IB PYP Inquiry Ancient Civilizations: Inventors Extraordinaire

Take the children back in place and time. Be the Miss Frizz  of your classroom with this complete IB PYP unit of inquiry. Where We Are in Place and Time: Ancient Civilizations contributed to today’s society. This is one of my favourite social studies units of inquiry. By delving back in time, thousands and thousands of years, the children can explore the concept of time and exactly how life was like back in time, how the ancient inventions brought change to society and how they have impacted our life today.  USA & UK spelling included.

Central idea: Ancient civilisations contributed to modern day societies

 Lines of Inquiry

I have taught this unit of inquiry for 5 years, with both 3rd grade and 5th grade. Each time, I find that it is one of my favourite. There is so much to explore. With over 100 pages of interactive, hands on , engaging, inquiry based activities, this transdisciplinary unit will take you through math, science, geography, reading for information and, of course, history.

As we travelled through time with our toilet paper timeline, we explored the cradle of civilization: The Mesopotamians. From there, we travelled into North Africa to visit the Ancient Egyptians. The inquiries came flooding fast and furiously as we learned more and more about how people lived way back then through hands on technology experiments, design experiments, research, communication and much ,much more.

How do they sail back up the river?

How did they move such enormous rocks to build the pyramids?

How did the wheel begin?

How do scientists come up with ideas?

Who invented math?

How did our writing evolve from their symbols of writing?

Why do they have different gods? What happened to their gods?

Learning how to read clues from artefacts and also from evidence in the text, helped us to become  incredible historians as we had to figure out the source of ancient artwork. This involved a lot of reading for information, analysing text and recognising non fiction text features.

Through explorations within math, reading, writing, geography, history and art, the children gather knowledge of how ancient civilizations developed and contributed to societies today.

If you enjoy this complete unit of inquiry, you may also like my others: Revolutionaries,  Adaptations of Living Things, Exploring Poetry, Exploring Explorers and many more found in my  blog store.

Enjoy!

Susan Powers

www.pypteachingtools.com