Year 3 had a fantastic day at Weston Park Museum in Sheffield, where they looked at ancient Egyptian artefacts to work out what daily life was like for the ‘ordinary’ Egyptian. They used primary and secondary historical sources to explore this impressive period of time and then took part in and Ancient Egyptian Workshop.
During our workshop, the children went to the Ancient Egyptian gallery to meet Djedma’atuiesank (Djedma for short) who was a young mummified girl, who had somehow later ended up in Weston Park Museum. The children could see that her parents thought the world of her as her sarcophagus was so ornately decorated. Pupils used primary and secondary resources to find out more about her and explored what her story might be beyond her life.
A museum guide encouraged the children to use enquiry based learning to connect and empathise with the young 14 year old girl. They questioned a number of things including ethical issues, such as the obtaining and displaying of grave goods and human remains in museums. Each pupil then wrote a thoughtful message to ‘Djedma’ and created a beautiful ornament for her to use in the afterlife.
Year 3 will continue to debate some of the issues discussed back in the classroom for the Persuasive Writing English competition.
The final part of the day was spent having lots of fun looking at all the other collections in the museum.
As always, the children were a pleasure to take out for the day and everyone returned to school fully inspired for the next part of their Desert Dwellers project.
