Our five-year-old has been interested in ancient Egypt for quite some time now, courtesy of the Magic School Bus web site at scholastic.com. There are some activities about that time period, and she has played the games enough so that she knows the answers even as she is still learning to read. We’ve read a few books together on the topic, too, and she especially is expert in mummification (I’m very happy the topic does not gross her out, like it might for other young children). She does not know any of the names of the famous figures of Ancient Egypt, except of course King Tut, but she knows all about why the pharoahs were buried inside the pyramids and the importance of animals to the ancient Egyptians. She can pronounce some of the more difficult words like “sacophagus.”
This past week her kindergarten class took a field trip to the museum as part of their study of Ancient Egypt. They’d been doing stuff at school like making a pyramid. After school the day after the field trip, our teacher told my wife that “she knew all the answers to every question our museum guide asked us — we just turned to her after a while!” You can imagine my wife’s pride. And mine, too — except that my wife did not tell me until Saturday, when we were back at the museum!
We had a great family day there. After a morning of just hanging out and playing, while my wife was working, we packed up and headed out, picking up my sister-in-law the science teacher along the way. My daughter’s class had received a free family pass to attend the museum, so we were happy to spend an afternoon there. The youngest one fell asleep on the way, and after a stop at the cafe, our oldest became our tour guide, taking us through the new installation of the Egyptian section. She called herself “Alex,” which is not her name, but that of the museum educator who worked with her class! After baby sister woke up, “Alex” gave HER a tour!
We also gave a few economics lessons. She took some of her Christmas money and bought herself a little activity book on ancient Egypt, and a note pad with a hieroglyph on the cover(I think it was of Horus). She later bought her sister one, too, with an ankh on the cover. She’s very quick in math, and when we visited the gift shop while her sister went to the cafe, she tried very hard to find another item in her budget, but wanted desperately this very nice bound sketchbook. I gave her the extra money she needed, but she found three singles when we got home and paid me! The last lesson she got was in Clif Bars! They were being sold at the museum cafe — for 3.75! My wife was able to convince her not to buy one there, and then when we went to the food coop later on, she realized that we could buy three for the price of one at the museum, and still save half a buck!
I can’t say enough about how amazingly smart she is. But I’ll try in another post.