Smithsonian Museo Nacional del Indígena Americano

For Teachers

For Teachers

Living Maya Time Lotería Game

By playing this Lotería, a bingo-like game popular in México, students will become familiar with Maya cultural symbols such as calendar glyphs and other iconography found in the Living Maya Time website.

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Let's Multiply – Maya Style!

This lesson will allow students to perform Maya-style multiplication using beans, sticks, and shells as a follow-on activity to the interactive Maya Math tool available on the Living Maya Time website.

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Observing and Tracking Shadows

Students will learn about the apparent motion of the Sun in the sky and the rotation of the Earth on its axis. The students will be able to find the cardinal directions by observing and tracking shadows created by the Sun.

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What’s Moving?

This lesson is designed to help students make a connection between the movements of the Sun in the sky and on the horizon as seen by an observer on Earth and the fact that these apparent motions are caused by the Earth revolving around the Sun.

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Curricula Connections for the Standards of Learning
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Science:
  1. Science as a Human Endeavor
  2. History of Science
  3. Earth Science and the Solar System
    • Observing, Measuring, and Identifying Properties
    • Seeking Evidence
    • Recognizing Patterns and Cycles
    • Identifying Cause and Effect and Extending the Senses
    • Designing and Conducting Controlled Experiments
Math:
  1. Number Sense and Operations
    • Understanding Place Value
    • Perform operations with multiple digits
  2. Computation and Operations
    • Apply and expand understanding of addition, subtraction, and multiplication
  3. Measurement
    • Identify dates such as the equinox, solstice
    • Show awareness of time concepts
    • Make and use estimate of measurements
  4. Data Analysis, Statistics, and Probability
    • Use observations to gather and collect data
    • Formulate inferences and represent possible outcomes
English/Language Arts/Reading:
  1. Language Development
    • Discussion
    • Questioning, Listening, and Contributing
    • Vocabulary and Concept Development
  2. Informational Text
    • Expository Text
    • Document and Procedural Text
  3. Literary Text
    • Connections
    • Traditional Narrative
Social Studies:
  1. Culture
    • Cultures are dynamic and change over time, but also practice ancestral traditions from hundreds of years ago
    • There are similarities among cultural groups across time and place
  2. Time, Continuity, and Change
    • Studying the past makes it possible for us to understand the human story across time
  3. People, Places, and Environments
    • Explore people, places, and environments in different regions of the world
    • Examine the influence of physical systems, such as climate, weather and seasons, and natural resources, such as land and water
  4. Individual Development and Identity
    • People develop their personal identities in the context of families and communities
Geography:
  1. The World in Spatial Terms
    • Locate the cardinal directions, the equator, the continents, and other major geographical features of the Western hemisphere
  2. Places and Regions
    • Acquire a framework for thinking geographically, including the location and some of the unique characteristics of Mesoamerica