Life in Ancient Mesopotamia

 

Ancient Civilizations have long been my favourite units to teach.  I remember loving them when our teacher taught us about them in Middle School, they were some of my favourite courses I took in university, and I still love teaching them today.  Mesopotamia is always a fun one to teach, simply because a lot of it is still really new to the kids; a lot of them have background information about Egypt, Greece, and Rome, but very little about Mesopotamia.  I feel like I am working with a blank slate when it comes to teaching about this period of history.  

For a good introduction, and to build excitement about the unit to come, I feel you can never go wrong with Crash Course World History.  This is a great one of their videos about Mesopotamia.

I always like doing a map with the kids at the start of a unit.  It's a great opportunity to work in some geography skills, and is a good way to ensure the kids know the area we are actually talking about.  I am always alarmed with how few of them are able to use an atlas and label areas on a map - definitely an area we need practice on.  

We spend a lot of our unit talking about farming, as the fertile crescent really is Mesopotamia in a nutshell.  Vocabulary is usually where we start.  I really love this vocabulary foldable, as it allows the kids to flip and quiz each other on the words.

Reading about the farming of the fertile crescent is our next step.  I am not a fan of our current textbooks, as it feels like they were written during the dark ages and are totally not engaging for the kiddos.  I use these reading passages instead.  They have questions and annotation activities to go with them, which is helpful.  

After reading, we make a fun foldable about the facts the kids find most important.  We share our answers at the end - it is interesting to see what different facts stuck with each kid.  

If you are looking for these and other fun activities to do with your own class, be sure to check out some of my Mesopotamia Unit resources below!

The Barnabus Project

 

Have you had a chance to read this one yet?  It could very well be my new favourite read aloud!  I have really enjoyed books by the Fan Brothers in the past (Scarecrow is really beautiful!), but this one is definitely my favourite.

From Amazon:

"Deep underground beneath Perfect Pets, where children can buy genetically engineered "perfect" creatures, there is a secret lab. Barnabus and his friends live in this lab, but none of them is perfect. They are all Failed Projects. Barnabus has never been outside his tiny bell jar, yet he dreams of one day seeing the world above ground that his pal Pip the cockroach has told him about: a world with green hills and trees, and buildings that reach all the way to the sky, lit with their own stars. But Barnabus may have to reach the outside world sooner than he thought, because the Green Rubber Suits are about to recycle all Failed Projects . . . and Barnabus doesn't want to be made into a fluffier pet with bigger eyes. He just wants to be himself. So he decides it's time for he and the others to escape. With his little trunk and a lot of cooperation and courage, Barnabus sets out to find freedom -- and a place where he and his friends can finally be accepted for who they are."

The story has a great message about working together to achieve the impossible, and loving yourself for who you truly are.  The illustrations are really beautiful as well.  And honestly, how can you really going wrong when the main character is a mouse/elephant hybrid who loves peanuts and cheese?!  

When I saw it at the bookstore I knew I had absolutely had to have it for my classroom, and immediately started thinking of ways to incorporate it into our learning.

We have been working really hard on our reading strategies lately - visualizing, determining importance, big idea (author's message), and summarizing.  I decided to put together an activity that combined it all.  We worked on completing this template over several days - I re-read the story to the class each time we worked on it.  

After, we focused in on Author's Message a little more deeply, starting with a read aloud from the Fan Brothers themselves!

After watching, we talked more about the Big Idea of the story and made a foldable to show our understanding.

To wrap up the unit, we did some creative writing about the story.  The kids were really drawn into the pictures and names of all the "Failed Projects", so we decided to create and describe our own "Perfectly Imperfect Pets".  I really loved seeing all of their creative ideas.

Interested in trying these activities out in your own classroom?  Click on the photo below to see the resources at my TPT store.

Animal Adaptations: Blubber

 

During our Animal Adaptations unit, we completed another fun hands on investigation activity where we learned all about blubber, and the ways it helps animals to survive in icy water.  As always, we started with our guiding question, and made some predictions as a class.

After some discussion, I gave each student an information gathering page, and had them take turns plunging their hands into a tub of ice water.

As a class, we talked about how the icy water felt.  Was it warm or cold (freezing!)?  How long do you think you could keep your body in there (not long!)?  Students recorded their thoughts on their information gathering page.

Afterwards, I had students try on my "blubber glove", and stick their hands back in the water.  Basically, the blubber glove is a large ziplock bag full of crisco shortening.  The kids loved it!

It didn't take long for the kids to realize how much warmer their hands felt in the water while wearing the "blubber glove".  We recorded our discoveries on our information gathering sheets.

Later, we looked at some images of different animals with blubber - whales, penguins, walruses, and polar bears.  

To cement our learning, we recorded our reflections and new learning on our reflection sheets.  Students wrote their thoughts down all over the page in different coloured markers.

This was a super fun way to teach students about this animal adaptation.  I think I had just as much fun as the kids did - seeing their expressions when plunging their hands into the icy water was priceless!

If you are looking to try this activity yourself, click on one of the images below!

If you are looking for a complete unit on Animal Adaptations, click on one of the images below!

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All About... Animal Adaptations: Bird Beak Lab

Our Animal Adaptations science unit is one of my very favourite units to teach.  I find that this age group connects really well with the animals, and engagement is universally high.  

Today we focused on bird beaks, and how this adaptation helps animals to survive.

I will admit, this lab took a bit of set up and pre-planning, but it was well worth it. The kids had a lot of fun with it, and I really like to embrace any opportunity I can for hands on investigation.

For supplies, I made a quick trip to the local dollar store and picked up some different tools to use as bird beaks.  I tried to grab a wide variety, so groups would have a lot to pick from.

You can see some of the tools I picked up in the image above - tooth picks, tongs, small rubber pot holders, turkey basters, staple removers, tweezers, and spoons.  The rubber pot holders were a great find - they made for great duck bills!

Next, I filled 6 tubs with a mixture of dried lentils, oats, and rice.  I used this to represent dirt.  I am sure that you could use actual dirt, but this seemed less messy somehow.  I placed a plastic table cloth on each group table, and placed the tub on top.

The blue things in the mix are actually some colored dried chickpeas that I had kicking around.  I threw them into our "dirt" mixture, just for fun.  

I passed the data collection sheet out to student groups, explained the instructions, and let them get to it!  Using different "beaks", students had to see how many "food" items they could pick up in 30 seconds.  Each round, I mixed different "food" items into their dirt - worms (string), beetles (raisons), etc.

Afterwards, we discussed and reflected on the activity.  We brainstormed the things we noticed and wondered about bird beaks on the board, and talked about the ways different bird beaks help them to survive.  This was an important step, as it helped the kids really cement their understandings and make the connections from the lab activities to birds in the wild.  Students wrote their findings in coloured pens on their handout.

Later, student groups did some "bird beak matching" using matching cards.  The cards had images of the different bird beaks, what they are good for, and information about the birds who possess them.  They really liked this activity, and it was a great way to review the days learning.

If you are looking for the resources I used for this lab, you can grab them by clicking on one of  the images below.

If you are looking for an entire unit on Animal Adaptations, with notes, foldables, and activities, click on one of the images below!

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