A piece of Egyptian jewelry that features a scarab beetle along with a yellow hemi-sphere representing the sun.

Dung beetles rolling a ball of dung across the desert floor.

The cute part of this illustration is the ant's reaction to the dung beetle's comment about using dung to feed its larvae. Students in grades 2-6 learned how the ancient Egyptians drew inspiration for their art ideas from the nature. The Egyptians created scarab beetle jewelry as a symbol of life and the life cycle. The kids loved the story about how the dung beetle lays its eggs in a ball of poop. Well they actually thought it was kind of gross, but they did pay attention to it. Ask your child how this poop rolling beetle inspired the ancient Egyptian artists. In the photos below the kids are creating symmetrical beetle paintings using watercolor paints.

Mr. Post used a photoshop filter on some of the kids' paintings. You can see the altered images below.