When We Walked Like Egyptians

What an amazing weekend we had! In a first for the group, we had a Cubs and Scouts only sleepover. We love our whole group sleepovers, of course, it's a great chance for us all to collaborate, but it was also really nice for our older sections to have their own time.

So, this sleep over. We headed back in time to Ancient Egypt.

We met up on the Saturday afternoon. Our first activity was to do a problem solving game. Each person was given a card with a sequence of hieroglyphs on. They were each attendees' name. In order to work out who had which card, they needed to work out what the hieroglyphs meant. To help them, each of the adults also had a card with their name on, but theirs included the translation. They compared the glyphs on the adults' cards with their own, then handed over the card to its owner. They were then given a printed version as a keepsake.

The team show off their Egyptian name cards

After that, it was time to break out the Lego and Mega Blocks to create pyramids. They worked in teams to see who could create the best one but in the end, they just had fun with the bricks.

Using Lego to start building a pyramid

Starting on a Mega Block pyramid

Sam creates an obelisk

Hard at work

There was also an opportunity to make scarab beetles out of air drying clay which we'd paint the next day.

Creating clay sculptures and using the hieroglyph alphabets to decorate them

Close up on clay

Scarab beetles form

Creativity in progress

Next we watched a video online about when Howard Carter opened Tutankhamun's tomb over 100 years ago. It was fascinating to see, especially when we knew that only a few weeks ago a new tomb entrance in the Tutankhamun dynasty was opened!

Skip gives us a safety brief before the video

The emergency exits are here...

After that, it was time to get creative. There were themed word searches, paper bags to decorate and colouring sheets. The bags were for them to put any of the resources they created into to help get them home at the end of the sleepover.

Letting the creative juices flow

Journaling and colouring

Paper crafting Egypt

Before we put the tents up, we thought we might need a game, enter the mummies.

Using toilet rolls as bandages, we worked in teams to see who could wrap up their mummy fastest.

Millie, Robin and Amelia's mummy team, with help from Hathi

Millie becomes a mummy

Making sure Millie is properly covered

Shiann, Lily, Hannah and Jonathan's mummy team

Shiann the mummy

More mummying of Millie

Still wrapping Shiann

Shiann can't help but fidget, making mummying her a bit harder!

Sam takes a turn at becoming a mummy

Millie's almost fully wrapped

Shiann's fidgeting leads to piles of toilet paper to roll in

The evening's not over yet and there's still so much to cover! Up next, remembering it's a sleepover, it was time to put up our tents.

Otter helps Millie put up her tent

Robin follows Otter's directions

Charlotte teaches Raluca and Harry how to put up a tent

We also tried some foods the Ancient Egyptians would have eaten like fresh figs, dates and hummus.

Jonathan tries hummus

Robin tries hummus

With all that done, it was time for bed. A quick story in Rebecca's tent for Amelia and Hannah, then it was lights out.

Rebecca reads to her tent mates

Time to settle down

The following morning we had breakfast then it was time to pack away our tents before the last few activities which included painting our clay scarabs and handing out badges before we were picked up. It was a great event and the Scouts who'd never been on a sleepover before are all looking forward to the next one!

Millie and Robin work together to roll up their tent

Hannah rolls across the folded tent to get the air out

Rolling Robin

Mixing colours to add more to the provided palette

Hathi's masterpiece

Painting together

Thank you, Skip!

Millie accepts her badge

What a weekend it's been and when we return in the new term, we have one week before St George's Day so keep your eyes open to see what we get up to as the Summer Term begins!