Lakey Lane Primary School in Hall Green was looking to spice up their Year 4 Ancient Egyptians topic, they put the job out to tender, we submitted our ideas and got chosen for the collaboration.
The Ancient Egyptians project lasted five weeks with both Year 4 classes working with Stan’s Cafe associate artist Kerry Murdock on Monday and Friday afternoons. A good deal of the project’s success lay in the extra work the teachers and students put into the project in between sessions with us. This allowed a tremendous amount of work to be done.
Both classes did everything:
They made pyramid dioramas using mathematical nets to construct different size pyramids.
They wrote instructions for making dioramas.
They found the pyramids on Google Earth and compared them with the size of the school site.
They created a timeline through the school corridors so they knew when the pyramids were built.
They created their own contemporary hieroglyphics which could be translated using a ‘Rosetta’ stone.
They conducted an experiment trying to stop bread going mouldy using different preservation methods.
They had a discussion about different culture’s beliefs about death.
They explored a treasure box borrowed from Birmingham Museum containing lots of Ancient Egyptian artefacts connected with death rituals.
They wrote diary entries as Howard Carter on the day he entered Tutankhamen’s tomb.
They made colourful death masks and used them to create an environment on the school stage for visitors to explore.
Finally they invited friends and relatives to come into school and see what they had achieved.
Credits
Concept: James Yarker
Artist: Kerry Murdock
Death Mask Artist: Jarrod Mason
Everything else: Year 4 and staff at Lakey Lane Primary School
With thanks to Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery
Tour Dates
-
April – May 2016
Lakey Lane Primary School, Birmingham
