OBJECTIVES

Students will understand the following:

1. Ancient civilizations left illustrated or written records that teach us
about them.
2. In some ways, our lives today are similar to the lives people lived
thousands of years ago, but in most ways, our lives are very different.

MATERIALS

For this lesson, you will need:

Access to the Internet
Paints and brushes, crayons, or markers in various colors
Long roll of brown paper or newsprint
Tape or other means of attaching paper to wall

PROCEDURES

. Show students photographs or online reproductions of wall paintings

from ancient civilizations that illustrate aspects of life as it was lived in
ancient times. These pictures might include the wall paintings at Lascaux
Cave, in France, at the Gasulla gorge in Spain, at atal Hyl in Anatolia, and
in Egypt and Crete (the last two include frescoes).
2. Ask students to tell you what these illustrations can tell us about life in
ancient times. Guide them to notice that the wall paintings tell us at least the
following:
Which animals lived at that time
Which animals the people hunted
What games the people played
3. Explain to students that they now will have the opportunity to create a
wall mural that illustrates a day in their lives, but in this case the mural will
be only temporary; the students will paint and draw on paper taped to a wall.
Still, the students might like to pretend that future archaeologists will
uncover their creation. Ask students to brainstorm about how they will
illustrate their days. If they seem stuck, suggest that they might want to
show the following common, daily events:
Children and teachers traveling to and arriving at school
Children working together at desks or at a computer
Children at recess
Children at home with family and pets and special toys or equipment
4. Once you have a list of scenes on the board, put students into small
groups that will work on separate sections of the brown paper or newsprint
that you will attach to a wall in the classroom or elsewhere in the school
building.
5. Introduce or review with students the necessity for planning their
sections before they start drawing or painting on the mural itself. Explain
that the students in each group need to figure out how much will fit in their
section and that the groups then need to discuss how the sections will fit
together.
6. Students in each group should proceed to work up a maquette, or
small-scale version, of their segment to assess positioning, size, and color
combinations. You may want the whole class to respond to each groups
visual draft, working out disagreements as necessary.
7. When it is finally time for students to work at the wall, consider having
only one group at a time up at the wall so that the groups dont crowd one
another.
8. Ask students to volunteer to describe the mural orally, moving from
left to right.

SUGGESTED READINGS

Eyewitness Atlas of Ancient Worlds

by Anne Millard, Dorling Kindersley, 1994

Oxford First Ancient History

by Roy Burrell, Oxford University Press, 1994

Mysteries Through the Ages

by Jillian Powell, Millbrook Press, 1996

Amazing Archaeologists and Their Finds

by William Scheller, Oliver Press, 1994

Atlas of Human History: Cradles of Civilization

Jaca Books Staff, Macmillan, 1996

LINKS

Reeders Egypt Page

The Statue of Zeus at Olympia

Excavations in Crete
The Iraklion Archaeological Museum

Chinese Logographic Writing

Adapted from the Cambridge Encyclopedia of Language, this page gives
an overview of logographic writing and looks specifically at Chinese writing
and Japanese kanji. The best feature of the site is a graphic guide to some of
the 50,000 Chinese characters.

Mustang: An Exhibition Of Paintings And Photographs

Shows the students vivid images of a world that is far removed from theirs.
The text of the article is informative and the graphics, from an exhibit in a
museum in Nepal, enhance the information.

STANDARDS

This lesson plan may be used to address the academic standards listed
below. These standards are drawn from Content Knowledge: A Compendium
of Standards and Benchmarks for K-12 Education: 2nd Edition and have been
provided courtesy of theMid-continent Research for Education and Learningin
Aurora, Colorado.

Grade level:3-5
Subject area:history
Standard:
Understands selected attributes and historical developments of societies in
Africa, the Americas, Asia, and Europe.
Benchmarks:
Knows about life in urban areas and communities of various cultures of the
world at various times in their history.
Knows significant historical achievements of various cultures of the world.

Grade level:3-5
Subject area:visual arts
Standard:
Understands the visual arts in relation to history and cultures.
Benchmarks:
Knows that the visual arts have a history and a specific relationship to
various cultures.

Identifies specific works of art as belonging to particular cultures, times, and

places.

Understands the historical and cultural contexts of a variety of art objects.

Grade level:3-5
Subject area:history
Standard:
Understands family life now and in the past, and family life in various places
long ago.
Benchmarks:
Knows the ways that families long ago expressed and transmitted their
beliefs and values through oral tradition, literature, songs, art, religion,
community celebrations, mementos, food, and language (e.g., celebration of
national holidays, religious observances, and ethnic and national traditions;
visual arts and crafts; hymns, proverbs, and songs).