9434

Egyptian Party -7yr- Guess the Egyptian Item

September 2004

Vicky in Jerusalem, Israel

Special Mention

For my daughter's 7th birthday we decided to do a Egyptian party. The ages of the guests ranged  3-12, so I had to think of something interesting for all. We decided to do it in the park to get more space. Invitations: I printed a letter with Egyptian clipart and borders. The letter said that the Museum of the Ancient Egyptian Mythology invites [the kid's name] to take part in an expedition to seek for a new pyramid. I printed several Egyptian mythological creatures pictures from the web to mark the party stations. We didn’t have any other decorations in the park. I prepared cartouches with the kids’ names in Egyptian hieroglyphs there are a lot of web sites where you can do it. When the kids arrived I attached the cartouches to their shirts.

First, we did a paper mummy. I printed the templates from the web and the kids had to color, cut and glue them. It took them much more time than I expected but that they all enjoyed this activity and we had 8 beautiful king Tut’s busts at the end.

Then we started the expedition. The first obstacle was a guard at the entry to the valley of kings. He was bored and asked us to make him laugh, so we played gigglebelly game from FamilyFun site. The guard laughed and let us enter. He also explained that there are a lot of difficult obstacles ahead and as we pass each one we’ll be given a name of a secret  ingredient that will help us to open the pyramid.

The next station was the Nile full of crocodiles. I put a long blue ribbon to mark the river and we played the egg and spoon relay. If a child dropped the egg, a toy crocodile bite it. The next station was a wall of snakes. I placed a lot of rubber snakes on the ground and the kids had to catch one with a rod, to put it into a basket and to walk like a Egyptian with a basket on their heads back to the mother snake. Next were scarabs. I prepared the scarabs from the play dough (flour+salt+water). The kids had to color them,  then we put tiny balls into the indents in the scarabs’ bellies and they had a scarab relay.

The next obstacle was a riddle of the sphinx. I printed the riddle of the sphinx in hieroglyphs and the kids had to decode it. Next we had a valley of the mummies where we played the mummy wrap game.

Then we went to the secret lab to see how a phoenix will rise from ashes. I adoped a mad science lab game idea from FamilyFun. I covered the kids their eyes and we took them blindfolded to the lab. There they had to sit very quietly, otherwise the phoenix will be scared and fly away before we can see it. They had to cover the eyes, since the phoenix can blind them with its fire. I passed them various ingredients that should help our bird and the kids could touch and smell them: the rat’s breath for cunning (vinegar), the owl’s excrements for wits (chocolate cake sprinkles), a stoned mouse leg (a drinking straw), brains (cooked oatmeal), intestines (cooked and buttered pasta), feathers (a wig), eyes (peeled grapes), wings (dried apples), etc. I loved this station most it was so funny to see the faces the kids made when they smelled and touched all this!

Unfortunately, they couldn’t sit quietly  (actually, my husband made a loud noise when I signaled him :) ) and the phoenix flied away. Almost at every stage I told the kids something about ancient Egypt: how the mummies were made, why a scarab was a sacred insect, what was the curse of the pyramid etc.

Finally we got to the last stage  - the pyramid. We were stopped by Isis at the entrance and I told the kids the myth about Isis, Osiris and Set. Isis told us that she already  found all the parts of the body of Osiris and now she needs our help to cook the magic potion. The kids took all the names of the secret ingredients they received at each station and went to look for them in the park. It was pretty easy: a blue flower, a red flower, 5 pomegranate seeds etc.

I helped them prepare the potion: we put all the ingredients in a can with some soda, I added vinegar and after a foamy explosion the potion was ready and Isis was happy. We found treasures in the pyramid (magnifying glasses, beautiful Egyptian-like pencils and Egyptian erasers).

Then all the guests were invited for a feast. The cake: I cut the chocolate cake into a pyramid shape and covered with white chocolate glaze.  I took out the centeres of the 2 bottom layers of the cake and put there golden chocolate coins. The kids were thrilled to find the real treasure when we opened the cake pyramid.

The party lasted much more than I expected (3.5 hours!), but we didn’t even notice it the kids were so eager to participate in every game.

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