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Several years ago, for my little boy's birthday, we threw an Egyptian-themed party for him! The children had a wonderful time-- so here are some ideas for your junior archaeologist!
First, the invitations! We sent out a 'Travel Brochure' inviting the children to participate in an Archaeological Dig, that gave the details of the party, including a cartouche and a Message from Akenhaten, written in Egyptian hieroglyphics and translated into English, commanding the child's presence to Tutankamun's Birthday Party at the Far Pavilion. Each child was requested to wear his cartouche-- made of paper, and written in the hieroglyphics of the child's name-- to the party. The sounds and images of the hieroglyphs are available on line.
Our house is not really set up for a child's birthday party, so we rented a picnic shelter at the local park. Once decorated, the picnic shelter looked a little more 'exotic'... and our decorations were quite inexpensive, since most were purchased at the dollar store.
To enter the party, each child had to cross the Nile River, a plastic blue table cover on the floor, dotted with stepping stones, small stuffed alligators and snakes. As each child entered, my husband, dressed as Akenhaten, raised his arms, saying, "Welcome to Akenhaten's Far Pavilion. With my magical powers as Pharaoh of Upper and Lower Egypt, I will prevent the alligators and the snakes from eating you". My husband is a good sport-- and the children were all agog.
When they came into the Pavilion, each child received an "Indiana Jones" hat, a bandanna, and my son led them to their place with their cartouche name tag-- which matched their cartouche I had made for them, (translated). Each one got a golden bag of treasure that contained an Ancient Egyptian color sheet, a small box of crayons, a compass, a pouch of gold coins, and a Secret Egyptian Password to translate, as well as a hieroglyph key. They had to 'translate' their password to participate-- a one word password like, "Asp", "Temple", "Barge", etc. I helped if they got stuck.
We played 4 games: Pin the Asp on Cleopatra, Egyptian Basket Relay, Archeological Dig, and Wrap the Mummy. The Egyptian Basket relay consisted of dividing the kids into 2 teams. Each team member had to balance a basket of plastic snakes on their head, 'walk like an Egyptian' around a table, and pass the basket on to the next team member. Prizes were given to the team that won-- all with an Egyptian Theme, soft plastic squishy frogs, alligators, and fish from the Nile.
The Archaeological Dig, paired the kids. One child "dug" through a bowl of bird seed to find rings, necklaces, and other goodies, then they brought the bird seed bowl to me to be replenished and the other child got to 'dig'. Wrap the mummy used the same team, one child wrapped a roll of toilet paper around the other child, who was the mummy-- against a timer. Winning team got a prize.
We drank Nile Water, (blue Gatorade & 7Up), ate the pyramid cake, (seen below), vanilla ice cream wtih honey dribbled over it, ate honey cakes, and had a mixture of dates, figs, and nuts-- just like the Egyptians had. Parents who stayed were served the same, plus a few other snacks. Everyone had gummi worms, (candied asps), gummi frogs, etc.
At the end of the party, every guest received a golden pyramid box, with a copper Ankh necklace, (inexpensive and ordered online), and a piece of magic Egyptian Stone, (from the local rock shop)-- either carnelian, lapis lazuli, or malachite. The stones were accompanied by a card explaining the significance of the stone to Ancient Egyptian culture-- and also explained why the Ankh was important.
Everyone had a lovely time, and learned just a little bit about Ancient Egypt!
