Chicken Mummy {Art, History and Science}

This project ended up being a super long one but totally worth it! I included it today for Art Friday but it obviously would fit in just about any subject area you might want it too. 

Make a Chicken Mummy

Ingredients:

3 cans baking powder

3 boxes of baking soda (or approximately 6 cups)

chicken

gallon sized storage bags

rubbing alcohol

spices (we used cinnamon)

salt (we used 4 cans)

gloves (if you want)

The first couple days take the most amount of work. After that, you can leave it alone for quite a while without thinking about it. It took us about 6 weeks total. 

Rinse and pat your chicken dry. You are essentially using various salts to dry out your chicken, water will not be your friend for this! 

Wash your chicken with the rubbing alcohol. Pat dry. 

Mix 1/2 box baking powder, 1 cup of baking soda and a can of salt in a large bowl. With the chicken in your plastic bag, fill the inner cavity with the salt mixture.  Pour the rest of the salt mixture on your chicken. Add spices if desired (it is very much desired) 

Repeat this process the next few days. Dust off any extra salt before adding new salt and replace your bag. We did a new mixture on Day 2, Day 4 and Day 7. After that it was every 10 days or so. The chicken will not smell (it just smelled like cinnamon) but if it does  or you notice it, it's time to change the salt. 

Materials to Finish

Glue (make your own: mix 1 1/2 cups flour with 1 cup water, add more water until you reach the desired consistency)

Fabric Scraps (muslin works great for this, we used our dyed fabric from our unit on the Phoenicians. Find the reciped for Simple Purple Dye Here 

Box (for a coffin)

Hieroglyphs to reference for decorating 

Dust off the extra salt and rub the chicken in spices. Stuff the inside with fabric (we actually forgot this part...). Cut fabric strips and dip into glue. Wrap 2-3 times and let dry completely. 

Decorate your box!

The original instructions came from Story of the World: Ancient Times Activity Book. 

Book of Centuries {History}

I'm really excited about incorporating this into our homeschool. A book of Centuries is more or less a timeline that is kept in a notebook or journal. You can find details and even a free printable at Simply Charlotte Mason but we decided to use a large journal for ours that I picked up at the craft store. We are also just doing one as a family but if your kids are older it would be great for them to work on individually. 

Traditionally a book of Centuries would start at 4000 BCE and go through AD 2100 but we started a bit earlier. Because it would be impossible to do every hundred years from the beginning of time we split it into manageable pieces:

The Beginning of Time (everything before the Paleozoic Era)

The Paleozoic Era

The Mesozoic Era

Cenozoic Era

Coming of Humans (Early Man)

This is the start of our century divisions: 4000 BCE- 3901 BCE and so on. 

If you incorporate Montessori into your home this would be easiest to do after The Great Lessons.   These stories go up to the history of writing and mathematics and are a great transition into Ancient History.  

Narrating and sketching the end of the Minoan Civilization. We also compared it to other parts of history we had learned about. 

Placing ourselves in the book. 

We had a TON of pages leftover at the end so Barrett thought they would be great for map work and I agreed.  We'll make sure we can cross reference ancient maps with current ones and maybe tape a few in there as well. 

This is a long term project and it will be invaluable as time goes on. What better way to keep track of what we've been learning?  

Simple Purple Dye {Practical Life}

We've been having fun learning about the Phoenicians in our Ancient History book this past week. One of the recommended activities was to make dye. The Phoenicians used snails but fruit and vegetables work great too! 

Materials:

Blueberries (frozen)

Pots (one for cooking the blueberries, one for cold water)

Cheese cloth (for straining)

Material to Dye (old curtains, fabric, pasta)

Cold Salt Water

Simmer your blueberries on low heat for about an hour. I found that I needed to add some water to our blueberries. Strain the berries and keep the juice. Dye your materials. Rinse with cold salt water- it will dilute your coloring a bit- but the color should stay a little bit longer.  Lay out to dry! 

Once our fabric dries we are going to make some stuffed animals with the sewing machine. Check back on Friday to see how it comes together!