No kidding, the accompaning image is an exact replica of what I brought in to the classes to look at and touch. The most common response from me was "I WISH". The most common question, because middle school kids are just adorable, was "is that real gold?" Ok, so today's lesson was planned around the Mayans. As before, I asked the students to remember (I had already established this in the beginning of the unit) that they were archaeologists.
Quick brief- students have 'history notebooks' where they document all of their notes. I took hold of the first three periods of class for the unit on Meso-american and Andean civilizations, and how the Spanish conquered the Aztec and Inca. I told the students that we were now becoming anthropologists and that we would now turn our journal into an anthro notebook. This included the tribe or cultural name (I demonstrated a graphic organizer for which they should copy), the dates they existed, the GRAPES for them (Geography, religion, achievements, etc), and personal reflections (just like real archs and anthros they were expected to reflect on what they had found- this was in the form of critical thought and analysis questions).
Anyhow, I started with a background power-point before asking them to now BECOME Mayans and decipher the symbols on the calendar before answering a bunch of questions using what they had just learned.
In pairs they each got two parts of the calendar (if you notice in the image- the calendar is broken into two to rings. The outer is called the Sacred round and the inner is the 13 day). By an obvious but somewhat complicated way of rotating the two (as well as understanding the symbols) one is able to come up with the days of the year certain question about what will happen.
And then here is the reality. I myself studied things like this for my B.A. and I, in running through the lesson, had to do it three times just to make sure I understood. That, probably, should have been an indicator to me that it might be a little tough for my students. On paper it was just a fantastic idea- having students decipher primary source images and use them in a meaningful way. In reality? It was a lot of fun for the kids but only about 30% actually got to the point where they were able to answer the questions.
It was great that the students enjoyed themselves but in the long run, I am striving for memorable lessons that allow students to take with them both skills and content.
In conclusion, I had several students come to me at the end of class and say-- this was hard but fun.
Quick brief- students have 'history notebooks' where they document all of their notes. I took hold of the first three periods of class for the unit on Meso-american and Andean civilizations, and how the Spanish conquered the Aztec and Inca. I told the students that we were now becoming anthropologists and that we would now turn our journal into an anthro notebook. This included the tribe or cultural name (I demonstrated a graphic organizer for which they should copy), the dates they existed, the GRAPES for them (Geography, religion, achievements, etc), and personal reflections (just like real archs and anthros they were expected to reflect on what they had found- this was in the form of critical thought and analysis questions).
Anyhow, I started with a background power-point before asking them to now BECOME Mayans and decipher the symbols on the calendar before answering a bunch of questions using what they had just learned.
In pairs they each got two parts of the calendar (if you notice in the image- the calendar is broken into two to rings. The outer is called the Sacred round and the inner is the 13 day). By an obvious but somewhat complicated way of rotating the two (as well as understanding the symbols) one is able to come up with the days of the year certain question about what will happen.
And then here is the reality. I myself studied things like this for my B.A. and I, in running through the lesson, had to do it three times just to make sure I understood. That, probably, should have been an indicator to me that it might be a little tough for my students. On paper it was just a fantastic idea- having students decipher primary source images and use them in a meaningful way. In reality? It was a lot of fun for the kids but only about 30% actually got to the point where they were able to answer the questions.
It was great that the students enjoyed themselves but in the long run, I am striving for memorable lessons that allow students to take with them both skills and content.
In conclusion, I had several students come to me at the end of class and say-- this was hard but fun.