Adventures in Ancient Egypt written by Linda Bailey and illustrated by Bill Slavin is a developmentally appropriate, text within a text approach to teaching children about the geographic and cultural history of ancient Egypt.
Linda Bailey does an excellent job of presenting the factual information alongside a kid-friendly and engaging story line by using a text within a text approach. She begins by instantly engaging students using a comic book-like format and three bored children with nothing to do on a summer day. They end up in a run down travel agency which eventually leads to a trip back in time to ancient Egypt. “There was a terrible, wonderful flash and . . . in one brief moment, everything changed!” The book continues by following the kids’ adventures along the Nile River, visiting an Egyptian town, school, and pyramid along with experiencing other culturally important Egyptian concepts. Bailey pairs this adventure with detailed historical commentary about the locations and cultural features the kids are experiencing along the bottom of each page.
Presenting the information and concepts by using these methods simultaneously allows students to learn about ancient Egypt on two distinct and effective levels.
Adventures in Ancient Egypt effectively introduces second or third grade students to the relationship between ancient Egypt’s environment and culture (VA SOL 2.4b).
- This lesson plan is a great hands-on way for students to interact with hieroglyphs.
- Teachers can use this coloring sheet to stimulate discussion on pyramids and their importance in ancient Egyptian culture.
- This website provides extra background material and visuals on ancient Egypt.
- This website is a conglomeration of on-line ancient Egyptian games and activities to further re-inforce the concepts students are learning.