Animals in Ancient Egypt: pets and symbols
Ancient Egyptians lived near animals and knew them well. They carved and painted many animals, such as cats, hippos, crocodiles, falcons and ibises. Read the four paragraphs. Each paragraph has a main idea: choose the heading that fits. Remember, the past simple tells us about finished actions long ago. For regular verbs we add -ed: love, loved. If the verb ends in e we add only -d: live, lived. If a verb ends in a consonant and y we write -ied: carry, carried. Some verbs double the last letter: stop, stopped. Irregular verbs change: keep, kept; have, had; see, saw. Negatives: didn’t. Questions: Did they keep cats?
| Verb | Past simple | Rule |
|---|---|---|
| love | loved | add -d |
| carry | carried | y becomes -ied |
| stop | stopped | double the letter, add -ed |
| keep | kept | irregular |
| be | was / were | irregular |
A. The Nile gave the Egyptians many animals. Hippos and crocodiles lived in the river, and people caught fish for food.
B. Many families kept cats and dogs. People painted cats in pictures and carved small statues of them.
C. Birds were important too. The tall ibis and the falcon were often drawn and carved in art.
D. Artists watched animals closely. Their paintings and statues show hippos, snakes, baboons and monkeys very clearly.
Animal quiz. The child writes four questions about the text in the past simple, for example: What lived in the river? The grown-up answers. Then the child writes two true and two false sentences, and the grown-up says which are true.