On Wednesday, 8th June year 3 pupils from St. Mary’s Catholic primary were very excited to be going on their trip to the Oriental museum in Durham. Our day began with J and C coaches arriving to pick us up; our driver was called Neville and he looked after us very well. We were very excited, as we are starting to learn about the Ancient Egyptians as part of our Topic work.
Our first activity was doing some exploring in the Ancient Egypt gallery. We worked in groups to explore a range of different topics, including gods, clothing, food, objects and we got the opportunity to investigate writing using hieroglyphics. Some of us managed to be a detective and work out some of the secret codes using Ancient Egyptian writing. Next we got the opportunity to handle some ancient Egyptian objects, some of these being thousands and thousands of years old. We were so lucky that for one of the objects, there were only 2 available in the whole world!
After our fabulous object handling, we were very hungry, so we all tracked down to a sunny piece of grass, luckily shaded by a tree in the background. We ate our packed lunches enjoying the peace and quiet! Mrs. Minns and and Mrs. Moran were so kind as to take us to the shop in small groups. There were some lovely things to buy, ranging from model pyramids, scarab beetles to lovely Egyptian pens.
In the afternoon our third activity was amazing- we got to see a real life mummy. We figured out that she was around 2,400 years old! Emily, one of our University teachers. Asked us some questions about mummies. We thought it was fascinating! The final activity involved a role-play activity. We had to do a reanactment of a Pharaoh being mummified. Eleanor was chosen to be our Pharaoh. Her body was embalmed and prepared for the after-life. Then some of us were chosen to be gods, asking her questions about how she lived her life. Her answers would determine what happened to her. Did her heart weigh more than a feather? Had she lived a life full of doing good deeds?
We returned to school excited about learning more about these fabulous Ancient Egyptians.
Here are a few pupil quotes… “It was the best school trip ever.”
“It was an amazing day. I couldn’t believe the mummy was real!”
“ I am really excited now in discovering more about what life was like in Ancient Egypt.”