Culture
I. Day 1
A. Introduce Mayan Unit and interdisciplinary themes (Culture, Society and Cities). Guiding Statements:
1. Explore why the Mayans are not as prominent today as they were in the past.
2. Discover what were the important contributions of the Mayans to society.
3. Develop a better understanding of the Mayan culture and their civilization.B. Discuss Mayan Culture- http://www.civilization.ca/civil/maya/mminteng.html
C. Mystery of the Maya Web orientation on class overhead projector
D. Teacher materials- Overhead computer projector
II. Day 2
A. Mayan Folktales - http://www.folkart.com/~latitude/folktale/folktale.htm
B. Students will read the Mayan folktale "Rabbit and the Crab" and the American folktale "The Tortoise and the Hare." Students will complete a worksheet noting the similarities as well as their differences, despite their different origins.
C. Student materials- Computer access or printed stories, worksheet (one per student), pen/pencil, scratch paper.
Tortoise and Hare story
http://www.sdcoe.k12.ca.us/score/maya/hartort.htm
III. Day 3
A. Task: Creating a Venn Diagram. Use the completed worksheet to create a Venn Diagram. Students will diagram at least five differences and similarities of the two folktales.
B. Student materials: Copy of a Venn Diagram, markers, pens and scratch paper.
Society
IV. Day 4
A. Introduction – Writing. The Mayan civilization developed a writing system of hieroglyphs. This was made by drawings in various shapes, which in turn represented sounds.
B. The Task: Using Mayan Glyphs to Write Your Name. http://www.halfmoon.org/names.html
C. You will break your name down into syllables, pick out the sounds that represent each syllable, and write your name in Mayan Glyphs.
1. Selecting as closely as possible the syllable sounds that make up your name, you will have a display of your name as it is in Mayan glyphs.
2. Read through steps one through four.
3. Now visit "Talking Syllabary" in step 2. Select the syllable sounds your name is made up of for each syllable.
4. Remember that you will start with syllable one, two and then three and so forth to get your name properly written.
For this activity, you should have constructed your name in Mayan Glyphs, copied the forms accurately, colored in the different forms, and labeled beneath each section showing what English sound it represents.
D. Student materials- Internet access, pen/pencil, paper, poster board, and markers.
V. Day 5
VI. Day 6
A. Field Trip to the Eiteljorg Museum in Indianapolis, IN
B. Handout worksheet to class on the bus
C. View Mayan Civilization exhibit
Cities
VII. Day 7
Learning Adventure
A. Discuss worksheet from the fieldtrip
B. Introduce the learning adventure, which is coinciding with the Spanish class. Students will explore the position of the Spanish when they settled in Mexico.
1. Divide students into four groups.
2. Give each group a Spanish journal entry, written by a Spanish official of the city. Journal Topics: Arrival of Spaniards, Reaction to the Spanish beginning to Explore, Meeting the Spaniards, Resulting Conflict.
3. Each group is responsible for understanding the material presented in their group’s entry, and sharing that information with the rest of the class
4. The class will prepare for a mock peace treaty that will be held the following day.
a. Teacher resources: Created journal entries already typed out
b. Student resources: Journal entries, paper, pencil
VIII. Day 8
Learning Adventure
- Students will learn the views of the Mayans as opposed to the Spanish. They
will also learn the process and value of compromise in understanding other
cultures.
A. Students in both Language Arts and Spanish class will meet together. Engage the two classes in a "getting to know you activity." Have the student's pair with a student from the other class. Give them three minutes to introduce themselves and learn a few facts about each other. Then have each group introduce their new classmate. The Spanish students should introduce their partner is English and Spanish.
B. Introduce the beginning of the mock peace meeting. The Language Arts and the Spanish teacher will each provide a brief "scene setting" monologue from the opposing views to get things started.
C. The groups will read their journal entries from both points of view and facilitate a discussion. Each topic will have five minutes to state their view/debate.
D. When the groups are finished, the opposing groups from each view will meet for five minutes and develop a "treaty."
E. The groups will share their treaty with the entire class.
F. Movie
Assignment – Students are asked to write an essay about what they learned in this mini-unit. They must cite examples from the movie and debate.
XI. Day 9
A. Prepare for the festival - Use this time to complete projects
B. Create poster of name glyphs and activity for group stations
C. Display newspapers
XII. Day 10
A. Festival
This is the culminating activity for the Racers interdisciplinary unit on The Maya. Each discipline will gather in the school gym for a Mayan festival. Through this gathering eah discipline will answer guiding questions from our unit by displaying products from individual units. This enables the students to see an "end-result" and also allows for them to make the connections between their classes, and see how everything "fits together".
Guiding Statements:
1. Explore why the Mayans are not as prominent today as they were in the past.
2. Discover what were the important contributions of the Mayans to society.
3. Develop a better understanding of the Mayan culture and their civilization.
Spanish - Displays a better understanding of Mayan culture and civilization through food products and music.
Language Arts - Shows important contributions of Mayans to society by engaging other students in creating their own name glyphs. In addition, Language Arts students will display their "Ancient Mayan Times" newspapers. The articles in the papers reflect historical evidence and explanations as to why Mayans are not as prominant today as they were in the past.Social Studies - The Social Studies classes will use all of their knowledge about the Mayan people and make pamphlets describing their culture and government to hand out at the festival. They will also be explaining their maps that they made to the other students at the festival.
Technology - The technology class will display their wares from the class projects. Products will include pottery, costumes and Mayan city replica's.