? How did their culture, beliefs and religion impact
their lives?) by letting students explore these topics through their own internet research
through the webquest.
Instructional Materials: Computers/Ipads, webquest worksheet.
Instructional Strategies: Students will be using the webquest worksheet to guide them
through the website (BBCs Ancient Egypt website) to explore what life was like for the
Ancient Egyptians. Students will need to be able to determine the central ideas that are
presented to them in the website, which includes both primary and secondary resources.
Assessments (Formative and/or summative): Teacher will use the worksheet as a formative
assessment to make sure that students understand the content. Teacher will also monitor
the students while they are working to see if they are able to pull the central ideas from the
material on the websites to correctly answer the content questions on the worksheet.
Summary/Brief Description: Students will be given a webquest worksheet and access to
laptops/Ipads for this lesson. Students will use the webquest worksheet as a guide to
navigate the website to find answers to the questions on the worksheet. The worksheet asks
students about 6 different aspects of life in Ancient Egypt; pyramids and monuments,
mummification, gods and beliefs, pharaohs and dynasties, daily life, and hieroglyphics.

Lesson 3
Content Area(s): Social Studies & Art
Lesson Objectives: Students will be able to discuss the importance of Ancient Egyptian
culture and beliefs, especially the Book of the Dead.
How does this lesson adhere to your essential question(s) and how does it empower your
students to further consider the question? This lesson adheres to the 3rd essential question
(What was life like in Ancient Egypt? How did their culture, beliefs and religion impact
their lives?) by having students create their own Book of the Dead.
Instructional Materials: Example pages from the Book of the Dead, scrolls, art supplies.
Instructional Strategies: Students will be able to demonstrate knowledge Ancient Egyptian
beliefs through the creation of their own Book of the Dead. Students should be able to
determine how the Ancient Egyptian beliefs affected their daily lives.
Assessments (Formative and/or summative): Formative assessment for this lesson will be
reading through the students Book of the Dead to make sure that students understand its
purpose. Teacher will also be using the discussion during the beginning part of the lesson to
gage student understanding of how Ancient Egyptians culture and belief shaped their
everyday lives.
Summary/Brief Description: Lesson will begin by teacher leading a discussion about
different Ancient Egyptian beliefs about the afterlife and how these beliefs shaped how
Egyptians lived. Teacher will then show students pages from the Book of the Dead.
Students will then be given their own scrolls of paper to create their own book of the Dead.
Students will illustrate their scroll with pictures of different gods that we have been
learning about in this unit.

Lesson 4
Content Area(s): Social Studies, Art, & Language Arts
Lesson Objectives: Students will be able to use hieroglyphics and illustrations to decorate a
tomb wall. This will help students to learn more about Ancient Egyptian beliefs.
How does this lesson adhere to your essential question(s) and how does it empower your
students to further consider the question? This lesson adheres to the 3
rd
essential question
(What was life like in Ancient Egypt? How did their culture, beliefs and religion impact
their lives?). Students will be able to use their knowledge of Ancient Egyptian culture and
beliefs to create an illustration for a tomb wall.
Instructional Materials: Photos of tomb walls, short story about a Pharaoh, paper, art
supplies.
Instructional Strategies: Students will be able to demonstrate their understanding of the
content through their illustrations. Students will need to be able to infer from the short
story about the Pharaohs life to depict his life on their tomb drawing.
Assessments (Formative and/or summative): Teacher will use the discussion in the beginning
of the lesson to gage student understanding, and to see what else may need to be explained
before the students create their own tomb wall.
Summary/Brief Description: Students will be shown photos of tomb walls and will have a
discussion in pairs about what they think the paintings/carvings on the wall are depicting.
Then teacher will lead discussion about what the students discussed and why they think
that. Students and teacher will then read a short story about the life of a Pharaoh and
teacher will lead a discussion about what they can infer from the story about the Pharaohs
life. Students will then be given paper and art supplies to create a scene from the story on
their piece of the tomb wall (the piece of paper). Their art will be displayed in the
classroom on our own tomb wall in our Ancient Egypt Museum section of our classroom.

Lesson 5
Content Area(s): Social Studies & Language Arts
Lesson Objectives: Students will be able to create a timeline that lists Ancient Egyptian
achievements.
How does this lesson adhere to your essential question(s) and how does it empower your
students to further consider the question? This lesson adheres to the 2
nd
essential question
(What kinds of contributions and achievements did the Ancient Egyptians make, and how
do those contributions and achievements affect us today?) Students will be able to
understand what different achievements there are, and be able to articulate through
writing how those achievements affect us today.
Instructional Materials: Textbook, student notes, & paper.
Instructional Strategies: Students will use information from the textbook & their notes to
create a timeline of Ancient Egyptian achievements. They will need to be able to integrate
information from their textbooks and notes to finish the timeline.
Assessments (Formative and/or summative): As formative assessment teacher will be looking
at the timeline to see that students understand the concept of how time moves, especially if
students understand how to create a timeline that goes from B.C. to A.D. Teacher will also
look at timelines to see if students understand what the different achievements of the
Anicent Egyptians were. Teacher will also be looking at the short student essays to see if
students understand how these achievements affect us today.
Summary/Brief Description: Students will be creating a timeline of the achievements of
Ancient Egyptians. Teacher will have already read the text out loud with the whole class,
and students have done this activity before so they are familiar with the format and what
achievements they should be looking for. Students will use their text and their notes to
complete this task. After the timeline is created, students will then write a short essay on
how these achievements affect our lives today. Students should use information from the
textbook to support their claims.
Lesson 6
Content Area(s): Social Studies & Art
Lesson Objectives: Students will understand more about the mummification process and be
able to discuss this topic with their peers.
How does this lesson adhere to your essential question(s) and how does it empower your
students to further consider the question? This lesson adheres to the 3
rd
essential question
(What was life like in Ancient Egypt? How did their culture, beliefs and religion impact
their lives?). Students will be able to explore this through learning about the
mummification process.
Instructional Materials: Textbook, paper, art supplies, graphic organizer.
Instructional Strategies: Students will use graphic organizer to organize what information
they want to depict in our museum about the mummification process.
Assessments (Formative and/or summative): Teacher will be looking to see if students
understand the mummification process through their art. Teacher will also have students
write a few sentences describing their art to be displayed next to it. Teacher should be
reading these to make sure students are using vocabulary correctly.
Summary/Brief Description: Teacher will give students a list of vocabulary words that are
used to help describe the mummification process. Students will use a graphic organizer to
write out the different vocabulary words and their meanings. Students will create three
pictures or other art (ei. Sculptures, etc.) that depict some part of the mummification
process. For example a student may create a 3-D canopic jar. Students will need to use the
vocabulary and write a few sentences describing their art using the vocabulary words.
Lesson 7
Content Area(s): Social Studies & Language Arts
Lesson Objectives: Students will be able to demonstrate their understanding of Ancient
Egyptian achievements and accomplishments through the creation of a narrative. Students
will need to understand how a narrative should be created before completing this lesson.
How does this lesson adhere to your essential question(s) and how does it empower your
students to further consider the question? This adheres to the 2
nd
essential question (What
kinds of contributions and achievements did the Ancient Egyptians make, and how do
those contributions and achievements affect us today?) Students will be able to explore this
through writing a narrative about this topic.
Instructional Materials: Notes & notebook
Instructional Strategies: Students will need to understand how to write a narrative in order
to complete this lesson. This is something that the language arts teacher has been working
on with students prior to this lesson. Students will also need to be able to infer what life was
like during Ancient Egypt.
Assessments (Formative and/or summative): Teacher will use this narrative as formative
assessment to gage student understanding of Ancient Egyptian achievements and
accomplishments. Students have previous worked with this when they created their
timeline and this will be an extension of that lesson to see whether or not students
understand the content.
Summary/Brief Description: Students will use their notes and timelines they have previously
created to write a narrative about an Ancient Egyptian accomplishment. They will create a
character and write about how that character accomplished something (ei., the creation of
the pyramids, papyrus, advances in medicine, using the Nile for farming, etc.) Students
narratives should describe how the character either helped to create the accomplishment,
or how the accomplishment affected their lives as an Ancient Egyptian.

Lesson 8
Content Area(s): Social Studies
Lesson Objectives: Students will be able to use hieroglyphics to write a note to a friend.
How does this lesson adhere to your essential question(s) and how does it empower your
students to further consider the question? This lesson adheres to the 2
nd
essential question
(What kinds of contributions and achievements did the Ancient Egyptians make, and how
do those contributions and achievements affect us today?) through students learning more
about hieroglyphics, the writing system that Ancient Egyptians created.
Instructional Materials: Hieroglyphics handout, paper, and youtube video.
Instructional Strategies: Students will use the hieroglyphics handout to write a note to a
friend. On the back of the note students should write why the creation of hieroglyphics was
important.
Assessments (Formative and/or summative): Teacher should be looking for student
understanding of why the creation of hieroglyphics was important, (ei. It was one of the
first writing systems, it let Ancient Egyptians record their history, etc.)
Summary/Brief Description: Teacher will first show students youtube video about the
discovery of how hieroglyphics were first decoded. Students will be introduced to the
hieroglyphics worksheet and teacher will do a few examples of how to create words using
hieroglyphics. Students will then write a short note to a friend using hieroglyphics.
Students will then write a short paragraph on the back of their note explaining why the
creation of this writing system was important to the Ancient Egyptians and why it is
important for us today.

Lesson 9
Content Area(s): Social Studies
Lesson Objectives: Students will be able to compare and contrast the geography of Ancient
Egypt to the geography of Mesopotamia.
How does this lesson adhere to your essential question(s) and how does it empower your
students to further consider the question? This lesson adheres to the 1
st
essential question
(How does geography affect civilizations?). Students will be able to explore how different
geological locations can affect civilizations.
Instructional Materials: Compare and contrast graphic organizer, student notes.
Instructional Strategies: Students will need to know how to compare and contrast and will
use the graphic organizer to help them.
Assessments (Formative and/or summative): Teacher will use the graphic organizer as a
formative assessment to see if students understand how geography affects a civilization.
Teacher should be listening to students as they work in pairs to see if students are correctly
applying vocabulary.
Summary/Brief Description: Students work in pairs and will use a graphic organizer and
their notes from the Ancient Egyptian lessons and the Mesopotamia lessons we previously
worked on to compare and contrast the two civilizations and how where they were located
affected them. For example, Egypt had the protection of the desert to help keep our
invaders, while Mesopotamia did not have that same protection between the Tigris and
Euphrates Rivers. Students will be able to see how the location of a civilization can have
advantages and disadvantages.


Lesson 10
Content Area(s): Social Studies & Language Arts
Lesson Objectives: Students will be able to demonstrate their understanding of the content
through a short skit they perform in groups.
How does this lesson adhere to your essential question(s) and how does it empower your
students to further consider the question? This lesson adheres to all three of the essential
questions. Students will be able to choose different topics we have gone over such as
geography, daily life in Egypt, or different accomplishments to create their skit.
Instructional Materials: Textbooks, notes, props, scripts, computers.
Instructional Strategies: Students will use their textbooks, notes, and internet research and
integrate the different information to come up with a short commercial for a travel agency.
Students should use persuasive language in their commercial to try and get people to travel
to Ancient Egypt.
Assessments (Formative and/or summative): Teacher will use student scripts and
performances as a summative assessment of the students knowledge of Ancient Egypt.
Summary/Brief Description: Students will use their textbooks, notes, and internet research to
create a commercial for a travel agency persuading people to come visit Ancient Egypt.
They will need to use the topics we discussed in class in their commercials. For example,
students may use information we learned about Ancient Egypt being more difficult for
invaders to attack since they were surrounded by a desert on one side or describe the
pyramids and how they were built to entice people to come visit. Students will do these in
groups and create a script. Students can be as creative as they want, use props, even tape
their commercial and show it in class instead of performing it in real time.


What do you see as a culminating project that would demonstrate students growth in
their understanding of the underlying concepts of the unit (i.e. your essential questions)?
As a culminating project I would like to take the students on a field trip to the Field
Museum and have them complete an Egyptian scavenger hunt with partners in the
Egyptian exhibit. Students should use what they have learned throughout the unit, as well
as information in the exhibit to help them answer questions on their scavenger hunt
worksheet. Once the worksheet is completed, students will use the information to write a
short essay answering the essential questions. This essay will be used as a summative
assessment for the unit study.



Resource Bibliography:
Textbook: History of Our World-Prentice Hall
Youtube video for Lesson 1- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oE2YZZgZWdE
BBC Website for Lesson 2- http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/ancient/egyptians/
Lesson 3- http://www.touregypt.net/bkofdead.htm
Lesson 4- http://www.touregypt.net/featurestories/pyramidreligion.htm
Lesson 8- http://www.ehabweb.net/hieroglyphics/
- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ptXlmZzSVV8
Websites suggestions for Lesson 9- http://www.ancientegypt.co.uk/menu.html
- http://www.history.com/topics/ancient-egypt
- http://egypt.mrdonn.org/
Culminating Project- http://fieldmuseum.org/happening/exhibits/inside-ancient-egypt