Lesson #4

Our mummies lesson was probably our most fun lesson so far for the students. The students loved watching me get wrapped up and mummified by Catherine R. They sat around on the floor and on chairs and watched me up on the “work table” as Catherine R. went through the entire detailed process of mummification. She even had individual jars for all of my organs! We took Mr. F.’s advice and went with grossing the students out as best we could. He knows his students and knows how they love gross things. He was right. Every student was on the edge of his/her seat screaming “Eww!” and waiting to hear what was next for the mummy. I loved being able to bring this ancient tradition to life right before the children’s eyes and I enjoyed seeing them get excited about something that they may not have been excited about if they had read it in a text book.

The night before our lesson, I was worried that describing the mummification process in such detail was a little pointless. It was not included in the SOLs and seemed like trivial information that they could read about in independent reading if they chose. However, I was surprised to witness the conversation that took place surrounding my mummification. Some of the more motivated students (I call a lot of them the “professors’ kids”) chimed in during Catherine R.’s description of the process with questions about who I was that allowed me to get buried in a pyramid and what kinds of things did I want to get buried with me. This led into a discussion about the wealthy getting buried with fine jewels and other objects they would want to take with them to the afterlife. This really seemed to intrigue a lot of the students and I was glad that this enactment of an old Egyptian practice spurred so much interest in the ancient society.

One thing that I want to continue working on is behavioral management. It is hard to get a class fired up about something and then calm them back down immediately in order to pay attention to the information you are presenting to them. I want to learn how to engage students and get them excited about what they are learning but at the same time keep them focused. We had students exclaim “Ewww!” and then turn to their neighbors and keep going on about how gross something was when Catherine R. and I were on to another topic for discussion.

It is amazing to me how what I would consider being insignificant facts could stick with a child’s memory. They loved little facts that Catherine R. would include like cats being considered sacred animals by the ancient Egyptians and good luck charms being placed within a mummy’s bandages.

Our form of assessment for today’s lesson included having the students put together a flipbook for the steps of the process of mummification. I was encouraged to see the students putting them together themselves and then helping others around them if they needed help. I listened to Mr. F. tell the students to ask each other for help before coming to him. I really liked this sense of community within the classroom and I hope to develop these attitudes and values in mine as well.

While the flipbook was a substantial artifact that we could take away and grade for each student’s understanding of the day’s material, it was hard to tell if the student had really grasped the material or they had just copied a neighbor’s work. Catherine R. and I discussed how perhaps we should have had a checklist and when a student was finished with the first ordering of the flipbook, he/she could have come to one of us and we could have made a quick note of their progress. Did they have it right the first time? Did they have all but two pages in order? This would have been a more accurate picture of how much they took in about the steps of mummification.