Curated OER
Lascaux Cave Art on Ceramic Stones
Here is a great way to incorporate art into your next unit on prehistoric people. The class makes stones out of ceramic clay and then creates paintings like those found in the Lascaux Caves in France. A video link, full day-by-day...
Curated OER
Cave Art Drawing
Young scholars design an environment that resembles a prehistoric cave. They use ancient rock art as inspiration for their own artistic expression. They demonstrate their understanding of the vocabulary, tools, and techniques used in...
Curated OER
Agriculture Shapes Kentucky History
Students explore the lives of early American Indians and settlers in Kentucky. They describe the agricultural practices of Indians native to Kentucky and develop a supply list for a group of settlers coming to the state to establish...
Curated OER
Parades
Third and fourth graders examine the history of parades and investigate guidelines and items needed for a parade. They listen to a speaker discuss how to organize a parade. In small groups, learners organize various items for the event...
Curated OER
Introduce Vocabulary: Dinosaur Bones (Barner)
Dig into some prehistoric vocabulary in Bob Barner's informative book Dinosaur Bones. This works best if you introduce the primitive words before reading the story. These are the focus terms in the text: ancient, climate, extinct,...
San Francisco Symphony
Music and Early Man
Creative projects are great ways to increase interest in topical research. Middle schoolers learning about primitive life styles in the Americas explore the importance of music to hunter gatherers. They research and create musical...
Curated OER
Early History of Our Lane
Second graders study Native American Kalapuya culture. In this American History lesson, 2nd graders discover the early inhabitants of their community. They take a field trip to Dorris Ranch.
Mary Pope Osborne, Classroom Adventures Program
Dinosaurs Before Dark
Young readers travel back to the time of the dinosaurs in this literature unit based on the story Dinosaurs Before Dark. Intended for use with upper-elementary special education students, this resource provides reading...
Curated OER
Language Arts: Conversing with an Object
Students sharpen their creative writing skills by writing dialogues with unfamiliar objects while visiting local museums. They select an object in the museum, such as a painting, and create conversations between the people or animals...
Curated OER
Grab a Winning Book to Read on March 3
Students identify periods of history and read a news article about a librarian who wrote an award winning book. In this current events lesson, the teacher introduces the article with a class challenge and a vocabulary activity, then...
Curated OER
It's Not Conjecture, Look! It's Architecture!
Students examine how architecture reflects historical time periods. They conduct research on the History Detectives website, complete a fact sheet, sequence photographs of different architectural styles, and create an illustration of a...
Time Warp Trio
The Caveman Catastrophe
Young archaeologists study the development of human history, and work in groups to create a timeline that traces the development of humans. Additionally, the groups utilize a very clever graphic organizer embedded in the plan in order to...
Curated OER
Prehistoric Indians
Fourth graders identify the four Native American groups of Wisconsin. They compare the four groups through discussion and list the four groups with their tools, food, shelter, and time period.
Penguin Books
An Educator’s Guide to Ruta Sepetys
Historical fiction novels give readers a chance to step into someone else's shoes. An educator's guide from Penguin Common Core Lesson Plans provides resources to accompany three historical fiction novels written by Ruta Sepetys: Between...
Curated OER
Back-in-Time Travel Brochure
Create Ancient Egypt travel brochures. Research the culture of Egypt through the Internet and create an artistic travel brochure of the civilization. The final product is published for dispersal.
Mississippi Department of Archives and History
Protesting Violence without Violence
The ultimate legacy of Emmett Till's violent death is its role in the non-violent roots of the Civil Rights Movement. A lesson compares contemporaneous articles with the lyrics of Bob Dylan's "The Death of Emmett Till" and prompts...
Curated OER
When Clay speaks
Students listen as the teacher reads "When Clay Sings," by Byrd Taylor. They discuss clay, and view a variety of clay items. Students watch a video clip "Interests in One of a Kind Pots." They watch a demonstration on working with clay....
Curated OER
Dinosaurs Here Yesterday Gone Today
Students take a pre-test to show their prior knowledge of dinosaurs. Using the internet, they reasearch the time period in which they roamed the Earth. Focusing on the area of Connecticut, they compare and contrast the large and small...
Curated OER
Rockin? Chalk (Integrating science - make own chalk)
Students use plaster of Paris, talc, and cornstarch to create their own chalk. They hypothesize what mixture of ingredients produce the "best" chalk. Students discuss what they think are the characteristics of the "best" chalk.
Curated OER
Texas Treasures
Students explore the meanings of the word "treasure," and examine the use of clay in the construction of buildings in San Antonio, Texas. They examine clay artifacts, and watch a video about pottery artist, Harding Black. Students then...
Curated OER
Inference By Analogy
Students infer the use or meaning of items recovered from a North Carolina Native American site based on 17th-century European settlers' accounts and illustration.
National Endowment for the Humanities
Neh: Edsit Ement: Cave Art Discovering Prehistoric Humans
By studying cave paintings, students learn about prehistoric cultures and the stories and ideas they wished to communicate to others through art. The lesson plan presented on this website aims to show young students the significance of...
Metropolitan Museum of Art
Metropolitan Museum of Art: Greek Art Prehistoric to Classical: Ed Resource
Lengthy illustrated publication (256 pages) serves to ground readers in ancient Greek art and culture, beginning with the earliest point in Greek history through the classical period. Using examples found in its vast collections, the...
American Geosciences Institute
American Geosciences Institute: Earth Science Week: Rock Art in the National Parks
Young scholars learn the importance of protecting pictographs as part of their geologic heritage by making their own paint using natural ingredients to create art.