Did you know there are more than 900 written Cinderella stories around the world? That’s a lot of shoes!! One of the earliest Cinderella story versions dates to 1st Century…
Ancient Civilizations
From Veggie to Pharaoh: Transform a Simple Carrot into an Egyptian Mummy
Hands-on activities add a ton of interest to the ancient history classroom. One of my favorites is having students make an Egyptian mummy from a carrot! This fun Ancient Egypt…
Primary Source DBQs in the Ancient History Classroom
Read, Take Notes, Study, Assess, Repeat. If you’re bored with your Social Studies lessons, why not spice it up with Primary Source Document Based Queries (DBQs). What is a Primary…
From Gods to Rituals: Teaching the Religions of Ancient Civilizations
What’s your most embarrassing classroom moment as a teacher? Take a second to get a good visual. Let’s compare! When my son was in 5th grade, he had to record…
Mapping the Way: Teaching Geography to Middle School Students
When I started teaching ancient history I had no idea what to teach my middle schoolers about geography. My one college geography course was just page after page of country…
Connecting the Dots: Using GRAPES to Teach Ancient Cultures
So you’re teaching ancient civilizations this year. And maybe, like me 15 years ago, you have little ancient civilization content knowledge. So where do you learn the what and how…