primary-schools/Maya

National Curriculum Subject Areas: Art, History
Length of session: 75 minutes
Maximum group size: 32
 

Learning Outcomes
•    Build up a picture of what life was like in Classic Maya AD300-900, touching on clothes and appearance, calendars and gods, food and farming, leisure and weaving
•    Consider what traditions and skills continue for the modern Maya
•    Appreciate the skills, values and beliefs of the Classic Maya people
 

Session Outline
In this interactive session objects are used to build a picture of what life was like for the Maya people in the Classic period AD300-900, and to see how traditions and skills continue today.
Activity 1 Mystery objects Pupils work out the identity of mystery Maya objects in this fun handling activity.
Activity 2 Guided tour Pupils are taken on an interactive guided tour of Maya objects round the Museum. Please organise groups to have a ratio of one Education Guide to every ten pupils.
Session 3 Designing a headdress Pupils design a Maya headdress, drawing inspiration from the artefacts they have seen and handled.

Excellent session.  Children were really enthused and enlightened by handling and ‘decoding’ artefacts.  Highly recommended.” (KS2 teacher)