If you are an Ancient Civilizations teacher and need some ideas for Ancient Egypt, you’re in the right place! Make your Ancient Egypt unit unforgettable with this Ancient Egypt Lapbook Template for 6th Grade Social Studies! This hands-on project offers students an engaging way to explore and understand Ancient Egypt while providing teachers with a streamlined, comprehensive teaching tool.
Let's dive into a variety of activities and resources designed to make learning about Ancient Egypt an exciting and memorable experience for your students.
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Vocabulary and Introductory Activities
We like to start our units with different vocab activities and give students multiple opportunities to practice and learn them. With our vocab activities, we find that word walls are a great vocabulary tool! We have a resource that includes 22 Ancient Egypt vocabulary words ready to print and display on a bulletin board. They’re also helpful for your visual learners, as pictures or images are included on each card! Even better, there’s a 100% editable Google Slideshow included with all of the words and images!
Never used an ancient civilization word wall before? We find it helpful to share background information at the start of the unit, so students can make connections during other activities. With this Ancient Egypt Slideshow for Google Slides, teach your students about the GRAPES of Ancient Egypt! This 47-slide Google Slideshow provides a detailed overview of Ancient Egypt, including geography, pharaohs, hieroglyphics, and much more!
Another way to start off your Ancient Egypt unit is with this activity. This is a simple and no-prep research activity that connects Ancient Egypt’s past to modern times. It guides students through some country research about modern-day Egypt to make the unit more relevant to them and help pique their curiosity about things they will learn during your unit.
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If you’re looking to improve your classroom management and help students review material, these bell ringers are perfect! This set includes 20 Ancient Egypt Bell Ringers for Google Drive that are 100% editable and ready to use. These warm-up prompts cover a variety of topics that come up in an Ancient Egypt unit while also building helpful skills!
Hands-On and Interactive Projects
If you’re looking to make your Ancient Egypt Unit more hands-on and engaging, this printable Ancient Egypt Timeline is the resource you need! In this interactive timeline project, students construct a timeline that features reading passages, maps, and images. The information included in these features covers the Old Kingdom, Middle Kingdom, and New Kingdom of Ancient Egypt and the capital cities of Kerma, Napata, and Meroë from Kush.
The Nile River is a major topic in any Ancient Egypt unit, and this no-prep, game-based Nile River Simulation will be a highlight! In this activity, students will choose where to live along the Nile River, farm, trade goods, and learn about geography. This simulation features six different rounds of competition. Each round, students must make decisions and roll the dice to see what they might’ve experienced living along the Nile. Simulations can be fun and meaningful activities but often take lots of work and preparation, which is why we did it for you!
We like to show as many videos as we can just to bring the content to life for the students. One that we’re very fond of is from National Geographic, as they have a History 101 video for Ancient Egypt. It’s about 4-5 minutes, and gives a nice overview of introductory subjects for the unit. It’s quick, it has great animations, and it keeps students engaged!
How did the Nile River shape Ancient Egypt? The sources included are all about answering how the Nile shaped Ancient Egypt. This DBQ contains resources such as the hymn to the Nile, recreated maps, and photos students have to analyze. It’s perfect for primary and secondary source analysis, and comparing sources. The official link is here if this is something your district would consider purchasing.
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Nile River Project Ideas
- Ask your student how he can distinguish this fairly generic river scene from the ancient Nile.
- Give him modeling clay to build a replica of an ancient Egyptian boat and a person or two from the past.
- Have your sixth grader create her own mini-model of an ancient flood in a small-sized plastic tub.
Exploring Egyptian Mythology
This Egyptian Mythology activity is a great way for students to demonstrate their understanding of the Egyptian gods and goddesses in a creative way! In this activity, students create a selection of Instagram-styled posts for five of the gods/goddesses of Ancient Egypt. Each post includes an image, caption, and relevant hashtags that help explain who that god or goddess is. Please note that this resource does not teach students about Egyptian mythology.
If you need to teach your students about who’s who in Egyptian Mythology, this Intro to Egyptian Mythology can help! This digital resource includes a Google Slideshow featuring 16 of the different gods and goddesses of Ancient Egypt. Following the slideshow, an editable graphic organizer for Google Docs and some printable flashcards will help students review!
A fun, chill activity for an emergency sub plan or early finishers, this activity sheet is perfect while you’re teaching about Egyptian Mythology! Both fun and educational, this no-prep Egyptian Mythology worksheet contains two different activities: a creative matching challenge with clues and an Egyptian Mythology crossword puzzle!
Virtual Exploration and Architecture
Students love using Google Earth, and this creative activity helps connect geography and architecture. This allows students to figure out which clue connects to which landmark or geographical site. It is also available as a printable or digital resource, so use whatever version works best for you.
If you’re looking for something really quick, Google Maps has a resource that can be scrolled through. There’s not necessarily an activity that goes along with this, but it’s great for an overview or if there are a few minutes left in class.
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This no-prep Great Pyramid of Giza reading passage and activities is perfect for teaching about the Great Pyramid and other Egyptian pyramids! Students will read the passage about the Great Pyramid and how Egyptian pyramids evolved over time. Then they will complete two creative activities about what they learned.
This resource from the BBC takes students into the Great Pyramid of Giza, and allows them to see the different chambers inside. It also provides a 360° panoramic view and captions that explain exactly what’s being shown. This resource from Harvard University is absolutely amazing with all the uses it can provide for an Ancient Egypt unit! Students can visit several locations, look at panoramic views , images, videos, and it can be an amazing tool to design projects.
Mummification and Pharaohs
Is it really an Ancient Egypt Unit if you don’t talk about mummies? The idea of this project is to have students actually present the mummification process. They go step-by-step and the presentation is extremely hands-on. Students enjoy it because they can make up their own backstories, add humor and props, and show off their creativity. We like to call it “Mummification on a Budget”. It’s an experience that students don’t tend to forget, and it livens up the unit.
Mummification is usually the highlight of the unit, just because students are so fascinated with it. This TED-Ed video goes over the major steps in the mummification process. To wrap up our mummy resources, we often show this movie about Ramses the Great and the discovery of his tomb. It’s also a great tool to reinforce what you’ve taught and bring in a new story at the same time.
Many districts these days are not providing enough necessary job-related skills in the classroom. We’ve created this resource to teach students about the pharaohs of Ancient Egypt in a different way, using their resumes! Students have to look over and analyze each resume and decide who to hire for specific positions.
Giving students choices is a great way to help them personalize their learning and connect their strengths to the content. In this project, students conduct research about a Pharaoh of their choice. Then they create either a 3-D tomb, a rap or song, a magazine, or a talk-show style interview.
Additional Activities and Resources
A low-key but very fun challenge for students is to decode a variety of messages written in hieroglyphics. This resource has secret phrases students have to decipher, and helps them visualize what the hieroglyphics look like.
Looking for a meaningful way to teach your students about Kushite culture? This gallery walk about the Kingdom of Kush is exactly what you need! This activity highlights 12 artifacts and information that provides an overview of what is known about ancient Kush. With printable, digital, and editable options and an answer key, you have everything you need for a successful activity!
A gallery walk can bring a museum experience into the classroom! It gets students up and out of their seats to observe historical images and read information about them. Need more engaging resources on the ancient civilization of Kush? This digital Kingdom of Kush resource on the impressive kings and queens of Kush is a must! Present a brief history of 7 different Kushite leaders using the editable Google Slideshow, including Kashta, Taharqa, Arkamani, and more! With the Awards Activity, students will evaluate and award leaders based on their accomplishments.
Save yourself time at the end of your Ancient Egypt Unit with this Ancient Egypt Test and Study Guide! This ready-made test has printable and digital options, and all text is 100% editable. It includes a version for Ancient Egypt and Kush, as well as a version without the Kush questions.
Need a way to stay more organized during your Ancient Egypt Unit? These Ancient Egypt Daily Agenda Slides Templates will help you save time and better immerse your students in the unit! These slides for Google Drive are editable and each template features a photograph of Ancient Egypt in the background, as well as Ancient Egypt clipart.
These printable Ancient Egypt Bookmarks are a fun addition to your Ancient Egypt unit! This set includes four different designs that feature images and clipart that are related to Ancient Egypt. The bookmarks are 100% black and white so that students can color in the images or personalize them as they wish!
This final resource contains some games for students to work on, like vocab and crossword puzzles. This activity is not super substantial for the unit, but it’s perfect for students who finish classwork early.
When teaching any ancient civilization, it’s always important to have activities that make the content fun and engaging for students. If you liked any of our Ancient Egypt activities, you’ll love our Ancient Egypt Unit Bundle! This bundle contains 23 resources and is a great way to supplement your textbook or curriculum materials about Ancient Egypt!
Looking for ideas and inspiration when planning your Ancient Egypt unit? If so, this free Ancient Egypt resource guide can help! It showcases each of our Mesopotamia resources to help you decide which options will be best for your students.
Table: Project Ideas for Ancient Egypt
| Project Type | Description | Skills Reinforced |
|---|---|---|
| Timeline Project | Construct a timeline with reading passages, maps, and images covering the Old, Middle, and New Kingdoms. | Reading comprehension, historical understanding, timeline creation |
| Nile River Simulation | Students choose where to live along the Nile, farm, trade, and experience life in ancient times. | Geography, economics, decision-making |
| Egyptian Mythology Instagram | Create Instagram-style posts for Egyptian gods and goddesses, including images, captions, and hashtags. | Creative writing, understanding of mythology, digital literacy |
| Hieroglyphic Decoding | Students decode secret phrases written in hieroglyphics. | Critical thinking, ancient writing systems, problem-solving |
| Mummification Presentation | Students present the mummification process, including steps, backstories, and props. | Public speaking, understanding of mummification, creativity |
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