National curriculum content
- Learn about a non-European society – the Mayan civilisation c. 900ad – that provides contrasts with British history
- Gain a coherent knowledge and understanding of Britain’s past, and that of the wider world
- Know and understand significant aspects of the history of the wider world, including characteristic features of past non-European societies
Lesson objectives
- Explore the lives of the Maya today, and use this as a way to begin to explore the Maya 1,000 years ago
- Find out how the Mayans worshipped their gods.
- Explore Mayan science and technology, and to reach a judgement about how advanced Maya society was
- Explore what we can find out about the Maya from their ancient cities, and ask why those deserted cities stayed hidden for so long
- Explain what happened to most of the Maya around 900 AD
- Make a Maya Codex book
What we want children to know
- Where and how the Maya live today
- That the Maya had many gods
- Some of the reasons why the Maya had so many gods
- Facts about Mayan cities from the archaeological evidence
- Explore Mayan technology and achievements
- How to add up using the Mayan counting system
- That most of the Maya disappeared around 900 AD
What skills we want children to develop
- Learn about interpretations – why different historians say different things about the decline of the Maya
- Learn about similarities and differences as they compare modern-day Maya with the Maya 900 AD
- Deduce information from studying a different period: pupils will use the Egyptians as a ‘way in’ to studying the Maya.
Vocabulary
Archaeologist, base 20, codex, creation myth, hieroglyphs, interpretation, rainforest, sacrifice, stelae