Art Lesson - Ancient Egypt Sarcophagus

This art lesson was done with 2 classes of 6th graders a week or so ago. It's a little more difficult to fit into the schedule with the middle school kids, and the lessons must be curriculum based. The kids were on their unit of Ancient Egypt, so I came up with this lesson (with the help of my good friends HC and GC, Thanks guys!)

Each kid was given a large piece of paper (24x13"), pencils, eraser, black sharpie and scissors. I also had some copies of different sarcophagi, hieroglyphs, and symbols for them to refer to. I drew with them a simple version, telling them they could do their own, or if they needed to just follow along with my drawing. They started in pencil, then traced over with the sharpie. I had them do any details with the sharpie also. The day before the Social Studies teacher had gone over hieroglyphs with them using some stamps. So they were well acquainted with that. They could write their name, or anything appropriate really. It's slightly morbid to have kids make their own coffin, but oh well, that's why they had the option to put Cleopatra or whatever. I encouraged them to also use some symbols and we talked a little about what some of the symbols meant.


Once all the details were drawn they were to cut out the shape. At this point it got a little hectic and it was very helpful that I had at least 2 helpers to assist. First we adults stapled 3/4 around the coffin, then had the kids stuff it with loosely crumbled newspaper. We then finished stapling the edges. While they were stapling we brought some tempera paint, paintbrush, water and they went to painting.

Most did not get done in the 55 minutes period. Luckily most of the 6th period teachers allowed those that wanted to come back to the art room and finish. It's a good sign when you have a full class again with kids wanting to finish up the project.

So it was a busy 3 class periods of art with the 6th graders. This was perfectly fine with me since they're my son's group, and I've been doing art with them since they were in Kindergarten, many I've known since they were babes. I don't get as much time with them as I use to have, and they really are a wonderful group, so it was enjoyable indeed.

I think there's a good chance that this will become an annual project for 6th grade. Yay!

Oh, and the top 2 examples are girls' versions, the bottom are boys'.