Ancient Egypt History Lesson for Kids with FUN Hands-on Activities

Explore the fascinating history of ancient egypt for kids with lots of information, hands-on projects, and clever activities to make history come alive. From ideas for building a pyramid, edible Egyptian map, making a game, exploring papyrus, and more! These Egypt activities for kids are perfect for all ages from preschool, pre-k, kindergarten, first grade, 2nd grade, 3rd grade, 4th grade, 5th garde, 6th grade, 7th grade, 8th grade, 9th garde, 10th garde, 11th grade, and even 12th graders too.

Ancient Egypt for Kids

Take learning about Ancient Egypt for kids to the next level with this fun unit filled with so many fun and clever ideas and activities for your lesson plan. These ancient egypt projects are perfect for preschoolers, kindergartners, grade 1, grade 2, grade 3, grade 4, grade 5, grade 6, grade 7, grade 8, grade 9, grade 10, grade 11, and grade 12 students.  Whether you dress-up, try your hand at one of our activities, or one of these other fun history ideas, these will certainly make learning exciting and engaging for elementary, middle school, and high schoolers too!

Ancient Egypt Books for Kids

• Ancient Egypt – Tales of gods and Pharaohs. This book tells tales of Egypt with pictures in the typical style we associate with Ancient Egyptian writings which is such a fun way to learn more about their culture.
• This lovely Everything Ancient Egypt book includes stunning photographs and intersting information.
• Kids will love the see-through part of this Mummies book. The price has gone up since we got it, try to get it used!
• High School students will enjoy Unwrapping the Pharaohs which gives great crossover on how Egyptian archaeology confirms the Biblical timeline.
• My kids enjoy this series and the If I were a Kid in Ancient Egypt is a great way for kids to understand what life would have been like for them.
• Our family loves Gail Biggons books. This Mummies, Pyramids, and Pharaohs is another great way to read through with kids to learn about this fascinating period of history!
• Curious Kids Guides ANCIENT EGYPT by Philip Steele answers kids most pressing questions with simple, but accurate explanation and illustrations.
• One of my kids favorites was this sticker book on Ancient Egypt. I loved that it included actual images plus illustrations and information too.

Ancient Egypt Activities

We started out with some fun, edible geography! I whipped up 2 batches of rice krispie treats which I put on a parchment covered cookie sheet. I used this map for the labeling. Make sure to make Upper Egypt (referring to elevation not North) higher with your edible treat to help kids remember that Upper Egypt is lower on the map. We used blue frosting we put in a ziplock bag and cut off the corner to pipe both the Nile River, Red Sea, and Mediterannean sea.

Now we added the cities including: upper Egypt, lower Egypt, Abu Simbel, Cairo, Giza, Memphis, Karnak, Thebes, and the Valley of Kings.

FInally, we added figures from our Egypt toob. We put the phyramids of Giza, Sphinx, King Tut, Nerphrittit, and the sarcophogos where they belonged on the map.  I LOVED this visual, they were the perfect size, and it was a great visual for the kids. The rice krispie was the pefect color and a great density for sticking our toothpicks and figures in.

Ancient Egypt Projects

Pyramids are impressively HUGE and impressive feats of engineering still standing in modern Egypt. Originally pharaohs were burried in brick tombs called mastabas. But they were easily broken into by tomb robbers and weren’t very grand. The first pyramid was built by Imhotep for King Djoser in 2750 BC. This step pyramid was 6 layers tall, about 200 feet total with the burial chamber underground. The next big jump in design to make the first true pyramid was by King Snefru, known as the Red Pyramid because of the reddish limestoen, But King Khufu commissioned the granddaddy of all pyramids – the Great Pyramid of Giza. Pyramids included the burrial chamber, secret tunnels, hidden chambers, and things the Pharaoh thought he would need in the afterlife. Inside the burial chamber was the sarcophagus (large stone box were the coffin was placed).  Coffins were often many coffins inside one another with heiroglphics and pictures of the pharaoh.

We made a pyramid project and talked about what went inside. There are SO MANY things you could use to make your pyramid from sugar cubes, lego, blocks, a flat picture craft, or project bricks like we did. You could also get this super cool Playmobil Pyramid (we have it and LOVE it if you can find it used or on Ebay as it is no longer being made) to help kids visualize what is in the pyramid –

Cat Statue Craft

Egyptians kept pets, but although they names thei babons, monkeys, and dogs – cats were considered sacred animals and even worshipped. They were even mummified when they died. Cats were considered not only helpful  in keeping mice, rats, and snakes away, but thought to be magical.

We made a simple  Egyptian cat craft on top of a water bottle. We molded aluminum foil to make a cat head shape and used more aluminum foil to affix it to the bottle stand. We then used spray paint to make it all one color. Allow to dry completely.

Egypt Crafts for Kids

Next we talked about papyrus. This tall marsh plant had strong stems and was used for both making boats and made into paper for scrolls.  To make papyrus boats  the Egyptians would use many bundles of 100 or more papyrus reads tied with roap. The more bundles, the bigger and more stable the boat was. A one-person boat was made of a few bundles, while larger boats to hold several people were made of six or more bundles. The screscent-shaped boats were used to go up and down the Nile River, the longest river in the worldm to hunt, fish, or travel short distances. These boats are still built and used in parts of the world today! For heavier loads or long distances, they would used wooden boats with sails.

HINT: An extension project could be some reserach on the dangerous animals that live in the Nile River such as the crocodile, venemous snakes, hippopotamus, and even land animals like lions and hyenas that came to the river to drink.

For our Egyptian boat craft we used staws to replicate papyrus reads. We bent them on the end to make the curved shape and attached the ends and middle with duct tape, but you could use string or yarn too. Finally we spray painted our papyrus boat craft.

Papyrus Paper Craft

We also made our own papyrus paper activity. This was such a simple project that was a great visual for kids to remember papyrus paper and fun to use a surface to write hieroglyphics and Egyptian art like the scarab bettle, Egyptian gods, pyramids, black cat, and more! See how to make this papyrus paper craft that is what papyrus made by ancient Egyptians looked like.

Egyptian Funeral Mask

This was one of our favorite projects, repliating King Tut’s death mask was a fun, surprisingly easy, and striking project that my kids really enjoyed making and looking at as we studied Egypt.

1. On a paper plate add foil to make the parts of the face that pop – ears, nose, lips, cheek bones, chin, and false beard. Tape in place
2. Use cardboard (we used rice krispie box) to make the pharoah headress with the top part coming on top of the plate and stapling in place. Make sure ears are in front of the folded box.
3. Use additional flat foil to cover entire project to make as much of a smooth and continuous surface as possible.
4. Spray paint your creation with gold paint. Follow all directions on can such as doing it outside and not breathing in fumes.
5. Once dry, use a thick sharpie marker to make the stripe pattern, eyebrows, and eyes.
6. Add colored construciton paper to make a necklace and snake at top.

Egyptian Date Candy

Mix 1 cup of chopped dates with water to make “paste”. Add 1 teas. cinnamon, 1/2 teaspoon cardamom seeds, 1/2 cup ground up walnuts. Mix. Roll mixture into balls and drop a little hone on them and roll in ground almonds. Simpley, healthy, and yummy too!

History for Kids Ancient Egypt

We learned out to play the ancient Egyptian game of Senet with a youtube video and made our own board game to play.

We wrapped one of my kiddos in toilet paper to make a mummy. It was memorable for my younger elementary age students. For a more in-depth look at mummification, watch this video or try this mummify a chicken project.

DIY Egypt Costumes for Kids

Of course we had to dress-up to add to the fun. My son whipped up a nemes with a pillowcase and 2 safety pins. He used a sheet with safety pins for his skirt.

He used pvc pipe we had on hand to make his crook and flail. A crook is typically carried by kings and considred a symbol for ruler. It looks like a short shepherd’s staff. A flais is often carried by kings, along with their crook, as a symbol of power. It looked like a short rod with three beaded strands attached.

My daughter made a wesekh collar craft with pipe cleaners and beads. This can be super simple or more complex using copper wire. We kept it simple.

Ancient Egypt Lesson Plans

We learned about pyramids, the Nile River, Pharaohs and more in our study.

Some of the most famous pharaohs include:

• Khufu who ruled from 2589-2566 BC. He built the Great Pyramid at Giza near modern-day Cairo which is the largest pyramid in the world. At one point, the pyramid was 481 feet tall and took up 13 acres. This is the only surviving wonder of the original Seven Wonders of the Ancient World. It draws 5000 visitors a day.
• Akhenaton (also known as Amenhotop IV) ruled from 1352-1336 BC and was married to the famously beautiful Queen Nefertiti. He stirred up egypt by moving the capital and moving Egypt to worship only one god – the sun god Aton.
• King Tutankhamen (also known as King Tut) who only ruled for 9 years from age 9 in about 1323 to age 18. Although he only ruled about 9 years, his tomb was discovered untouched in the Valley of the Kings. After 3000 years, Howard Carter discovered the covered entrance in 1922 filled with many treasures including a 4 part sarcophagus with over 2500 pounds of gold, King Tut’s death mask, and many other artifacts.
• Rameses II (also known as Rameses the Great) who ruled 1279-1213 BC. He took the throne at age 20 and is said to have lived until 99 years of age. He was a renowned soldier, signed the wordl’s first-known peace treaty (with HIttites), and created more temples and buildings than anyone including the amazing Abu Simbel.  Interestingly, although his tomb was empty, his mummy is considered to be the most well-preserved mummie ever found.

Explore Ancient Egypt for kids with LOTS of FUN, hands-on projects, crafts, and clever activities to make history come alive.