Ancient Egypt Definition Cards

Egypt has such a rich and fascinating history. It’s amazing to me how we can know so much about people that lived thousands (and thousands) of years ago. Throughout this school year, I’m planning to help my son learn about ancient history. What better place to start than with ancient Egypt? These definition cards will help kids get some of the basic terminology down which makes reading about this time period a little easier.

The vocabulary cards feature the terms:

• Nile River
• pyramid
• pharaoh
• hieroglyphs
• mummy
• sarcophagus
• canopic jars
• obelisk
• papyrus
• senet
• Eye of Horus
• ankh

Note that this post is part of a 4-part set on Ancient Egypt. The other posts in the set include:

• Ancient Egyptian Historical Figure Cards
• Ancient Egyptian Monument Cards
• Ancient Egyptian Mythology Cards

See my Ancient History page for a list of posts on other cultures such as Mesopotamia, Greece, and Rome. Sign up for my newsletter to stay up-to-date as this list of free resources grows.

A reader recently suggested that I make versions of my cards split 3 or more ways so that older kids could use them as well. This is such a great idea, I don’t know why I didn’t think of it! This is my first attempt at providing additional options when it comes to using my cards. Now not only can the child match the name/definition cards to the picture, but they can match just the name to the picture (which is what I’m doing with my kindergartener since he can’t read the definitions anyway), or match the name to the definition, or try to match all 3 at once. This provides a lot more flexibility depending on the level of the child.

I recommend checking out a few library books to go along with these cards. There are many good ones, but a couple that we thought were fun, informative, and easy to understand were Ms. Frizzle’s Adventures in Ancient Egypt and Everyday Life in the Ancient World (both of which are unfortunately out-of-print, but can likely be found used or in library systems). I’m a big fan of anything by National Geographic Kids and they have a great book called Everything Ancient Egypt. (Note: All links are Amazon affiliate links. I make a small commission for Amazon purchases at no extra cost to you.)

Recommended Age Range: Kindergarten, Elementary
Time Required: ~30 minutes
Difficulty: Easy
Cost: Free printable, less than $2 to laminate

Materials:

• Paper for printing Ancient Egypt Definition cards and corresponding control cards. (Note that the last 2 pages of each document do not need to be printed as they just contain legal information regarding sharing and image sources.)
• 9 thermal laminating pouches

Supplies & Tools:

• Laminator
• Paper trimmer or scissors

Instructions:

1. Print the Ancient Egypt Definition cards and corresponding control cards.
2. Laminate them using thermal laminating pouches (optional, could also use contact paper or not laminate them at all).
3. Cut them out.

Read some books on ancient Egypt and talk about the images on the cards. For a non-reader or early-reader, they can start by just matching the image cards to the image on the control cards. Once they get good at identifying the images, you can give them a name card, help them read it, then have them find the corresponding image card. For older children, they can graduate from matching the name/definition cards to the images to either trying to match all 3 at once or just matching the name to the definition. As always, the control cards are provided to help them when they get stuck.

Click here for more Ancient History activities and printables for kids.

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