museum project

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museum project
By CD

Last year was my first year teaching 5th grade after working in primary for 5 years. I was looking for a way to get a lot of learning/info for the students in a small amount of time. The librarian provided mw with books
on the Aztecs, Mayans and Incas. The kids had a day to look through the assortment and decide what aspect of ancient life they wanted to study.(we had read about the civilizations in our s.s. book prior to this) I allowed them to work in partners and then they created a museum piece for a classroom presentation.
The work they did was terrific and kids took all different aspects of

life(housing, art, pottery, weapons, etc) I made sure no one doubled up, so that we didn't end up with 12 clay bowls! The kids wrote a "blurb" to place next to their project(like in a museum) rather than assigning a long paper. You can adapt it any way you like. (research done in class, project done in class or home) This year I am doing it with Native people of North America. The kids really learned a lot from the projects and they felt great about teaching eachother.

I was concerned that the kids wouldn't get enough exposure but when you have to cover the history of N. S. and Central America in one year along with all the other subjects brief exposure is the best you can do. You could spend half the year learning about just these 3 cultures!