Hatshepsut of Egypt -- Multicultural Children's Book Day Review

Disclosure: I was sent this book to review free of charge from Goosebottom Books. All opinions in this post are my own. I did not receive any other compensation for this review. I am including links to each item for your convenience but do not receive anything if you purchase them.

Today we are honored to review a book about a very strong woman, Hatshepsut. Have you heard of her? I hadn't, so I found this book fascinating. The book is Hatshepsut of Egypt by Shirin Yim Bridges and illustrated by Albert Nguyen. It is part of The Thinking Girl's Treasury of Real Princesses.

This is a series of books that share real princesses with girls. These are not your average fru fru princesses who wear pretty dresses and sit around waiting to be saved by a prince. These are women who had strength and guts to rule countries.

Christmas Candles in Different Lands

Candle Photo By By Elmar Ersch (Own work)
 [CC BY-SA 3.0], via Wikimedia Commons

This year for Christmas in Different Lands each post is exploring some aspect of Christmas in at least three different continents. Today we are looking at candles. How do you use candles at Christmas time? With electricity there are not as many uses as there once was but some are still used for special events. In New England often there are single candles (and for some multiple candles) in the windows of a house or church. I shared a bit about Christmas in New England last year.

Picture of New England Church during Advent

 Candles are also used in many other ways. Often there is a candlelight service on Christmas Eve at church as well as the Advent wreath candles during Advent. I shared a bit about our Advent wreath a couple of years ago. Many countries especially in Europe use Advent wreaths and/or Advent candles. Countries like Germany, Austria, Croatia, and Belgium often have Advent wreaths as well as the United States. 

Emus and Hippos!! Book Reviews

Disclosure: Candlewick Press gave me a copy of these books free of charge to review. All opinions in my review are my own and I did not receive any other compensation. As in all my reviews I am providing links for your ease, but receive no compensation.

Today we are sharing two fun and educational animal books from Candlewick Press. They are written in the same style as Grandma Elephant's In Charge and Big Red Kangaroo which Candlewick Press sent previously to me to review (and we bought one as a birthday gift for one of Hazel's friends because we love them so much!). These books tell a story about a particular animal and/or group of animals as well as have aside facts about the animal.

The first we travel to Australia to learn about emus, with Emu written by Claire Saxby and illustrated by Graham Byrne.

Sharing Saturday 15-14

Have you entered my current giveaway yet?

Thank  you to everyone who shared last week!! Once again I am blown away by all the great ideas!! With this weekend being the beginning of Passover and Easter Sunday, my feature topics are: Passover, Easter Eggs, Easter, Spring, and a couple of favorites. Be sure to check these out and go back and see the many ideas I didn't have room to feature this week. There are many more inspiring ones!!

Around the World in 12 Dishes: South Africa -- Sosaties

Today we are doing our last post for Around the World in 12 Dishes. The group seems to be a bit defunct right now. There have been no plans for the next season and South Africa is the last country chosen. But I promised Hazel we would continue to explore the world one country a month, so we are going to continue on our own schedule and our link parties. This season I have been writing the introduction posts on Around the World in 12 Dishes website, but as I was about to write the introduction to South Africa I discovered the link code problems which still has not been resolved, so I didn't bother to write it there since there would not be a place to link up. (If I do not get the codes switched to my account by next week I will do my own link codes as a blog hop, so come back and check Bolivia, Senegal and here.) I also added a new picture to my Bolivia post. The arroz con leche looks much better cold!

Johannesburg at Night By Hillbrow_Tower.jpg:Kemptonreporterderivative work: 
Heitor C. Jorge (Hillbrow_Tower.jpg) [GFDL, CC-BY-SA-3.0 or CC BY 2.5], via Wikimedia Commons

Around the World in 12 Dishes: Senegal -- Poulet Yassa

Today we are catching up with January's Around the World in 12 Dishes. We visited Senegal. We read many books about Senegal and some stories from Senegal, but did not find any recipes of things my family would eat in the books, so I found one on-line. Be sure to check out the introduction post I wrote about Senegal. 

Pointe des Almadies, the westernmost point of the African continent (mainland),
located in the area of Dakar, Senegal By Jeff Attaway [CC BY 2.0], via Wikimedia Commons

Travel with Books at Home Product Reviews

Disclosure: Candlewick Press gave me a copy of this book free of charge to review. All opinions in my review are my own and I did not receive any other compensation. As in all my reviews I am providing links for your ease, but receive no compensation.

Do you love to travel? Or do you dream of traveling without hassles? We love to explore the world from home with dreams of someday getting to see more of it. For now we like to explore with books and posters and such to see and learn about the world without leaving home. Candlewick Press has some products that makes this really fun and easy. The first three books are from a series called Panorama Pops. We got to explore The Louvre, Australia and Venice in this form. It was so much fun. These books are like pocket guides with pop-up pictures. The book is double sided since it folds out and has the pop-ups on both sides.

Easter Around the World - Ethiopia

Have you entered my current giveaway yet?

Today we explore Easter in Ethiopia. Easter is called Fasika or Fasika-Tenssaie. Tenssaie is the word for Resurrection. In Ethiopia, fasting for Lent is 55 days to recognize the suffering of Moses as well as Jesus. Lent is called Hudade and nobody eats meat or any dairy products during this time. Three hour masses are attended every day during Lent.

Typical Lenten Meal Source: By Maurice Chédel (Own work) [GFDL
or CC-BY-SA-3.0-2.5-2.0-1.0], via Wikimedia Commons

Palm Sunday is called Hosanna. As in many Christian countries, the mood lightens for Palm Sunday. People carry tall palm leaves and crosses  to remember Jesus' journey into Jerusalem. Holy Week is called Passion Week or Semune himamat. In Ethiopia, they do not eat for the three days from Good Friday to Easter morning. They have a long night mass on Saturday night ending at dawn on Easter. The Easter feast often lasts for two days or more and can include mutton. People bring gifts to family and friends during Easter. Often people will play a game called gebet'a which is a bit similar to checkers or chess. It has a board that is carved from wood with cups cut into it. The players use pieces usually seeds, stones, or beans and move from cup to cup trying to capture the other player's pieces. Doing a search it looks like it is also called or similar to mancala. For more information on gebet'a visit Ethiopia the African Tibetan Show: Gebet'a World's Oldest Board Game.

Ethiopian Priest Holds Ethiopian Cross Source: By A. Davey from Where I Live Now: 
Pacific Northwest [CC-BY-2.0], via Wikimedia Commons

One of the things I found so interesting about Ethiopia is not actually an Easter celebration, but relates to Easter. Ethiopians have a festival/holiday called Maskel. Maskel celebrates when Helena, empress of Rome found the cross on which Jesus was crucified. Helena was born in A.D. 248 and spent many years searching for the true cross. An old man gave her the advice of lighting a fire and following the direction of the smoke. This is how she found the true cross. Every year in Ethiopia huge piles of wood and twigs are built for Maskel. Every village has its own pile and each family adds their own bundle of twigs called a chebo. They are lit to be a bonfire which grows huge. The bonfire is called Maskel Demera. Some families prefer to keep their chebos at home and burn them on their own on Maskel. There is a ceremony before an elder of the community lights the bonfire. It is an honor to be picked as the respected elder to light it. People stand around the fire and sing to welcome spring. Some take ash from the fire and draw a cross on their foreheads. They believe the ash will heal illness. The festivities end with feasting and dancing.

 
For this post, I used information from the books above. For more Multicultural and Easter Posts check out:

• Easter in Sweden 
• Legend of the Sand Dollar (an Easter Story)
• Easter in Spain, Portugal and France
• Easter in Ukraine and Russia
• Multicultural Easter Books
• My Easter Craft Round-Up
• Easter in Guatemala
• My Easter Pinterest Board
• My Multicultural Resource Pinterest Board

Flamingo Friday: Greater Flamingos

Have you entered my current giveaway yet?

Source: By Yogendra Joshi 
(March baby MarchUploaded by Snowmanradio)
 [CC-BY-2.0], via Wikimedia Commons

Today I thought we would take a look at the largest species of flamingos, the greater flamingo. The greater flamingos can be found in Africa, Southern Europe and Southern Asia. The picture above is of four greater flamingos in India.

Source: By Jmalik at en.wikipedia 
[GFDL, CC-BY-SA-3.0 or GFDL], from Wikimedia Commons

Greater flamingos range from 43 to 60 inches in height and weigh between 4.4 to 8.8 pounds. The greater flamingo has pinkish-white plumage with red wing coverts and black secondary flight feathers. There bills are pink with a black tip and their legs are completely pink. The remain the whitish-grey until several years into their adult life when they gain their pink coloring.

Source: By aschaf (http://www.flickr.com/photos/aschaf/4830702055/) 
[CC-BY-2.0], via Wikimedia Commons

The lifespan of a greater flamingo in captivity is said to be 60 years, however the oldest is around 80 years and is in Adelaide Zoo in Australia. Like most flamingos their greatest threat is man. Ancient Romans considered flamingo tongue a delicacy. And occasionally flamingos in the Rann of Kutch salt marsh in Pakistan and India get electrocuted when they sit on electric cables near their breeding grounds. (Source)

So that is a little about the greater flamingo. If you missed the other species we have shared: Chilean and Caribbean and Andean flamingos. We still need to discuss the lesser flamingos and James flamingos.  I hope you will join us for Sharing Saturday this weekend!

Fairy Tales in Different Cultures--a Moroccan Snow White

While we have been in Africa for awhile with our Snow White stories I thought I would share one from Morocco too. Again this is a story that I have not shared with Hazel as it would definitely scare her.The story is called "The Jealous Mother" and I found it translated in English in Moroccan Folktales by Jilali El Koudia. 
 

Source: Google

Now for a bit about Morocco. Morocco is a country in Northern Africa. It joins Spain and France as the only countries to have coasts on the Atlantic Ocean and the Mediterranean Sea. The official name is the Kingdom of Morocco. The Arabic name translates into The Western Kingdom or The West. It is often called these as well. The capital is Rabat, but the largest city is Casablanca. Morocco has a history of independence unlike the other countries we have been sharing lately.

Source: Google

Morocco is a constitutional monarchy with an elected parliament. The King of Morocco has much power including the power to dissolve the parliament. His decision also overrides the parliament if there is a contradiction. 

Morocco has the coastlines and many mountains as well as the Sahara Desert. Needless to say the climate varies greatly. Morocco is also the only African country not in the African Union. (Source)

Now my experience with Morocco is very limited. I met a Moroccan man who claimed to instantly fall in love with me and want to marry me. He invited me to come meet his family in Morocco. I did not go. However several people warned me that if I did there were very strict things I needed to know about traveling as a single woman there. This made me look up some information on women's rights in Morocco. In 2004 the parliament tried to improve women's rights. What they passed included a man not being able to take another wife without his wife signing off on it. In 2006 a royal decision granted women to be able to pass their Moroccan citizenship to their children (previously it could only be passed by the father). In 2009, women were granted the right to divorce without their husband's consent. (Source) Needless to say it sounds like they still have some work to do there.

Now onto our story. Similar to the version from Algeria, the Morocco version has a beautiful mother who talks to the moon. The moon tells her that the child in her womb is more beautiful and of course the mother gets jealous. The mother has the trusted midwife bury the baby as soon as it is born and to replace it with a puppy dog. The mother paid the midwife a great deal of gold to do this. The midwife produced a puppy, but she took the girl away and secluded her inside her own house and took care of her. 

The husband of the beautiful woman was ashamed when he saw God had given them a puppy dog and threw the dog away. The midwife raised the baby as her own and named her Lalla Khallalt El Khoudra. She grew to be very beautiful and people would compare any woman's beauty to that of Lalla. Her birth mother heard of her and asked the midwife to send her over to help her untangle her ball of yarn. 

When the birth mother saw the girl she was overcome with jealousy. She gave the girl the ball of yarn and told her to walk until it was untangled. The girl ended up in the land of ghouls. Her mother cut the yarn when she guessed Lalla had walked that far. Lalla could not find her way home and night had fallen. When she saw all the strange creatures in the land she guessed she had entered the land the midwife had told her about and she was afraid she would be eaten alive. She hid herself in a thatch roof. The house that she chose to hide in was one of seven ghoul brothers. They had a slave to cook for them. Every morning the ghouls went out to hunt and the slave remained to prepare their food. The slave heard something on the roof and saw the beautiful woman. Lalla begged her for food and drink. She gave her some but advised her to stay hidden from the owners. Lalla repeated this every day. She would join the slave and help her prepare the food and then hide herself again. The brothers noticed a difference in the food. They wanted to figure out what was happening, so they had the youngest brother stay behind hidden to see what the slave was up to. 

The youngest brother stayed hidden, but saw the slave and Lalla cooking together. Then he jumped out. Lalla was scared, but the brother was kind and gentle and when he looked in his eyes he fell in love with her. The next day the brothers held a wedding ceremony for them. With the presence of Lalla all the brothers were happy. Lalla took over the care of the brothers. The slave became neglected, but she made Lalla promise her that they would always share everything equally.

One day Lalla tried to wake the slave to share a bean with her. Since the slave pretended to be asleep, Lalla put the half bean away, but it was lost when she tried to find it for the slave later. The slave was very angry and took revenge later by putting the fire out. Lalla had to go to a neighbor to ask for fire. She went to the ghoul next door, but he insisted on cutting her for the fire. She allowed him to do it and she dripped blood home. The next day he followed the blood to her and forced her to allow him to suck her blood from her finger or he would eat her. He did this every day.

The brothers began to notice the changes in their food and in Lalla. They did not understand why she did not seem happy when they showered her with gold, silver and jewels. The youngest brother stayed home to find out what was happening. He saw the neighbor come and drink her blood. He waited for his brothers and they decided they would all stay home the next day. They captured the neighbor, and set to kill him and then turned on Lalla for allowing him to visit. She wept and told them the whole story and they threw the slave into the pit with the neighbor and set them on fire. 

Awhile later a salesman who is referred to in the story as a Jew came selling his wares. Lalla came out and chose some and then gave him a large bag of silver and gold. She asked if he every knew a certain tribe and he said he did and she sent a message to her mother through him.

A few months later, he was with that tribe and her birth mother was purchasing things from him. She paid with a few balls of wool. He made a comment about how she did not pay like Lalla and the mother asked for more details since she was her mother. He told her how she was like a queen to the ghouls. The mother ran to  find a gift to send to Lalla and she wrapped a ring in a cloth and asked the salesman to give it to her next time he saw her.

In two months the salesman returned to the land of ghouls and saw Lalla. She bought some of his wares and he gave her the gift her mother sent telling her she suggested she put the ring under her tongue. She said she would and after the salesman left, she did. She became in a deathlike state and the ghouls came home that evening and found her frozen in the spot. They were so sad. They built her an attoush (a sofa like thing) and put it on a camel. The camel was told to go everywhere and stop for no one unless she heard her code name which was Naala or a shoe. The camel rode everywhere and eventually wandered into a kingdom of a rich and famous sultan. His guards told him about the camel with gold and silver on it and he wanted to catch it. The camel outsmarted the guards, but an old woman promised to get it and then lost her shoe and the camel stopped when she heard the woman yell about her shoe. 

When the sultan saw Lalla, he fell in love with her. He had his physicians examine her. When they found the ring under her tongue, they removed it and she slowly came back to life. The sultan married her. She however never forgot her seven ghoul brothers. When the camel had healed after all the walking, Lalla made plans to return. She waited until her husband would be gone for the day and she left, but the guards saw her and the sultan told them to follow her. The camel however once again outsmarted them. Lalla returned to her griefstruck brothers and they were all happy again.

Now part of what I like about this story is that the heroine does not stay with the sultan and goes back to where she was happiest.

Around the World in 12 Dishes: Exploring Egypt Part 2

Last week we shared our first Egyptian cooking, which was Date Cake. Today we are going to share our Egyptian Dinner recipes. Our dinner recipes came from Foods of Egypt by Barbara Sheen.

Around the World in 12 Dishes--Egypt Part 1 Date Cake

Today we are starting our exploration of Egypt. Since there are so many wonderful resources out there, we will be sharing our adventures over several posts. The first recipe we tried was for a date cake. The recipe came from A World of Recipes Series book called  Egypt by Sue Townsend and Caroline Young.

Dates are plentiful in Egypt, so they are used often in Egyptian cooking.

Source: Phillip Martin

Date Cake
11 oz fresh dates
5 oz blanched almonds
4 oz soft brown sugar
1 orange
4 eggs, separated
1/4 cup granulated sugar
1/2 tsp ground cardamom
1 1/2 oz butter
3 tbsp cornstarch
1 tsp confectioners' sugar to dust

Preheat oven to 400 degrees.

Grease a 9-in cake pan with butter or margarine and line it with wax paper.

Cut dates in half and remove pits.

Put almonds and brown sugar into a food processor and chop/blend them until coarsely chopped. (The recipe called for a blender, but I found my blender didn't do the job and I needed the food processor.)

Add the dates and chop until finely chopped, but not ground. Put aside.

Using the fine side of a grater, grate the rind from the orange and set the rind aside. Then cut the orange in half and squeeze the juice from half of it.

Whisk the egg whites until they make soft peaks and set aside.

In a large bowl, beat the yolks, granulated sugar and cardamom. Stir in the date mixture, butter, orange rind and 1 tablespoon of orange juice, and cornstarch.

Carefully fold in the egg whites. Spoon the mixture into the prepared pan and bake for 35-45 minutes until the cake springs back when pressed.

Cool the cake in the pan for 15 minutes and then place it on a wire rack. Dust with confectioners' sugar before serving.

Here are some of the resources we have been exploring. The first are a set of books that were definitely stories from modern times. Some are meant to take place in ancient times and/or explore ancient times. Hands Around the Library Protecting Egypt's Treasured Books by Karen Leggett Abouraya is a wonderful modern book about the student led protests they had a few years ago. It is really one of the only children's books I found about more recent events in Egypt. Mummy Math and Count Your Way through Egypt I shared as our math exploration on Sunday with activities to go along with them. The other two are modern twists on seeing the sights and understanding Ancient Egypt.

Here are our non-fiction reference books. These books give a good look at Egypt both present day and ancient and also offer quite a few great crafts to go along with them. One of my favorites is What Did the Ancient Egyptians Do for Me? by Patrick Catel. It really explains how some of the things we use in every day life came from Ancient Egypt.

So far we have played with pyramids. We made one out of Legos and made some out of paper nets we found at Activity Village. We are hoping to make the sand clay ones from The Crafts and Culture of the Ancient Egyptians by Joann Jovinelly and Jason Netelkos, but have not had time yet. Hopefully we will have them to share next week.

I hope you will join us next Tuesday for our second adventure in exploring Egypt. We will share more food, ancient tales and music. Here is a great Egypt placemat to color for the younger children. Here is the four page passport for Egypt. Now you can check out these great Egyptian posts or add your own.

Fairy Tales in Different Cultures--Rimonah of the Flashing Sword

Since we are exploring Egypt this month with Around the World in 12 Dishes, I thought I would take us back to Egypt for a fairy tale. Since we already shared the Egyptian Cinderella, we are sharing today an Egyptian Snow White. First a few details about Egypt. Since the history of Egypt is so long and intense I will not do it justice, but this is meant to be an introduction.

Source

The Arabic Republic of Egypt is in two continents: Africa and Asia. Egypt is the fifteenth most populous country in the world. The majority of the people live along the Nile River. The Nile River is the longest river in the world and flows to the North. The only land that is arable is found along the banks of the Nile. The rest of the land  in Egypt is desert.

Source

Egypt has the longest history of all modern states since it has been continuously inhabited since the tenth millennium BC. With the advances of the ancient civilizations to include the pyramids, the Great Sphinx, among other amazing discoveries. The Egyptians were one of the first civilizations to codify art and architecture. They also are given the invention of paper from the papyrus plant and among the first to have an written alphabet.

Source

The official language is Modern Standard Arabic. Ninety percent of the residents of Egypt identify as Muslim and the other ten percent are a form of Christian. Islam arrived in Egypt in the 7th century. At that time Egypt emerged as the center of politics and culture in the Muslim World. 

Source

In more recent times there has been an on-going revolution. It started with protests in 2011 and continues in our current news today.

Now onto our story. We are sharing Rimonah of the Flashing Sword adapted by Eric A. Kimmel. In the Author's Note, Kimmel mentions he came upon the traditional version in Miriam's Tambourine by Howard Schwartz. He knows the tale is from North Africa and Schwartz said it came from Egypt.

This story begins with a queen who is eating a pomegranate. She wishes to have a child with skin is as dark as the pomegranate, eyes as bright as its seeds and voice as sweet as the juice of the pomegranate. Soon she has a daughter with these qualities and she names her Rimonah which means pomegranate. Rimonah grows up in a loving household until her seventh birthday when her mother dies. Upon her deathbed, Rimonah's mother gives her a vial with three drops of her blood to wear around her neck. She tells her if they blood turns red and to liquid (after drying) then Rimonah is in danger. Then the mother dies.

The father who vows not to remarry ever, is married before his first wife is in the grave. The new wife is a sorceress who want to increase her power by becoming queen. She used her magic to kill the first queen and to make the king not have control of his mind. She keeps her special magic tools in a tower that only she is permitted to go in. She has a magic porcelain bowl that when she fills it with water, she can ask it any question and get a truthful answer. She asks if she is the fairest of all. One day it answers that Rimonah is fairer. She gets angry and orders a servant to go kill her.

The servant takes Rimonah out and pulls out his dagger, and Rimonah begs for her life. He tells her to go far away. Rimonah escapes leaving behind her cape which the huntsman uses as proof of her death. He covers it with blood of a gazelle first. 

Rimonah finds a group of bedouin. Since they do not follow the rule of the king and queen she is welcomed. She learns to ride and use her sword with them. She becomes well known for her skill with the sword and dagger. One day the queen hears someone discussing Rimonah of the desert's sword skill. The queen is shocked to hear she is not dead. She goes to her bowl to check and learns that she is still alive. She uses a magic cape to dress as a bedouin prince and brings a magical scorpion necklace. It turns into a real scorpion at sunset. She leaves it at Rimonah's tent with the other suitors' gifts. Rimonah gives it to one of her friends, but notices the blood in her necklace turn red and liquid. She grabs the necklace from her friends neck as the sun sets and kills the scorpion. At this point her friends urge her to leave since she has been found. 

Rimonah leaves and finds a cave with a huge stone blocking the entrance. She hides and sees its inhabitants, 40 thieves, enter using the words, "Open Sesame." She tries it and goes in.She leaves her horse in the stables and discovers a beautiful castle. She finds the forty beds and lies down for a quick rest, but falls fast asleep. The thieves find her and want to kill her, but bring her to their leader. They think she is a spy for the queen. She tells them how the queen has tried to kill her twice and they allow her to join them. They call her Rimonah of the Flashing Sword after seeing her skill. All of the thieves were honest men who were destroyed by the queen (all of their belongings taken by the queen's servants). 

My Rimonah

The queen discovers that Rimonah is still alive and uses her magic to find her. This time she brings a poisonous ring. She convinces Rimonah to put it on after she rolls it under the locked castle door saying the leader of the thieves wanted her to have it. She falls to the ground instantly. However she does not die since her mother's love is protecting her.

The thieves find her and put her in a glass coffin thinking she is dead. One day a prince finds his way into the cave and falls in love with the beautiful woman in the coffin. Even though she is surrounded by forty men asleep with their swords out, he opens the coffin to kiss her. The thieves wake up and threaten to kill him until they hear Rimonah's voice saying to spare him since he is the prince of her dreams. They are so happy to have Rimonah alive, but sad that she and the prince are in love. Rimonah tells the prince she will not be happy without her forty men. He agrees. As they journey to the prince's kingdom, they find a coffin in the desert and the leader of the thieves discovers it is the king. Rimonah wants to see her father once more and asks them to open it for her. She cries at her father's death and her tears awaken her father. He tells them how the queen used her magic to control him and then kill him. They decide Rimonah will not be safe with the queen alive so all of them go to kill her. When her people see them coming they abandon the queen. The queen having gotten knowledge that her end is near from the magic bowl tries to escape on her magic carpet, but leaves the bowl behind. Rimonah runs to the tower and throws the bowl at the queen. When the bowl hits the carpet and then the ground it breaks and the carpet unwinds. The queen dies. Everyone is happy. The thieves become the guards of Rimonah and her prince.

For this book I love how Rimonah is the best at the sword and becomes well known for her skill. She also does not need the men to save her as much as she can fight for herself. We made a sword, well actually a khopesh, an ancient Egyptian sword. I used the pattern from Storm the Castle. Our cardboard was a bit flimsy so we put duct tape on it. This made it a little better.

Math Lessons--Egyptian Math--Pyramids

Today I am going to share some math with you. If you have read the About Me section, you know I am a former high school math teacher. With so many kids going back to school now, I thought I would introduce a few math picture books and fun math lessons each week. Since this month's theme for Around the World with 12 Dishes is Egypt I thought I would share two books involving Egypt and math first. Plus I always like to include a little history with math lessons. I did this as a teacher as well. I loved sharing stories from Theoni Pappas' Mathematical Scandals with my classes.

Source: Phillip Martin

Some other interesting facts are that Egyptians developed a 365-day calendar--12 months of 30 days with 5 extra days, the decimal system, concept of zero, wrote in fractions, and the start of algebra. For information on the calendar click here, decimal system here, zero here,  fractions here, and algebra here.

Now the first book I am going to share with you is Count Your Way through Egypt by Jim Haskins and Kathleen Benson. This is a simple counting picture book. It introduces the numbers in both English and Arabic. It begins with a short introduction about Egypt and its language. Then it begins to count from one to ten and for each number they show something Egyptian. One canal, two parts (cut by the Nile) and each number has an explanation to go with what it is counting.

This book is very appropriate for young children who are learning their numbers. It also could work with older children with the many hieroglyph number problems you can find on-line. Discovering Egypt has some divided by ages. University of Chicago also provides some. Deciphering hieroglyphs is equivalent to decoding a message which is taught in algebra.

The next book is Mummy Math An Adventure in Geometry by Cindy Neuschwander.This book is about two children who go to Egypt with their scientist parents to help an archeologist find the burial chamber/pharaoh in the tomb he has discovered. The kids and their dog are the first to climb into the tomb and the door closes behind them. Since the kids are stuck inside without any adults, they decide to go see if they can find the burial chamber. The sister had learned to read hieroglyphics before they left home. The clues to finding the pharaoh involve faces. At first they assume the clues mean people's faces, but then they realize they mean the faces of the solids which are pictured all over the place. They manage to find the burial chamber and an exit by following all the clues and knowing their geometry solids.

Needless to say this story lends itself to lessons on the solids like a pyramid, prism, cone, sphere. It also uses words like tetrahedron and cube. Here is a worksheet with the definitions of these words. The faces of a solid are the polygons, the edges are where two faces intersect and the vertices are the points where the edges intersect.

Some Worksheets Found On-Line:

• Super Teacher Worksheets (some free and some need to be member)
• EZ School (free counting faces, edges and vertices)
• Enchanting Learning (has some worksheets and crafts)

Source: Phillip Martin

Since we are focusing on Egypt, we made some pyramids. We made some out of paper. Since Hazel is only four, we used pre-made nets that I found at Activity Village.

I printed two out on cardstock and then let Hazel decorate one. I colored one brown to look like the stone in Egypt.

Then we glued them together. So I would not have to hold them while the glue dried I put rubber bands around them. This worked pretty well.

For older children, you could have them make the net or for a real challenge have them construct it with a compass and a straightedge (no measuring allowed). For more information on constructions visit Math Open Reference.

Of course you could also calculate the surface area and the volume of all the solids. Math.com has the formulas easily available. You can find some worksheets here.

We also made a pyramid out of a Legos. This was a fun activity to do together with Hazel. For someone slightly older they could do it by themselves.

These three books also have other ideas for making pyramids. Some out of clay, sand clay (with recipe), instructions on drawing the net of it, etc.  We are hoping to make one out of sand clay, but have not had the time yet to make the clay. Maybe you will see that in one of our Egypt posts coming later this month.

For now, I hope you have enjoyed our little math lesson and exploration of Egypt.