Posted in My Homeschool FAQs

No, I am not kidding....We actually mummified Barbie's!  Well, actually 2 GI Joe's and 1 Barbie!  Here's what we did:

We bought the cheapest Barbie's I could find at the Thrift Store.  I got GI Joe's for the boys and Barbie for my daughter.  I spent $4.00 total on them.

Then I used the Magic Tree House Research Guide - Mummies and Pyramids as guide for our mummification process.

Here are the steps we took:

1.  Remove all the organs except the heart.  We did this by talking about the organs that would be removed and then drawing a red heart on the chest of each doll with a Sharpie Marker to represent leaving the heart in.

2.  Next we washed the body with  "wine"  (we used  white wine vinegar diluted in water.)  and rubbed the  it with  oils and spices.  (We used olive oil with a little nutmeg and cinnamon.)

3.  Now, we rubbed the body with kosher sea salt.

4.  Next we left our bodies to dry for 40 days!  (We used 1 minute to represent 1 day, so we really left them rest for 40 minutes.)

5. While we were waiting for 40 minutes to pass we tore strips of muslin appprox. 1 inch wide.  Then we made a paste of 1 part flour and 3 parts water.  
(The boys were pretending to be the Incredible Hulk while ripping the fabric.  Hence the weird face!  LOL)

6.  We also made the amulets that were wound into the cloth with the mummies.  We made ours out of fun foam.

7.  At last we  wet each strip in the flour/water mixture and wrapped the mummies! (BTW, we washed all the oil and etc. off the dolls before we started wrapping. This would not have been part of the mummification process, but our corpses were plastic!  LOL)





8.  Once they were completely covered with several layers of muslin we left them to dry. 


There you have it!  Mummified Barbie's!  LOL  I don't think my kids will forget this school day anytime soon!!


(If you are WAY more brave than me here are the directions to mummify a chicken! )

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Comments

Posted by homeschoolhighlites

You get the most creative Homeschool mom award! We did Egypt/mummies in November - I wish I would have thought of that! Your photos were great.

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Posted by Onduli

Ideas like this one are awesome! These are exactly the kinds of things I would like to do - things that my ds would NEVER do in a regular school setting. Like you said, your kiddos will never forget what they learned :) Thanks for sharing!

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Posted by msack

We are just starting Egypt with our new sonlight core 6. I've seen that book in my library. Does it have other ideas in it as well?

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Posted by Leigh2

Okay...if I let my kids see this, they will make me do it immediately. Too fun!

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Posted by MichelleMcKinney

Very creative, as usual. I prefer this over the chicken bones!
The one thing I've noticed is you always include your youngest. I've read many blogs where littles are scooted off behind a gate or school only happens at nap time. .

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Posted by COMamabear

We did this when we studied Egypt - and the dc LOVED it! We had a funeral procession and entombed her in the back yard. They promptly forgot she was there as soon as the dog messed up the mastaba mud pyramid marking the site. Until months later when they played tomb raiders and dug her and her "valuables" up! LOL

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Posted by drewsfamilytx

Oh man! That is SO cool! I wish I knew about that a couple of months ago when we were wrapping up our study of ancient Egypt. (poor pun intended!). :-)

What a fun day that they will totally remember for a very long time!

Marsha

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Posted by Anonymous

That is the best mummification I've ever seen!!! Thanks for sharing! And I agree that they won't soon forget this day. And, it looks like your little boy is in PJ's (though maybe not). We love to do school in our PJ's!
Dana, www.alexml.blogspot.com

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Posted by eyecorn

Oh, man! And I went and bought a mummy kit...this is way cooler! How I've been wanting to get back and that perfectly figured Barbie...next time, I'll just mummify her! Seriously, when I do ancient history with DD in 2 years, I am definitely going to do this!

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Posted by Redbud

You are one cool mom! I definitely like this better than the chicken.

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Posted by Trish

What a clever idea! We are studying Egyptian history and I'm sure my daughter would get a kick out of this project! Excellent idea!

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Posted by counterculturalmom

This looks awesome!! I've done the chicken mummy thing...this looks much less...stinky!

Thanks for a great idea, we will definitely use this next year!
Molly
http://www.counterculturalmom.blogspot.com

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Posted by deedeeuk

Thanks for this idea! It is very timely. We are just finishing our Egypt unit and I'm not brave enough at the moment to mummify a chicken and wasn't sure how to ' do' the mummy bit! This is BRILLIANT and far less messy and time consuming! You are a life saver and my boys will LOVE this!

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Posted by Anon

That is so cool, Jamin! I am definitely trying that with my kids. Mummified barbies. . . . Well, interesting! Cool idea!!

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Posted by Anna

This was an awesome project! My daughter loved making the mummy. It's definitely something she'll never forget! Thanks for showing!

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Posted by imalwayswright

That is really not something that you'd see every day but I have to admitt, it looks like fun

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Posted by Anonymous

How awesome! We're using Story of the World, and the instructions to mummify a chicken seem so wasteful. I want to eat that chicken, ya know? I think a cheap doll would work much easier. Thanks!
annie

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