Egypt and China Ancient Civilization Comparison to the Present

Note: This lesson/unit is under development by Sheila Rosenberg. If you would like to share some insight, please go to Educational Synthesis Forums (Social Studies)

Objective: Grade 2: Social Studies: 2.1

The student will explain how the contributions of ancient China and Egypt have influenced the present world in terms of architecture, inventions, the calendar, and written language.

To answer your question about the evaluation of second grader, I have written the following:

The Metropolitan Museum in NYC has some great books and puppets for this content area.
It seems to touch SS, Science and Math. I used the stuff readily available online to describe how I would introduce and provide in depth experiences for a second grade class:  This is the level that I taught most often in regular ed.

I would use a video tape of the culminating activity of a group of four students taking turns displaying and discussing their photo essay with clear labels.

The  overall bench mark then would read: Second graders will demonstrate comprehension of invention (as a tool to solve a problem), architecture, calendar, signage.

Assessment: Students will utilize a collection of drawings and photos that they have downloaded from the internet to describe how the Chinese and the Egyptians used tools to help them eat and to communicate with one another: We still have these tasks but we have invented more efficient tools.

Instruction:
Planning what needs to be collected:  Illustrations with labels
What understanding is significant:  tools help man solve problems
                                                  tools are different in different cultures
                                                  tools improve over time
                                                  communication begins at simple levels (illustrations)
                                                  communication through language (oral and written)
                                                          change and improve as man solves problems

Skills:  organizing illustrations to communicate-problem/solution content
                                                                   -sequencing with meaningful time indicators
                                                                   -utilize real world understandings of problems of           .                                                                   second graders (i.e. heavy schoolbag)
CONTENT:
The home
Draw from the students some of their inventions when they were too sick to go to the kitchen or how would they eat if they had two broken arms?

The school
I. Provide an understanding of each in our environment (hometown)
Ask students to name the different building from the community
      discuss the fire exits and
            why we always have more than one door
            why do we have a half circle in front of our building garage door or a driveway

The community
     shopping center  architecture
            in town sidewalks
            mall parking lot
       Multistory building with elevators and escalators
       grandma's motorized wheel chair and chair-lift
:
Discuss utensils when fishing and eating at a picnic:   plastic vs metal, paper vs crockery
Eating with fingers at a formal meeting at a King's Castle before forks and spoons were invented
Backpacks with wheels  (I never had one) ice skates, roller skates, skis for soldiers become a recreation activity, a snow board (I know that some boys love them) and the luge (speed at Olympics)

To assess learning (use of tools and to how to communicate) wireless, the telephone, the qwerty typewriter (designed to slow the typist down)
Develop a bulletin board with the name of the student who identified the problem and the solution that each served

II. Create inventions to solve problems  (there is a school-wide program like that)
list some of their problems that need solutions
list some of parent's problems  (need an ice scraper for the car, a snow shovel, and  a snowblower)

Fiction could come in handy too:  Charlie and the Chocolate factory  (RUBEGOLDBERGS could come out of this using paper-towel rolls) Yellow Submarine with Beetles song ,

A GAME CAN BE INVENTED TO INCORPORATE THE TASKS OF THE FARMER TODAY:
          ( FARM TOOLS  MAY INCLUDE) USING A large BASKET,  shears, irrigation equipment)
Make drawings that  show today's machines in a farm introduce a few labels and date the inventions

Now that the children have the understanding of inventing tools to solve problems, the time has arrived to introduce the problems of ancient Egypt and China.

Cave paintings and tombs;
Oral Language  (what problems did it solve)  Pig latin might come in handy here

Discuss the fact that English is primary on the computer: the implication for schools around the world. The problems with depending on drum beats, drawings in caves, engraving illustrations.

Use drawing paper for students to communicate with a series of small illustration. Have partners try to interpret. 

Collect Egyptian graphics and Chinese pictograms.  Why do people still use these 
in China?  Why did they start another way to write?

The Ancient Era :. In the Egyptian civilization, as we are sure you have seen, they built pyramids, but they also built statues and temples.  To build such structures required a great deal of skill in architecture and engineering.  They also had to have a large work force in order to construct their enormous structures, however they only had primitive tools to work with.
http://www.historyforkids.org/learn/china/architecture/

Architecture
Pyramids solved a problem that the kings had;  Temples were built to honor their gods and to make sacrifices:  http://library.thinkquest.org/CR0213201/great_pyramid2.h:tm

Simple machines are often a unit of science in the second grade.  The content will be useful.  First they cleared the land where the pyramid would be built. Then they marked the base with a crisscross of channels and filled them with water. Rocks above the waterline would be cut off to level the land. The channels were later filled with rocks; then they brought in the stones. The stones were dragged by workers to the site were they would be placed. The Egyptians didn't have enough strength to lift the heavy stones so they made ramps going up the pyramid. They poured water on the ramps to reduce friction . The stones were lead by ropes and levers . The ramp was taken down after the structure was finished. The pyramids shape was meant to represent the rays of the sun falling on the earth.

The Ancient Era :. In the Egyptian civilization, as we are sure you have seen, they built pyramids, but they also built statues and temples.  To build such structures required a great deal of skill in architecture and engineering.  They also had to have a large work force in order to construct their enormous structures, however they only had primitive tools to work with.
http://www.historyforkids.org/learn/china/architecture/
China solved other problems:

Examine 
Develop a comparative chart of the different alphabets that have similar forms. the items you introduce: one chart might be about writing, cuneiform, pictograms

In Northern China, the doors of these (ancient)houses usually faced south, to keep out the cold north wind. Most houses had a dirt floor and only one room just like a tent.  Fancy people wanted more. The first design idea was that buildings should be long and low rather than tall. They should seem almost to be hugging you. The roof would be held up by columns, and not by the walls. The roof should seem to be floating over the ground.

The second design idea was symmetry: both sides of the building should be the same, balanced. The buildings and structures had a sense of drama and power.  Commemorative gates and memorial arches have a long tradition in Chinese architecture. Main entrances to walled cities, palaces, and temples were often demarcated with inscribed tower gates.

These illustrations could serve as a model for cardboard carpentry or scrapbook of pictures from an assigned website.

To assess understanding: Design your own shoe box House from ancient China with "balance and beautiful gates".  The class can build  the community wall and paste pictures downloaded for the purpose.

Constructing a pyramid might be fun with Cuisenaire rods.  Discuss why we don't use this style of construction style today (takes up a large space and the work is too hard.  Discuss: How do we solve the problem without a beast of burden or slaves?  Use block building or the game Jenga or Lincoln logs to illustrate the concept of a foundation. Pick up sticks would be useful for the concept of balance. The story of the three little pigs illustrates the difficulty of finding building materials.

The overflow of the river:  you might construct a river in the sandbox ... time how long it takes to over flow the banks of a river created by the students.  Try it again three more times.  Discuss probability of what it would be the next time. This concept helped the Egyptians become farmers at a time when there was not enough food.  Discuss how they might have learned about seeds and seasons

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Page created January 21, 2009. Sheila Rosenberg and Anne Pemberton. Updated: Sunday, October 31, 2010 . AP.

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