Teach students how to write their name using hieroglyphics. Provide students with a printout of the symbol used to make each sound. Model finding the symbols for the sounds of your first name and drawing the hieroglyphics for your name. Instruct students to use the symbols to write their own names. Once students are finished, allow each preschooler to present it to the class and describe the symbols used in their name.
Give each preschooler several long, thin strips of muslin and a doll or stuffed animal. Show them how to wrap the doll until it's covered. Explain to them that this was part of the burial process for Egyptian mummies. Give them small jewel stickers to place between strips and explain why charms and amulets were buried with the mummies. Use cardboard and tape to make a sarcophagus for each doll. Provide a list with hieroglyphic symbols and help children decorate the sarcophagus with hieroglyphics.
Ask preschoolers to act out the words "tree," "frog," "cat" and "sun." Ask them to draw each of these on a sheet of paper. Next, draw pictures to represent a sentence such as, "On a sunny day the cat and frog sat under a tree." Ask them to point to the part of the sentence that represents the sunny day, the cat and frog and the tree. Cut the pictures from the sentence and ask the preschoolers where to put the pictures to make the sentence, "The cat was in the tree while the frog sat in the sun." Explain to the students that this is how hieroglyphics work and show them examples.
Make small square cards with hieroglyph symbols and cards with each of the symbol's meanings. The back of each card should be identical. Laminate cards or use heavy card stock. Play a memory game by instructing preschoolers to turn over two cards and see if they're a symbol and meaning that match. Once all matches have been found, the student with the most cards wins.