Mummy Excavation


This Halloween, we learned about Mummies as apart of our Homeschool Curriculum. We read books about mummies, made a mummy craft and ate mummy hot dogs! Here are some links.

Mummy Books: Mummy Cat by Marcus Ewert; Pyramids & Mummies by Simon Seymour

Mummy Craft: Draw a mummy, cut it out and glue on strips of paper towels. Glue on googly eyes. Optional: Glue the mummy in a coffin (as shown below).


Mummy Hot Dogs: Mummy Hot Dog Tutorial.



Back to the Mummy Excavation.

Step One: Gather supplies. You'll need:
  • Aluminum Pan - mine was 9x13
  • Corn Starch (roughly 8 cups - I used three of the containers shown below) 
  • Plastic Skeletons (I bought these from the Dollar Store around Halloween)
  • Gems and Jewels (you can often find these at the Dollar Store)
  • Optional: Sand Castle Mold


Step Two: Mix 4 cups of cornstarch with 2 cups of water in a bowl. It should be hard to stir, but also runny if you move the bowl around. 


Step Three: Pour the cornstarch mixture into the aluminum pan and sand castle mold. Push the  jewels, gems and the skelton(s) into the mixture. My gems and skeletons floated. Dry for 3-4 hours.



Step Four: After drying for 3-4 hours, mix another 4 cups of cornstarch and 2 cups of water in a bowl. Pour over the hardened corn starch in the aluminum container and sand castle mold, so you can no longer (or barely) see the jewels or mummies. Dry for three days. You'll know its completely dried and ready to play with when it starts to crack on the top. Note: DO NOT wait too much longer. I made this mistake last year and mold started to form. Below you will see two excavation bins. One of the batches has the mummies completely covered, the other has the mummies barely showing. I placed additional jewels on top, just for decoration. 



Step Five: Get ready to play. Grab some play dough tools, play drill sets (ours came with a dentist play dough set), brushes, or anything else you can think of. 



The first hidden jewel found in the sand castle mold.
We found a mummy.
And got him out!

Basically, this was really fun and a great learning activity for Halloween. If you want to go an extra step further, let your kids take the demolished mummy excavation tin into the shower. The water will make the hardened corn starch into a liquid again and will create more hours of play.





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