Chicken Mummy Follow-Up

Now that I've caught up on the highlights of our social events I want to back track to some school highlights as well. As with the social things, I'm not even going to attempt to blog about everything we've done this past year. I'm simply going to try and hit the highlights of our first year of homeschooling. I think it has been successful and we plan to continue going forward. We are now even firmer believers in the Classical education approach and we've joined a Classical Conversations homeschooling co-op. I can't wait to become a part of that group and even more dedicated to the Classical style of education. It has so many incredible advantages!

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For the moment I want to back up and start my school catchup by providing a follow-up to our chicken mummy. After changing the natron mixture everyday for the first week, we changed it every two days, then four days and finally we only had to change it once a week. At the end of seven weeks we cleaned the chicken off for the final time and prepared it to start the actual wrapping process of our chicken mummy.

We used wet paper towels to get all the salt off and then immediately dried it off 

 Our mummified chicken

 Next the girls rubbed spices and oil all over the chicken to help preserve the skin

 We ripped white cotton fabric into 1 inch strips to both stuff and wrap our chicken mummy in

 We also made a glue and water mixture (1-2 parts water to 1 part glue) to dip the strips in as we wrapped the chicken

 Mixing the mixture and dipping the fabric

 We had to strain some of the liquid off the strips so they weren't too wet for wrapping

 We wrapped the wings and legs seperately from the body. Once we started wrapping the body we included some amulets (coins and jewels) just like the Egyptians wrapped with their mummies.

 The girls with their completed chicken mummy

During the entire 2 month process the spices and freezer bags kept it from smelling bad. I couldn't believe how little it smelled! As much as it suprised me that the chicken didn't stink during that two month process as soon we wrapped it and let it sit it began to stink terribly! As a matter of fact, it smelled so bad (and I was newly pregnant) Tim and Grammy had to dispose of it because I couldn't go near it. lol :) I guess it finally began to decompose after being removed from the freezer bags and natron mixture. In anycase, this was such a fabulous project! The Story of the World has many great activity suggestions to learn about the region of the world you are studying, but this was an especially great learning experience and a fun way to begin our homeschool journey!