Himitsu no messe-ji and the mummified chicken.

[parasitegirl]

I’m working on writing a follow-up to my great Egypt lesson for one of the schools.

Technically I have my lessons plans I do for all of the schools each semester and then, if it is a school where I teach a grade more than once per semester we have some wiggle room, they can make thematic suggestions but they can’t just dump shit in my lap last minute and I don’t do Christmas/Halloween/thanksgiving…

School X has requested that I do the alphabet next week with 6^th graders. The problem is it is one of the schools where I went more than once a semester per grade　last year. It was one of the two schools I tested out the Egypt lesson, which is my alphabet and greetings lesson for upper grades, with 5^th and 6^th graders…so these students have already done my alphabet lesson. And, this echoes what they are starting to learn with the new textbooks…which is well and good but I think flogging children with just the alphabet for alphabet sake is a quick way to get them to stop paying attention in class. Last year’s Egypt lesson proved to teachers that these students don’t really need to be taught the ABC’s, they already know them. What they need is to use the ABC’s.

When I test new lesson plans for the upper levels I try to test them only with 6th gaders, so the next year I won't have to keep track of who did what.

The school says I can just use last year’s lesson, because it will be good review…but I can’t. My lesson plans are about cognative thinking and problem solving skills and reviewing or learning new vocabulary is part of that but it isn’t the thrust. These lessons aren’t design to review grammar points, they are designed to push how kids approach problem soloving. Putting students in situations where they don’t understand what to do or say, but giving them enough verbal and visual clues so they figure it out, is at the core of my lesson plans.

I can’t show them Tito dancing again because they already know where he’s from. I can’t have them write their name in heirogylphics again, because now they know that’s what they need to do and won’t struggle through the English set up to figure it out for themselves because they will remember.  I need to kick it up another level.

So, I am brainstorming now.

 

I think it’ll start with a color coded map of the world with colors to indicate the official languages of countries, simplified a bit (Arabic, Chinese, English, French, German, Hindi, Italian, Japanese, Malay.Indonesian, Portuguese, Russians, Spanish and other,,,it’s a map I lifted from a Jr.High school English text book lesson on what languages do you speak, but I’ve removed the goofy “people in native garb” drawings. ) and get the students to first start brain storming on what the colors represent. Once we’ve got the idea that the colors represent languages, we’ll match the colors with the languages “what language is orange?” and “What color is English?” (I use colors a great deal in lessons so that I can show that the students already know colors and don’t ever need to be doing any “what color is this…yes, red, please repeat after me, red” ).

 

Maybe do a bit of showing languages that use other character sets/sylabaries/non-roman alphabets and having students guess what languages they are (some of these will be in the section of “other”) and if they can find them on the map. The last language will be an example of Arabic writing and I’ll tie that back to last year’s lesson: “do you remember this country? Yes, Egypt! Do you remember how to say Hello in Arabic? (review) “Now (show heiropglyphics) do you remember these?”

 

And then onto the Heiroglyphic ABC’s. A quick review of “What this? Yes, B. What’s this symbol. Ok. Now what comes after B?” “This is CH, what sound does CH make?” and “What other letter has an Eagle symbol?” And maybe, because it ties into the text books, some quick, lightning speed showing of lowercase letters and putting them with the correct upper case letter (I’ll have to check to see if I made the original Heiro=ABC cards uppercase).

Then…I can’t very well make them write their names again in hieroglyphics so this is where I’d love some brain storming. I’m thinking about a “write your secret message here” project.

First hand out the ABC/Heiro page again and then a worksheet.

Have them write their names, in the roman alphabet, on their worksheets. Then we translate a line together. The Heiroglyphics are written below a black line and they write the translated letters above it.

“What letter is this?”

“Yes, h, write h here”…

Until they have written “himitsu no messe-ji wo kakimashou!” (Let’s write a secret message!)

The lines below it (and this is where I get fuzzy) is where they can brainstorm what they want to write in Romanized Japanese and the bottom half of the page is for writing the message nice and big in hieroglyphics.

If there is time, get some volunteers to give you their messages, fold the Romanized Japanese part so it can’t be seen, and have the class figure out the message…

So? Sound like something you’d dig in 6^th grade? Other ideas?

Oh…while brainstorming on line I found this lovely Egypt lesson. If any of you ever decide to use this with your own children, I demand photo documentation:

Mummify a chicken:  You will need to wear gloves for this activity!  Buy a fresh hen from the grocery store.  Take the neck, liver, and gizzard out.  Mummify them in separate bags from the hen.  After they are mummified, they can be placed in canopic jars the students make.

Thoroughly wash the chicken inside and out, and pat it dry with paper towels.  Make a mixture of 1/2 salt and 1/2 baking soda.  Fill the inside of the chicken with the mixture.  Next, place the chicken into a large zip lock bag.  Completely cover the chicken with the salt and baking soda mixture.  Change the salt and baking soda mixture every five day for the first two weeks.  After the first two weeks, change the salt and baking soda mixture every 10 days.  After about 45 days remove the chicken from the salt.  Wip off the chicken and rub it with olive oil.  Sprinkle spices such as rosemary over it.  Pat the chicken dry and wrap it with strips of cotton or gauze.  Decorate the wrapped chicken with Egyptian symbols.  Paint the mummy with several layers of lacquer.

 

 

 

 

Comments

[leilia.livejournal.com]

Secret message would be good. But what about a secret map with the directions coded or something like that.

Kinda like an English version of "Where in the world is Carmen Sandiego." Which can take you back to your map.

[kazoogrrl.livejournal.com]

I want to make a mummified chicken right now! Except I'd probably make a mummified cornish hen, since they're smaller.