Looking ahead to the school holidays in mid March, parents will be looking for fun activities with which to entertain their kids. Why not entertain your little ones with some kids activities all around Ancient Egypt? Taking them to the museum may be a great idea, but if you don’t like the crowds, let’s get ready to have some fun learning about Egyptian history and culture.

1. Write Your Name in Hieroglyphs

You probably have been to an exhibit where you were able to have your name written in Ancient Egyptian hieroglyphs. In writing your name, all you need is pen and paper and the key containing the most important hieroglyphs. The key here comes from an activity designed by the Royal Ontario Museum.

1. First, write out your name.
2. Identify the sounds (e.g., for Thomas, the sounds would be T-O-M-A-S as H is silent here). The goal here is to identify the letters that sound out your name: some sounds may be two letters (e.g., ch), others may be silent (e.g., h). In Egyptian, these would often be just one sign.

3. See the hieroglyphs key to find the signs that correspond to the letters in your name.
4. Write these signs following each other and, voilà, you have your name.

There are more nuances, of course, to writing your name in hieroglyphs, and we’ll dive into that topic in an upcoming blog post! For now, you may see the wonderful activity provided by the Royal Ontario Museum, which also presents some more background information.

2. Watch The Prince of Egypt

Film and television heavily feature ancient Egypt and a favourite here at home is the Prince of Egypt. Released in 1998, the film revolves around Moses and his role in the Israelite Exodus out of Egypt. I have reviewed it for the blog before and can highly recommend it – no wonder the film has become a cult classic in some circles.

3. Games are always fun kids activities

Adults have may played games such as Sid Meier’s Civilization VI before and for our younger audiences there are several options. National Museums Scotland has a variety of games: from learning about Egypt’s geography to dressing yourself in Egyptian fashion. The games are easy to play for a child of any age and require a computer and an Internet connection.

If you want to play an actual game that has come down to us from ancient times, the game Senet is for you. Set into three rows of 10 squares each, you start with five pieces. You use four wooden sticks (one side is flat) or dice to move. If you land on a spot that’s occupied by your opponent, you trade places. Your goal? Get your pieces off the board first.

Several museums have put together the full instructions, see here:

• Macclesfield Museums
• Otago Museum

Alternatively, you may also find the Senet game on Apple’s App Store to play on an iPhone or iPad:

• Egyptian Senet (C$ 2.79) – a free Lite version is also available
• Senet Deluxe (C$ 3.99)

4. Cook up some tasty Egyptian dishes

This is probably one of the more hands-on kids activities. We have previously mentioned the wonderful cookbook The Pharaoh’s Kitchen by Magda Mehdawy and Amr Hussein. Why not choose one of the many recipes, get messy, and cook it with your little one? A favourite here is ful medammes, which is easy to make. You will need 2 cups dried fava beans, 4 cloves of garlic, 1 litre water, and 1 teaspoon salt. While you bring the water to a boil, wash the beans. Once the water boils, add the beans and simmer for 30 minutes. Remove the froth that comes from the beans. Continue to stew the beans for at least four hours (you may also reduce the heat a little) and then add the salt, garlic, and chilli. Then serve with some pita bread (or any sliced bread) and enjoy!

Have tiger nuts kicking around at home? Try your hand at making Egyptian tiger nut offering loaves along with Dig it with Raven. They try to recreate these offering leaves following clues found in Egyptian private tombs from the New Kingdom. Watch below:

What kids activities around Egypt do you enjoy at home? Let me know in the comments.