Mexico and Ancient Maya

During the morning, the children took part in six different activities about Mexico and the Ancient Maya Civilisation. These activities included:
Time Travel – took a journey through the ages by sorting some key events into date order (using BC and AD).
Maya Maths – used the sticks and counters to add and subtract the Maya way (a base 20 number system – we use a base 10 number system).
Ancient Writing – used the wool to create a Maya glyph on card.
Maya Map – labelled a map of Central America and located the main Maya cities and sites within Mexico.
Web Detectivities – used the iPads and topic book to the research about the Maya Civilisation.
Maya Food – Tried the tortilla (corn) chips with the tomato salsa and the Maya Gold chocolate and described the flavours.
To complete the morning, the children discussed how there are still over seven million Maya people today – most of whom live in Central America and southern Mexico.
Well Done Investigators! Excellent interest and participation during the different activities to launch our new topic on Mexico and the Ancient Maya Civilisation.

At the end of last term, the children completed a DT Greek mezze food project.
The aim of the food project was to plan, make and evaluate Greek mezze dishes. To begin the project, we investigated and evaluated existing Greek mezze dishes. Then applied our knowledge and understanding of Ancient Greek diet and their preservation of food to design and make own Greek mezze. Once we made our own Greek mezze dishes, we served and ate them as part of our end of term celebrations of the Ancient Greek topic.
The children made notes and planned their dishes in their workbooks which showed the stages of learning throughout the project.

We’ve had an ‘explosive’ morning in year 3 introducing the children to their new topic ‘active planet’!