Lesson Plan for Hieroglyphs

Research on computers

1. Review in class what children can remember about hieroglyphs. Cover (briefly) these topics:

What hieroglyphs are; What materials & surfaces were used; Schools; Scribes; How to tell what direction hieroglyphs are written in; the 'alphabetic' hieroglyphs; any rules for writing sentences the children can remember, e.g. verb comes first.

2. Allocate one or more topics to a child (or a pair). The research topics on my web site are:

What does 'hieroglyph' mean?	What are hieroglyphs?	What were hieroglyphs written on? with a special section on papyrus	What were hieroglyphs written with? - pens and paints
Who wrote hieroglyphs? - scribes	When was hieroglyphic invented?	How did scribes learn to write? - schools	What sort of things did the Egyptians write?
What is hieratic?	What is demotic?	How did we learn to translate hieroglyphs? - the Rosetta Stone	How did the Egyptian language change?

What direction do you read hieroglyphs in?	What, no vowels?	What different kinds of hieroglyph are there?	What are the 'alphabetic' hieroglyphs?
What are some other hieroglyphs?	How do you write your name in hieroglyphs?	How do you write 'neatly' in hieroglyphic?	How do you write sentences?

They may need to write down the questions, or you can print these questions, cut them up and give them to the child/pair.

3. Children go to computers, log onto web and find my website, www.timetrips.co.uk, and click on hieroglyphs on the right side of the page. All the questions will appear as above with links to the information.

4. Children can take notes to give a short presentation, or write a few sentences in their history books.

5. Alternatively children can make a poster display. Feel free to print any pictures.

back