The Chicken Mummies (Yes, that is plural, we have 2 chicken Mummies) *Part 1*

Who doesn't love learning about Ancient Egypt?  It is one of those topics that is easy to get kids engaged in because they all know just enough about it to have some background, but there are so many unanswered questions that it is intriguing to everyone from age 9-99!  I will still stop channel surfing anytime I click by a documentary about something Egypt related.  Granted, I may have a little bit of a bias because I spent 6 months there back in 2006 doing my student teaching....it was a very safe place at that time, even though my grandma was very nervous the entire time I was there.

I feel lucky to be a part of the 5th/6th grade team of teachers that work together so well because when the Social Studies teacher said they were starting to learn about Ancient Cultures in class and one culture they would spend a significant amount of time on was Ancient Egypt, I shoved my way right into that unit of study as the writing and technology teacher.  I brought a TON of my photo albums and scrapbooks, I shared items that I brought back from my time in Egypt to share with the students, as well as lots of stories because they had even more questions about what it was like there.  Among other things, I had the students take a virtual field trip of a few main attractions of Egypt, like walking inside Khufu's pyramid at Giza (which I have actually done in real life, but sort of prefer the virtual way because it was a lot less dirty and there wasn't anyone hassling us for money "baksheesh" on the virtual trip) from NOVA's Explore Ancient Egypt website.  They are also in the process of writing a research paper about an Ancient Egyptian topic of their choice and making stop-motion movie depicting something relating to their research topic.  But, aside from all those other things, I think the thing they are most excited about is making their own mummy.  I have two sections of 6th grade that I see every day and both classes are in charge of making their own "Chicken Mummy".

Let me start this out by saying I am not totally crazy, however, I have had a raw chicken sitting in my classroom, not refrigerated...just sitting out on a cart,  for the better part of two weeks now.  And we take it out every couple of days to re-salt it.  No stinking so far, I know that was what you were thinking....I'm pretty sure that is the concern that my principal had too, but so far so good.   *I have done this one other time a few years ago with another teacher, but this is my first time going at it alone.

Here is how the process has gone so far:
Day 1:
Bring whole raw chicken to school.
Bring LOTS of containers of salt.
Bring 1/2 as many containers of baking soda as salt.
Bring 1 container of rubbing alcohol.
Also, we needed gallon sized ziplock bags, gloves, and lots of paper towels and Lysol Wipes.

Adding salt inside and under the skin.

More salting and kids taking pictures with their phones as we work.

1. Let chicken soak in rubbing alcohol for 1-3 hours.
2. Drain chicken juice and completely dry off chicken (inside and out).
3. Weigh chicken. (ours was 6lbs exactly)
4. Watch 1/2 the students gag while other 1/2 of students ask if they can touch it.
5. Cut a few slits into "meaty" parts of chicken.
6. Cover and fill with salt/baking soda mix.
7. Make sure to shove salt/baking soda mix inside slits and underneath skin. (more kids gagging)
8. Place chicken inside gallon size ziplock bag, then place that bag inside another bag.

Putting King Cluck into his baggie.

King Cluck is all bagged up and ready for his first night of a salt bath.

For the first week or so, we cleaned off all the wet, mushy salt/baking soda mix everyday and replaced it with more. (By we, I mean the students.  After the first day I have been pretty much "hands off" and it has become their mummy.)  Each class has voted and decided on a name for their mummy also.  My first period class named theirs "King Cluck" and my 2nd period class went with "Johnny McCluckerton".

Currently we are down to only re-salting the chicken 1-2 times per week.  It is a LOT less "juicy" now than it was the first week or two.  It is also starting to feel a lot lighter.  We haven't weighed it since the first day, so we will have to do that again soon too.  This is still very much a work in progress, but so far, so good.  aka: My classroom has yet to smell like you would expect 2 week old unrefrigerated raw chicken to smell.

We have plans in the works for the TAG kids to make a sarcophagus and some canoptic jars and we also have plans for where our mummy will be entombed once the ground thaws in the spring....