Week of November 13

It was a busy short week in the Stingray classroom!  We had a guest speaker, Dr. Donald Ryan, on Wednesday.  Dr. Ryan is an archaeologist who has found and excavated many sites in the Valley of the Kings in Egypt.  He is a former Seabury parent whose son was in my class when he was in 3rd grade, and is now a junior in college.  The students were riveted by the pictures and discussions of mummies and other artifacts he has found.  You might have heard that we have many budding archaeologists on our hands.

We also worked hard this week to complete our research and mosaics on life in Mesopotamia.  We shared our mosaics and findings in Gathering.  The students did a wonderful job on their art and presentations.  Below you will see the pictures and portions of their research. 

 

Geography: There were 3 main parts to Mesopotamia: Assyria, Babylon, and Sumer.  There were 2 main rivers too, the Tigris and Euphrates. 

 

 Astronomy: Mesopotamian people didn't know about Pluto.  The planets they knew were Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, and Neptune.

 

 

 Religion: This was different in every city.  They believed in many gods.  My picture is of a nail used in one of the great Mesopotamian temples. 

 

 

 

Government and laws: The Mesopotamians followed Hammurabi's code, which was a set of laws to follow. 

Warfare: They had thick defense walls because they were usually at war.  The walls from captured cities were destroyed, money and prisoners were taken and cities were ransacked. 

 

 

 Daily Life: There were many levels of people in Mesopotamia.  At the top, the people with the most power were the priests.  Below them were the kings, officials, and soldiers.  The next level were the merchants, traders, and craftsmen.  The farmers were next.  Last were the slaves.

Beliefs: The Mesopotamians believed that the world was a flat disc that sat on the water.  The Sumerian word for universe is An-Ki, which is the god An and the goddess Ki. 

Economy: Farming was the main job, because the town got its food from farms which relied on the two rivers that surrounded the city.

 

 

Agriculture: Farmers grew barley, wheat, lentils, chick peas, onions, garlic, dates, lettuce, and carrots.  They raised cattle, sheep, goats, pigs,s oxen, donkeys, and horses.  Mesopotamian farmers lived by rivers, and in 3500 BCE they started farming more than they needed. 

 

Language: The earliest Mesopotamian language was cuneiform script.  It means wedge shape because of the stylus they were used to write.  They wrote in clay.

 

Fashion in Mesopotamia: The most common fabric was wool.  There was lots of jewelry worn by the women.

 

 

Architecture: The Mesopotamians were one of the first to use the dome, column, and the arch.  They also built with mud bricks and built Ziggurats. 

 

 

Math: The Mesopotamians invented the 60 base number system.  That is 24 hours a day, 60 minutes an hour, 60 seconds in a minute, 7 days a week.  They also were one of the first to use the zero.  They wrote numbers in a written language called cuneiform. 

For math today, we also did a fun activity with pattern blocks.  The students' task was to create similar shapes in scale.  For instance, one group had only the small green equilateral triangles.  They had to create a larger triangle, also equilateral using more of the green triangles.  We did the same for 2 different rhombuses and the trapezoid.  The students quickly discovered a pattern for making the next larger shape.  We needed 4 shapes to make the next larger shape, no matter what shape it was.  After that, 9 blocks were needed, followed by 16, 25, 36, 49.  Once the students saw the connection to square numbers (2x2, 3x3, 4x4, 5x5, etc), they were able to continue the pattern without the blocks.  The students then took on the challenge of creating larger hexagons.  The problem with hexagons is that you can't just use the yellow hexagon to make scale models.  Students needed to break those hexagons into smaller shapes, but could still see the same pattern as before!