Hail to you, O Nile…

You have come to feed Egypt…

When you flood the land rejoices…

Another great day in ancient Egypt.  The above is an excerpt of a beautiful ancient poem, which set the stage for our morning.  Wow, your child may sleep as sound as a mummy after all our hard work today!  It was so much fun for all!  Here are the details:

We began more research into our understanding of the Nile’s prominence in Egyptian culture.  We came to understand that the rhythms and cycles of its yearly flooding were critical to the renewal of the soil in the Nile Valley.  We understand that the Nile currently has dams to prevent flooding (which can be dangerous to people and property). So… in discussing all the parts of the agricultural system, how are the farmlands enriched in the modern era?  We observed many other factors in discussing our key concept: How do human systems (specifically Egyptian) change over time in relation to needs, resources, and circumstances?  More on that later.  Next, we set about to replicate a piece of ancient Egyptian agricultural technology.  Does the Nile still flood annually today as it did in ancient times?  How do modern civilizations harness and share the Nile today?

We also observed and analyzed some ancient hieroglyph symbols in a document.  We learned about how the language system changed over time, but we still must discuss why these changes took place.  The students tried their hand at translating a text and tomorrow will also write their own names using the pictorial symbols.  We will connect all these activities with our ongoing understanding of interdependence with a current event story about King Tut’s dagger made from “iron of the sky”.  You might enjoy researching this as well, and appreciating how the linguists and archaeologists worked together to solve a hieroglyph mystery!

Mrs. Byrd

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