©Jennifer Fowler 2000-2004, may copied for personal home use
The history unit lesson is given the second Monday of each month. After
each lesson you will find a learning
game question (if you don’t see a question, use the concept to make up a
question). To extend the unit lesson into reading time, search for these topics
in:
(1) the Periodical Index in the reference section of
your library. This
index will direct you to magazine articles on the topic,
ask your librarian for help if you
need it.
(2) the card catalog of your library. This will guide
you to both fiction and non-fiction books on the subject, some card catalogs
are now on computer, again ask your librarian for help if you need it.
(3) encyclopedias.
A. Unit One: The Creation to the Flood
1. Lesson One: Day One
concept: On day one, Christ brought light
to the earth
We have all seen the pictures of our earth from space. The blue water, swirling
white clouds, and bits of brown land make the planet look like a beautiful
marble hung in the black velvet of space. This is our home, a place of sunshine
and rain, flowers and grass and trees, birds and fish and animals of all kinds.
If you have studied our solar system, you know that the other planets and their
moons are very different from our earth. They vary from Mercury, a hot barren
rock with no weather, to others with thick atmospheres and boiling
temperatures, to still others that are frozen ice wastelands. Some are dotted
with roaring volcanoes and others have constant fierce storms swirling over
them. We know that somewhere out in space, God has other planets inhabited by
other people (Moses
But our planet was not always a good place to live. Once it was time for us to
begin our mortal lives, God commanded Jesus, who was still a spirit, to make a
home for us to live on. First they sat together and carefully planned out every
detail of the creation (Abraham chapter five heading). Then Christ took
elements that were already in space (see footnotes below) and made the form of
the earth. He used all the elements that would later make up water, air, dirt,
and living bodies. But in the beginning, this earth was "without form and
void". The elements were not put together in a way that people could live
on. It was empty of all life.
At the first, this planet was in a state of darkness. Out in cold space, the
planet would have been frozen solid. Scientists have found special glacier
rocks in the earth that show that at one time our earth was indeed a big frozen
ball, like other planets way out in our solar system.
The scriptures tell us that from that point it took Christ six days to create
the earth as the home that we now know it. But the word "days" in
this scripture does not mean twenty-four hours like we mean when we say day.
The word "day" means a length of time. Each Creation day could have been
hundreds, thousands, or even millions of our years. We don't even know for sure
that each "day" or time period was the same length (see footnotes).
During the first "day", or period of time, God had Jesus bring light
to the earth. We know that light comes directly from God, and is part of His
power and glory (D&C 88:11-13), so they brought the earth into God's
presence and were making the earth ready to obey God and be part of His
creations.
ACTIVITIES:
God is the Creator coloring page: http://www.allgodskids.com/images/creatorcolor.gif
Earth sun catcher:
http://www.enchantedlearning.com/crafts/earthday/glue
Begin a Creation wall mural or a large box diorama: put black paper down one
half and white or yellow down the other to represent dark and light.
NOTES: a
scientific article on the snowball earth hypothesis can be found at:
http://www-eps.harvard.edu/people/faculty/hoffman/snowball_paper.html
"We have another example in the term used to describe the six creative
periods. In the book of Abraham, the phases of creation are not called the
“day” (Gen. 1:5, 8, 13) but “the second time,” “the third time” (Abr. 4:8, 13;
emphasis added), and so forth. We therefore learn that periods of time for the
Creation may have lasted 24 hours each, 1,000 years, or even millions of years.
. . The periods of time are indeterminate in length; as one phase of the
creation was finished, the next began. Therefore the age of the earth before
Adam and Eve could have been great indeed. "
(Woodford, Robert J., "'In the Beginning': an LDS perspective",
Ensign, January 1998)
Elder Orson Pratt of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles In Journal of
Discourses, 19:286: “The materials out of which this earth was formed, are just
as eternal as the materials of the glorious personage of the Lord himself. …
This being, when he formed the earth, did not form it out of something that had
no existence, but he formed it out of materials that had an existence from all
eternity: they never had a beginning, neither will one particle of substance
now in existence ever have an end. There are just as many particles now as
there were at any previous period of duration, and will be while eternity
lasts. Substance had no beginning; … the earth was formed out of eternal
materials, and it was made to be inhabited and God peopled it with creatures of
his own formation.”
2. Lesson Two: Day Two
concept: On day two, Christ created an atmosphere and
separated the clouds from the ocean
On the first day of Creation we learned that Christ brought light to the earth.
This light would not have been enough to unfreeze earth, however, because a
completely frozen earth would be like a big white ball, and all the light would
bounce off and not heat up the planet.
So the next step was to create an atmosphere that could keep heat on the earth.
Scientists tell us that evidence shows that even when the earth was frozen, the
middle of the earth was hot (part of this heat is from the pressure on the
elements in the middle of the earth). After some time, this hot middle began to
burst through the surface. There began a period of violent volcanic activity,
spewing hot lava and ashes onto the earth and releasing gases above it.
This created a dense atmosphere of mostly carbon dioxide, as well as layers of
clouds from the melting and evaporating ice (sounds kind of like Venus is right
now). A long era of storms began, an endless rainstorm that washed most of the
carbon dioxide from the air to the earth below. It was a very acid rain that
cleaned the air.
By the end of this period of time, the earth had a watery, unfrozen ocean, and
an atmosphere with gases and clouds.
ACTIVITIES:
(cut and paste any links)
Make a rainstick (to sound like rain, not for
"invoking rain spirits"): http://www.enchantedlearning.com/crafts/music/rainstick/
Continue the Creation wall mural or a large box diorama: Make blue waves from
blue paper or tissue to represent the ocean, make clouds from paper or cotton
to put in the sky.
NOTE: a
scientific article on the snowball earth/carbon dioxide warming hypothesis can
be found at:
http://www-eps.harvard.edu/people/faculty/hoffman/snowball_paper.html
3. Lesson Three: Day Three
concept: On day three, Christ created dry land and plant
life
By the third Creation day it was time for dry land to be brought up. The
volcanoes had created rock when the lava cooled, and other rock was formed
beneath the massive ocean that was made by the melted ice.
Christ could have raised land up above the great ocean with more volcanoes and
with earthquakes, or by trapping some of the water beneath the ground.
Once the land showed above the water, it was time to prepare soil for seeds of
all kinds of plants. Wind and rain helped break some of the rock down into tiny
pieces of dirt.
One of the first "plants" that probably appeared was lichen. A lichen
is a very strange organism. It is actually made out of alga and fungus living
together as one living thing. (Look up alga and fungi). As long as the alga
part of the lichen has water and light, it can make its own food, so the lichen
does not need dirt or other plants to survive. The fungus part of the lichen
eats food the alga makes, then it makes the whole lichen grow bigger, and it
also helps the alga part by soaking up lots of water whenever there is water
available.
Most lichen has little strands that hook it to rocks, and these help break tiny
pieces of rock off to make dirt. When the lichen dies, it also becomes a part
of the dirt or soil, and provides some nutrition or food for later plants.
Lichen can stand really, really hot or cold temperatures. There are even 4,000
year old lichens in the
There were probably plants like seaweed in the water at this time. Other plants
would soon grow. The first big plants, since the weather was steamy, were
tropical: giant ferns, mosses, horsetails, and trees with cones. As these
plants died and were buried in the earth, they became what we call fossil
fuels. What are fossil fuels? Investigate.
Eventually the weather cooled and then came flowers, grass, and maples, oaks
and other trees that we see today. The weather and the plants were changed over
time, all according to God's plan for us.
ACTIVITIES:
Make a flower mobile:
http://www.dltk-kids.com/crafts/spring/mspringmobile.html
Continue the Creation wall mural or a large box diorama: Use brown paper
(grocery bags will work) to make land coming up out of the blue ocean. Make plants
to put on the earth. You can even plant some seeds in a shallow pan and put
them at the base of your diorama or mural.
4. Lesson Four: Day Four
concept: On day four, Christ created the sun, moon, and
stars
Next came day four. During this time period, Christ created and organized the
sun to be the one to give light during the day, and the moon to give light at
night.
We can only give our best guess at most events of the Creation, but it seems
reasonable that many of the stars we see (which are far away suns) would have
already existed. At this time the solar system as we are familiar with it
around our sun was probably arranged. The other planets now shine like bright
stars at night for us during certain seasons of the year.
The light we get from the sun is really God's light (D&C 88:7-9), but He
created the sun as a special object to get the light and warmth to us to keep
us alive. And He worked things out perfectly. If we had been closer to the sun,
we would have burned up, and if we had been farther away, the earth would have
frozen again.
The moon is also a very special creation. We really don’t
know how Christ went about creating the moon, although there are some theories
you can check out:
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/tothemoon/origins.html
(follow the continue link at the bottom, explore the other links on the moon as
well, especially the lunar puzzlers)
http://lunar.arc.nasa.gov/printerready/history/moonh.html
ACTIVITIES:
Make metal cut-outs of the moon, stars, or sun: http://www.enchantedlearning.com/crafts/mexico/metalcutouts/
Continue the Creation wall mural or a large box diorama: Make a sun to put on
the light side of your mural or diorama, and make a moon and stars for the dark
side. Suspend them in front of the mural or diorama.
5. Lesson Five: Day Five
concept: On day five, Christ created the sea creatures and
fowls of the air
On the fifth day of creation, Christ was commanded to fill the oceans with
living things and to make fowls for the air.
(What are fowls? Get out your dictionary!)
Some of the first sea creatures and fish were not what we are used to today.
There were giant fish with razor sharp jaw bones and wide mouths that could
have swallowed a man easily.
But other sea animals today are exactly the same ones that lived in the seas at
first: jellyfish, coral, clams, sharks, and starfish.
Follow this link to see a prehistoric fish that still lives
today: http://www.dinofish.com/
ACTIVITIES: (cut and
paste any links)
Make an origami whale:
http://www.enchantedlearning.com/crafts/origami/whale
Make an origami flapping bird or a crane:
http://dev.origami.com/images_pdf/trad_page1.pdf
Make this hanging Japanese fish:
http://www.enchantedlearning.com/crafts/japan/koi
Continue the Creation wall mural or a large box diorama: Make fish and other
sea creatures to glue in the water. Make paper birds and suspend them in front
of the mural or diorama.
6. Lesson Six: Day Six
concept: On day six, Christ created animals and people
On day six, the rest of the animals were created. They were not all created at
once. This was a gradual process, and it probably started with amphibians (get
out your dictionary, look it up) and insects, and not your ordinary insects.
Some of those first bugs were huge, including giant dragonflies.
Reptiles were created, and some of them were the same ones we are used to
today, like turtles and snakes. Others were the same only much bigger, like
enormous alligators.
Dinosaurs lived for a while in mostly tropical forests. Eventually these giant
animals died off, and the earth became covered in the kinds of animals we are
used to (our science goes into the study of these animals in more in depth).
Just because different kinds of animals were created at different times, some
people believe that one animal would turn into a different kind of animal, like
a lizard turning into a bird. But we know that God created all creatures in
their own special time and way.
And finally God created the one thing that the earth had been made for: people.
After the first man and woman were created and put into the Garden of Eden, God
and Christ took a rest from Creation. We remember this rest by keeping the
Sabbath each week.
ACTIVITIES: (cut and paste
any links)
Make a dino puppet:
http://www.dltk-kids.com/crafts/cartoons/mrex.htm
Make animal tangrams:
http://www.enchantedlearning.com/crafts/chinesnewyear/tangram
Color this picture of Adam and Eve:
http://www.tstl.net/Children/Coloring/AdamAndEve.jpg
Continue the Creation wall mural or a large box diorama: Make animals (or use
magazine cut outs or plastic toys) and put them in the scene. Then put in a man
and woman.
Sing this song:
Basic TUNE for VERSES: (most notes middle C and below, except D and E are above
middle C)
G C G C D C
CD E E E
CD E D C
Day One God made the Light.
Divided the day (Use two notes, CD, to sing the first syllable of divided, add
an extra E to the line)
from the dark of night.
Day Two was ocean and sky.
Heaven was the word
for the firmament high.
Day Three He brought up land.
Then He planted all the seeds
in the dirt and sand.
Day Four the moon and sun,
And all the little stars
yes, every one.
Day Five the creatures in the sea,
And the birds that fly
from tree to tree.
Day Six the beasts on land.
And then He made
a living man.
ENDING:
It was finished, (GG AA)
On Day Seven. (AA BB)
And He rested, (BB CC)
On Day Seven. (CC DD)
And He looked at all Creation (
And He said, "It is good." (
And He said, "It is good." (
7. Lesson Seven: Adam and Eve
NOTE: From this lesson on you will have a date or two to memorize. Why memorize a number? Does it help you learn
history? Well, the truth is, to make sense of history,
you need to have a feel for things that happened at the same time. Your
starting point is to know one major event that happened every century or so,
and then when you hear historic events, you will be able to place them into
your mental timeline by figuring out which Memory Date it is closest to. The
Memory Dates form a foundation for the interesting story of history.
MEMORY DATE: 4000 BC Fall of Adam and Eve (for the first
thousand years, we have very sketchy details, so this will be the main date)
Concept: the first people were Adam and Eve,
they had to leave the Garden of Eden to have children.
TIMELINE PROJECT:
Starting with this lesson you will be creating a timeline. Here is the blank template. Each student
should have one for their Student Notebook. Each mark is 100 years. Above the first line, you will need room for
ten life lines. For this lesson, put Adam’s name at 4000 BC, and make his life
line in a color of your choice to 3070 BC. Put Seth’s name above a dot for 3870
BC and put his life line in another color to 2958 BC.
The scriptures tell us that God created Adam as the first
man.
Before Adam was created on Earth, he was our spirit brother in heaven. There he
was known by the name of Michael, and he led the followers of Christ in the
heavenly war against Satan, or Lucifer. Lucifer and his followers lost the war
there and were cast out of heaven.
Then Michael, or Adam, became the first person with a body. God commanded Jesus
to make a physical body out of elements on the earth (elements found in rocks
and dirt). Adam's spirit was put into his body, and Adam was placed in the
Garden of Eden. This was a beautiful place where there was no sickness, and
food was just plucked from bushes or trees. Joseph Smith told us that the
Garden was in today's
Adam was alone in the Garden until Eve was created to be his companion. Men and
women together are like missionary companions. Companions help each other, care
for each other, and keep each other company. President Kimball taught that a
complete "Man" is a man and woman together.
Adam and Eve were married in the Garden of Eden by God. They had immortal bodies, which means they could not die. They were
told to have children, but they could not have children until their bodies
changed. Their bodies would not change until they ate fruit from a special tree
called the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil.
"President Joseph Fielding Smith wrote: 'The Lord said to Adam that if he
wished to remain as he was in the garden, then he was not to eat the fruit, but
if he desired to eat it and partake of death he was at liberty to do so.' In
essence the Lord told Adam that there were two directions to go, each with its
unique consequences—and that Adam was to choose which one" (Robert J. Woodford,
“In the Beginning”: A Latter-day Perspective, Ensign, January 1998).
Satan thought he was ruining God's plan by coming into the peaceful garden and
convincing Eve that she should take the fruit, but he was wrong. After Eve took
the fruit and told Adam that now she would have to leave the garden, he knew
that he needed to go with his wife, so he ate the fruit as well. Both of them
had to go out into the world and work for their food to survive, because now
they could die. They planted crops, raised animals, and learned to make homes,
clothing, and tools.
If Adam and Eve had not chosen to eat the fruit they would have lived in the
Garden forever without children (Moses
We know that Adam and Eve had many children. They learned from the best
teachers, God and angels. They could no longer be face to face with God, but
they could hear His voice, and angels visited them. Adam and Eve taught their
children the things that angels taught them.
Adam and Eve taught their children to read and write and keep a genealogy
(Moses 6:5-6). Their children learned things like playing music (Genesis
Adam and Eve were baptized and taught their children to do the same. Adam and
Eve's children married each other (that might seem sick to us, but there was no
one else to marry! It was okay then, not now). Adam had the priesthood and
passed it on to men who were righteous.
Not all of Adam and Eve's children and grandchildren were righteous. One of
their sons named Cain killed his brother Abel because he was jealous of Abel's
goodness and Abel's possessions. It made Adam and Eve sad to see their son be wicked. Satan tempted all of their children, and many
listened to him.
One of Adam's most righteous sons was named Seth. He looked so much like Adam
that the only way people could tell them apart was because Adam was older.
Adam lived to be 930 years old! We don't know how old Eve was when she died.
Three years before he died, Adam called all his righteous children to a meeting
in what is today's Adam-ondi-Ahman in
Before Christ comes back as King to rule the earth, Adam, the first father of
us all, will hold another meeting at this same place for all the righteous.
Christ will come to the meeting, and at the meeting we will learn things that
will help us get ready for Jesus to rule us here.
REFERENCES: (can be accessed through the Gospel Library at
www.lds.org)
Bailey, Arthur A., "What Modern Revelation Teaches about Adam",
Ensign, January 1998.
Petersen, Elder Mark E., "Adam, the
Woodford, Robert J., “In the Beginning”: A Latter-day Perspective, Ensign,
January 1998.
NOTE: Were there other human-like creatures before or near
the time of Adam as the evolutionary scientists like to tell us? God works in
His own ways, and this is one thing we do not know for sure. He certainly made
apes with similarities (I have pondered the possibility that these other
creatures were used by God as a training step in teaching Christ and those who
helped Him in preparing to make the human body). However, what we do know for
certain is that man, God's own spirit children put into physical bodies, began
with Adam and Eve alone, with a unique
ACTIVITIES:
Write a journal entry about life from the perspective of one of Adam and Eve's
children.
8. Lesson Eight: Enoch and the City of
MEMORY DATE: 2948 BC
Enoch’s City is taken (in this lesson you will also memorize the order of the
first ten patriarchs)
Concept: Enoch was the founder of
the City of
TIMELINE: Add the
names and dates of these patriarchs:
Enos
3765 BC, lifeline to 2860 BC
Cainan
3675 BC, lifeline to 2765 BC
Mahalaleel
3605 BC, lifeline to 2710 BC
Jared 3540 BC, lifeline
to 2578 BC
Enoch 3378 BC, lifeline
to 2948 BC (this is when his city was taken up, he didn’t die)
Methuselah 3313 BC,
lifeline to 2344
Remember Adam's righteous son Seth, who looked just like
Adam?
Well, Seth had a son named Enos, who had a son named Cainan, who had a son named Mahalaleel,
who had a son named Jared, who had a very special son named Enoch. And Enoch
had a son named Methuselah. All of these men were at that last meeting that
Adam held before he died. So all of them were taught not only from their
fathers, but also from Adam, who had been taught by God himself. All of these
men had the priesthood.
Enoch was very, very righteous. Adam gave him the priesthood when he was 25,
which probably seemed very young back when they lived so long (D&C 107:48).
The Lord came and talked to Enoch face to face. He taught Enoch many things,
and then told Enoch to preach to the people of the earth and tell them to
repent. There were a lot of people on the earth by this time, and many of them
were not being good.
Many people listened to Enoch, repented, and were good. Enoch led them, and
they made a righteous city to live in. The people in the city were all good and
loving. They took care of each other and had no poor people.
The unrighteous people did not like the good people. They came to fight Enoch's
people. God gave Enoch power, and Enoch commanded mountains to move, rivers to
change the way they were flowing, and a new land to come up out of the sea. The
wicked people were very afraid. Instead of attacking, they ran.
The wicked people began to fight each other and had many awful wars, but they
would not fight Enoch's righteous city, which was named the City of
God told Enoch that the people of the earth were becoming so wicked that He was
going to destroy them with a flood. Only one man, Enoch's great-grandson, and
that man's wife, three sons, and their wives, would survive.
When Enoch's son Methuselah heard about this, he knew that Noah would be his
grandson. "All the people on the earth after the flood will come from
me!" he thought. He was prideful about it.
The people in Enoch's city,
We know that in these last days, a
ACTIVITIES: Make a
poster showing the line from Adam and Eve to Methuselah. Older children can use
the ages of the men as given in the
SONG w/ music notes
(\/A is the A below middle C, /\ A is the A above, all other notes are middle C
and above)
The Ancient Ten
Adam /\
A G
Seth, Enos E
D E
Cainan
/\ A G
Mahalaleel
E
D DE
Jared /\
A G
And Enoch E
D E
And Methuselah /\
A G E D E
Then Lamech \/
A CC
And Noah C
D D
These are the ancient
ten, C
CC C C D
And the whole world
ought to get along E
E /\ A G E D E D \/A
For we all descend
from them. \/A
C E D C \/A C
Describe how you would imagine the City of
Learning Game
Questions:
Name the Ancient Ten in order
Who founded the City of
9. Lesson Nine: Noah and the Great
Flood
MEMORY DATE: 2344 BC
the Flood
Concept: When most people on earth had become wicked, a
great flood baptized the earth. Noah and his wife, along with three sons,
Japheth, Shem, and Ham, and their wives, were the only survivors.
TIMELINE: Add these names and dates to your timeline (the last three
will be on the second date line):
Lamech 3126
BC, lifeline to 2349 BC
Noah 2944 BC, lifeline to 1994 BC
Shem 2452 BC, lifeline to 1852 BC
Great Flood 2344 BC
Methuselah lived even longer than Adam, 969 years! He was at
the meeting Adam held in Adam-ondi-Ahman, and he was
alive when the City of
Methuselah would have been able to tell Lamech and
Noah about Adam's teachings. He would have been able to teach them the words of
his father Enoch.
Noah grew up to be a very righteous man, but the rest of the people on earth
were becoming so wicked that God told Noah to tell them to repent or they would
be destroyed. There were many people, there were many cities, and there were
kings and rulers over different parts of the people. They spent a lot of time
warring with each other and doing wicked things.
The people would not listen to Noah's preaching. God told Noah to make a large
ship, called an ark. Noah's sons Japheth, Shem, and Ham helped. God told them
exactly how to make it (for some of the directions, see Genesis
When the ark was finished, they had to bring animals of every kind onto the
ark. They brought seven of every animal that is good to eat and of all birds;
they brought two of every kind that is not good to eat (see Genesis 7:2-3).
Noah and his wife and Japheth, Shem and Ham and their wives went into the ark.
Noah was 600 years old at this time. Soon it began to rain, and rain, and rain.
It rained for forty days and forty nights. The entire earth was covered with
water. The earth was cleaned of all the wicked people, and it was baptized by
water like we are (see footnote).
The ark floated for about 150 days, and then the water slowly went down. The
ark got caught on the top of a mountain called Ararat, which is believed to be
in today's
Read Genesis 8:4-22.
As a sign of His promise to never flood the entire earth again, God put a
rainbow in the sky (Genesis
Noah lived 350 more years, and he watched the population grow from eight people
to a small civilization as his sons and their wives had children and
grandchildren.
For info. on the flood covering the
entire earth, not just parts, see "The Flood and the
This quote is from that article by Brother Parry (see the section
"Principles and Lessons for Our Time"):
Latter-day prophets teach that the Flood or the total immersion of the earth in
water represents the earth’s required baptism. Elder John A. Widtsoe of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles explained:
“Latter-day Saints look upon the earth as a living organism, one which is
gloriously filling ‘the measure of its creation.’ They look upon the flood as a
baptism of the earth, symbolizing a cleansing of the impurities of the past,
and the beginning of a new life. This has been repeatedly taught by the leaders
of the Church. The deluge was an immersion of the earth in water.” He writes
that the removal of earth’s wicked inhabitants in the Flood represents that
which occurs in our own baptism for the remission of sins.
Activities:
Make a paper ark:
http://www.dltk-bible.com/msimpleark.html
Make an ocean in a bottle (add something plastic to be the ark): http://www.activitiesforkids.com/recipe/ocean.htm
Go to a football field and measure out the dimensions of the ark, use 18 inches
as a standard for a cubit. A cubit started out meaning from a man's elbow to
the tip of his longest finger. (18 inches times number of cubits divided by 12
equals how many feet)
Learning Game Questions:
How many people were saved on the ark? (8)
Name the sons of Noah (Shem, Japheth, Ham)
What did the flood represent (baptism of the earth, cleansing)
How many of each type of animal did they bring? (seven clean/good to eat and birds, two of all others)
B.
UNIT TWO: Flood to 2000 B.C.
NOTE to Parents: Dates are for the most part skipped in this
Unit. I tend to not rely on archaeological dating before 2000 B.C. There is not
enough of either scriptural or archaeological information to accurately date
these events. Students just need to get a feel for the things that were
happening during this era.
1.
Lesson One: After the Great Flood,
Time of Transition
MEMORY DATE: 2275 BC Eber (from which we get the name Hebrew) was born, 2243 BC Peleg born (in his days the earth was divided)
Concept: three major events after the flood were 1) building
a city like Catal Huyuk, 2)
the tower of Babel, 3) the dividing of the land.
We do know that every living person on this earth came from
one of Noah's three sons and their wives.
TIMELINE: Add these
dates to your timeline
Eber 2275 BC, lifeline to
>>>> BC
Peleg 2243 BC, lifeline to
>>>> BC
As we learned in the last lesson, the flood waters did not go down all at once,
and for a while the family in the ark lived in the ark while it was on a high
mountain that had just come out of the water. And we already learned that it is
believed that the mountain was in the country we know as
The families of Noah's sons grew large. They lived together and they all spoke
the same language. Soon they needed a large place for everyone to live (Genesis
11:2). They found a flat plain in a land they called
In
The people in Catal Huyuk
had an interesting way to bury their dead people. It is possible that first
they took the dead bodies into the desert and left them for vultures to clean
the bones. Then we know that they buried the remains in the dirt floor of the
house and then put a kind of plaster over the floor. So people lived over their
dead family members!
People are always very similar, wanting and liking a lot of the same things.
The people in Catal Huyuk
wore jewelry and perfume, and they ate some of the exact foods we eat today.
They painted pictures, called murals, on the walls of their homes.
Although we don't know for sure that Catal Huyuk is the city in Genesis 11, they would be very much
alike.
As the population grew, the people began to forget the things about God that
Noah had taught his children. They decided to build a tall tower where they
would worship wrong gods and try to get to heaven without being righteous. They
thought they could just climb the tall building a get to heaven.
The temple they built is now called the
A few of the people would probably have stayed in the city, but living together
without a way to understand each other was difficult, and most of the people
spread out and went to different places to live.
Many of them lived in small groups or tribes, and they farmed or wandered
around. But you will soon learn that some of them found special places to live,
places beside big rivers, and these people had an easier life and were able to
eventually build cities and civilizations
(according to most scientists, a civilization has many people living together
with an organized government and laws, a written language, religion, education
for children, different people doing different kinds of work—not just farming,
because the farmers make enough food for other people to do other jobs— and
inventions that make life easier such as water systems or the wheel).
We will not learn about the small tribes of people because they did not leave
behind buildings or many things for archaeologists to study, and they usually
did not write about their lives on plates or walls or stones like the people in
cities (although sometimes they did paint pictures in caves or on boulders). We
will study people in cities because they left things for us to study so that we
know some things about them.
It is interesting to note also that one of the main things
that archaeologists study to find out about ancient people is . . . TRASH.
That’s right. Any group of people living in one area for long leaves behind a
lot of trash. Groups who move around a lot don’t; their garbage was spread out
over wide areas.
Another important thing for you to know about that time after the flood is an
amazing thing about the land (Genesis
At first, the land was all stuck together. If you look at a map you can see
many big chunks of land with water between them. But back then the land was all
together. Then, sometime after the flood, the land split apart. The pieces
slowly moved away from each other, until thousands of years later, they are
where you see them now. They are still moving just a little, but not enough to
make big changes for thousands and thousands of years.
But we know that when Jesus comes back, the land will be moved back into one
piece (D&C 133:24). The scientists call that big land Pangea.
If you think about it, you will realize that when the first civilizations after
the flood were growing, the
ACTIVITIES:
about murals: http://smm.org/catal/mysteries/murals/big_banner_mural/
(there are other links
to explore as well)
info. on Catal Huyuk: www.ritualgoddess.com/aboutcatalhuyuk.htm
Pangea: http://volcano.und.nodak.edu/vwdocs/vwlessons/lessons/Pangea/Pangea1.htm
WRITE the characteristics of a civilization found in the lesson. Be ready to
identify these in the cultures we study in the next few lessons. Also get a
copy of a world map that you can mark as you find where the first civilizations
began after the flood (go to this website and click on World Coloring Map: http://www.theodora.com/maps/abc_world_maps.html
).
Find out how difficult
it would be to communicate at the time of the Tower of Babel: whisper a message
in the ear of a child (such as “my name is ______”, “where are you from?”,
“Please sell me two goats.”). The child must then communicate the message to
the others without speaking any English. The catch is----no one guessing can
speak English either. How do you know when they’ve understood the message? You
don’t! That is the problem the people at the tower had.
2.
Lesson Two: Abraham and Isaac
MEMORY DATES: 2052 BC
Abraham born, 1952 BC Isaac born
TIMELINE: You now need
to paste this timeline to the front of a timeline notebook. Each of the
following should head a blank page in the notebook: 2100 BC, 2000 BC, 1900 BC,
and so on to 100 BC, Median, 100 AD, 200 AD, 300 AD, and so on to 1800, 1850,
Civil War, 1880, 1900, 1910, 1920, 1930, 1940, 1950, 1960, 1970, 1980, 1990,
2000.
Add these dates to the timeline and
place them on the appropriate page of the notebook:
Abraham 2052 BC
Isaac 1952 BC
Now, whenever you hear about any
interesting tidbit of history, add the date and a note to the correct page of
your notebook. This lesson will have some more dates you can add to the
notebook (note: only add the dates specified under “TIMELINE” to the timeline
template, these are the memory dates which help you to feel your way through
history).
>>>>>>>
ADDITIONAL LESSONS:
While Abraham was alive, several major civilizations were
growing. Included below are details about them:
Concept:
It is not clear exactly when Egypt was settled, but from
what we do know, this group may have separated themselves from the rest of
Noah's family before the Tower of Babel. From Abraham 1:21-26 we learn that
Noah's son Ham had married a woman named Egyptus, and
they also had a daughter named Egyptus. This daughter
discovered the land of Egypt and eventually moved her family there. Her oldest
son was named Pharoah, and he became the first leader
of the land. He was a very good man.
The place they lived was called Egypt, and it was the land around the Nile
River. It still exists today. As the population grew, the people spread out
along the river.
Why did the first civilizations usually start around rivers? People need
a lot of water to survive and be clean and comfortable, and to grow crops. The
land around rivers is very fertile, which means it has a lot of the nutrition
that food crops need. Remember that as we study some of the other first
civilizations; you will see that rivers were important.
After a while the people along the Nile made two groups. A king known either as
Narmer or Aha (later known as Menes
by the Greeks, which Egyptian it was is uncertain, but the "Narmer Palette" makes Narmer
the likely candidate, perhaps Narmer and Aha were one
and the same) brought the two groups back together to make one kingdom. The
northern capital was built near where the Nile goes into the Mediterranean Sea
and was called Men-Nefer (the Greeks called it
Memphis). Narmer actually had workers change part of
the route of the Nile River to dry up some land to build this city.
During the time of the Old Kingdom the kings (they were soon called Pharoahs, can you guess why?) began to build pyramids to be
buried in after they died. The dead bodies of the pharoahs
were made into mummies, and they were put into decorated wooden coffins and
then put into a stone box inside a special room inside their pyramid. There was
a lot of treasure and other things put in there with them so that they could
take these things with them on their journey to the next life (Think about it:
What can we take with us to heaven when we die?).
The biggest pyramid, built for King Khufu (the Greeks
called him Cheops), could cover almost 12 football
fields. It is still around today. For thousands of years it was the tallest
building on earth, until our modern skyscrapers passed it up. That is a lot of
building for one man, but the Egyptians thought their Pharoahs
were part god.
Many regular Egyptians were farmers. Each year the Nile River would flood, and
during this time the farmers would go to work for the pharoah
building a pyramid. Once the flood waters went down, they would plant their
crops on the plains where the water had been because it was excellent for
growing things. They also had special ways to get more water up out of the
river to their crops; some of the ancient ways they watered their crops are
still used by some farmers today.
Some of the earliest written records that exist today come from ancient Egypt.
One of the Egyptian types of writing looked like pictures and was called
hieroglyphics.
The Egyptians believed in many gods, which they mainly worshipped in their own
homes, not in the temples. Temples were places where the pharoah
and his priests spent lot of time doing things that were supposed to make these
gods happy.
Egyptian children played with dolls, balls, and some other toys similar to what
you might play with. Families kept pet cats and dogs. They even made mummies
out of these animals sometimes when they died.
When you see pictures of ancient Egyptians, you will probably notice black
eyeliner around their eyes. This eyeliner helped keep flies from biting their
eyelids. They people, men and women, also wore other makeup and did their hair.
The women painted their fingernails.
As Egypt was growing, other people were spreading over other parts of Africa.
Most of them did not create big civilizations; they were generally in tribes or
villages. But just south of Egypt there was a big group of people called the
Nubians.
The Nubians were tall, and the men were excellent warriors. They were very good
at using bows and arrows.
Sometimes the people of Egypt and Nubia fought with
each other. Other times they got along and traded with each other. Egyptians
would trade food, tools, and cloth, and in return the Nubians would give them
gold, animal skins, and elephant ivory that they got from other parts of
Africa.
ACTIVITIES:
visit www.ancientegypt.co.uk
(there are stories and
activities, so explore the site)
visit http://home.freeuk.net/elloughton13/egypt.htm
(click on the pictures, the red words are not links)
make a dough map of ancient Egypt (an Encyclopedia will help you with this)
make a sugar cube pyramid and paint it
make a shadow box scene from ancient Egypt (can represent any aspect of ancient
Egyptian life)
Identify the characteristics of a civilization in Ancient Egypt (see last
lesson), and color and label the area of Ancient Egypt on your world map (from
last lesson.
OLDER STUDENTS/PARENTS: Study this timeline through 2000 B.C. (with sequence
more important than date):
http://www.umkc.edu/imc/anegypt.htm
LEARNING
GAME QUESTIONS:
1. Who first settled Egypt? (Egyptus, daughter of Ham and Egyptus)
2. Who is thought to have united Upper
and Lower Egypt? (Narmer or Menes,
also known as Aha)
3. Which pharaoh was the largest
pyramid built for? (Khufu)
4. Name the kingdom south of Egypt that
would trade with or fight with Egypt. (Nubia)
JAREDITES/AMERICAS
Concept: the first inhabitants of
At the time the
Hand out some cards with these sentences printed on them:
What did you do today? How are you feeling? What would you like to do?
Have the students ask each other the question printed on
their card without using any English (or any other language the family shares
in common).
If simple things like these questions are difficult without
being able to speak the same language, imagine trying to run a society where
most people cannot talk to each other. Many people gave up and moved away. They
taught their children to speak their new languages; groups of people who could speak
the same found new places to live.
There was at least one righteous family at this time. A man
named Jared and his brother, Mahonri Moriancumer were righteous men. Jared asked Mahonri to pray that their family and friends would keep
their language. The Lord answered this prayer; these people could still
understand each other. But the Lord told them they needed to move. He talked to
Mahonri from a cloud and told Mahonri
which way to take the group.
The group (we call them Jaredites)
traveled across land that had not been traveled before. Where did they travel?
This is one thing we don’t know for sure. We can only guess from the few clues
that we have. Putting observed clues that we know together and making an idea
is called forming an hypothesis. The way to find out things about the past is
to form an hypothesis, and then try to find more facts to show whether the
hypothesis is possible or not. We only have fifteen chapters to tell us all
about the Jaredites from beginning to end. So there
are not a lot of clues. But if we think about it, it seems likely they couldn’t
have gone down through
The Jaredites crossed the ocean in
barges they built, see Ether 2:16-25, chapter 3, and 6:1-11. We can be pretty
certain they crossed the Pacific. How? By thinking about the clues. How long
did it take to cross the ocean? (Ether 6:11) They had a steady wind moving them
to the promised land as they went, but it still took a long time. The lands had
not been separated for long (Genesis
(NOTE TO PARENTS: this is something you may or may not
choose to tell the children, but remember, theories cannot be tested if they
are not thought about: if the Jaredites crossed
The Jaredites landed and began to
build up a place to live, see Ether
So back to their main civilization. We know a few things
about this Jaredite nation. Read Ether 9:17-19. What do we learn about the
people? What animals did the Jaredites have with
them? (NOTE: notice the animals that the Nephites
would later find wild here: see footnote a
in verse 19) The people made many things to buy and sell, and lived the
same city life that people in civilizations everywhere have done, see Ether
10:21-28. It is interesting to note that copper mines as old as the Jaredite
civilization have been found around the
Unfortunately, the Jaredites had
quite a bit of trouble with unrighteous kings, and with the people themselves
becoming wicked. But in the time period we are studying in this unit, they were
a thriving, working, buying and selling, mighty nation, unknown to many people
in the lands across the ocean.
THINK ABOUT IT: Why don’t we find large Jaredite cities? For
one thing, we don’t find cities that ancient in most of the world. But we do
find more evidence of them in other places than here in
*NOTE: I believe that the centers of civilization that we
read about for the Jaredites and later the Nephites were in North, not
The Lord most certainly sent more than Lehi’s
group and the Mulekite group to the
ACTIVITIES:
Learn about the
“copper culture”, remember that any dates before 2000 B.C. are very shaky, but
they show us that these findings are very old and would have been in the time
of the first settlers who we know to be Jaredites.
http://copperculture.homestead.com/
(technical but good pictures)
http://www.ocontocountyhistsoc.org/copper_culture_state_park.htm
(notice the reference to distant trading)
One article debunking
the land bridge theory (again, dates are waaaaay
off):
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/chronicle/a/2003/07/25/MN253509.DTL
Concept:
Now we will study what is called by many the “Cradle of
Civilization.” It is called this because many people believe it was the first
major civilization. From what we have studied, we know it was not the only one
in this time period, but it is very important for many of the inventions and
ways of life that began here that we still use today.
Find the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers on a map. Do you
remember Catal Huyuk? Can
you see that it would have been fairly easy for people to leave this first area
and go to the place where the Tigris and Euphrates meet?
The people here were Sumerians, and their civilization was Sumer. The land at this spot was wet right by the rivers
and dry away from them. The people built canals to drain off some water and
bring water to the dry areas. This made excellent farmland. The people began to
build small towns and then cities.
As this time period went on, Sumer
built paved roads, boats to bring materials down the river from other places,
wheeled chariots, plows pulled by animals,and weapons
and tools made of bronze (look up bronze in the
encyclopedia). Sumerian potters (who made pottery bowls, vases, etc.) used a
potter’s wheel.
At the center of their cities were large brick temples; as
time went by these temples were built on top of huge platforms, and they were
called ziggurats. They were probably made to be
like the first Tower of Babel. At first these cities were led by the temple
priests who were not always very nice. After a while rich people who owned a
lot of land, known as lugals which means “great men,”
took the power away from the priests. Lugal now came
to mean “king.” At first each city had its own lugal;
at different times all of
Society in Sumer was a lot like
societies have been all over the world since: the king was the top of society,
his priests were next, then scribes, then regular workers who made things from
clothes to jewelry, and then the farmers who worked the land for the kings and
rich people, and finally, the slaves. Only a few societies and time periods
have ever gotten away from putting people on a kind of “who’s the best” ladder.
One of the kings of a Sumerian city was made famous in a
very long story-poem called an epic. We still have this epic written down, as
well as epics about the flood and Creation, although these stories were changed
a lot by their priests who worshipped false gods. The epic about the famous
king is Gilgamesh, which was the king’s name. The real king was probably very
tough and did a lot of impressive things, but the Gilgamesh in the epic is made
to seem like one of our superheroes. One of the monsters he meets in the story
has the head of a lion and the teeth of a dragon.
We can read this epic because Sumerians had a writing
system. They wrote on clay with special sticks that made little wedges
(triangles) and lines when pushed into the clay. Then the clay would be dried
and hardened. This writing was called cuneiform. There were not just 26 letters
like we have to make many words. Each word had a different symbol made out of
an arrangement of wedges and lines. Look at a dictionary. See how many words
there are? If you had to learn to read cuneiform, instead of learning to sound
out the alphabet, you would have to memorize each word separate. That would be
very difficult. Try it. Pick ten things in the room (like table, chair, lamp),
and make up a symbol out of lines and triangles for each one. How hard would it
be to remember those ten “words?” Now, what if you were a Sumerian child? If
you were going to be a scribe someday, you would have to go to the temple
school and learn hundreds of these symbols to make thousands of words. This
made scribes very important, and they could be found all over the city selling
their services to write letters, make out receipts for selling things, write
legal papers, or anything else people needed them to write down. Imagine if you
had to pay someone every time you needed something written down!
The Sumerians had a math system. Our math system is based on
the number ten; you can count by tens, and the big numbers like hundreds and
thousands are made up of tens. The Sumerian system was based on the number
sixty. We still use some of their system, like sixty seconds in a minute, and
sixty minutes in an hour (and 360 degrees in a circle).
Remember that at the time of the Tower of Babel, many people
spread out. There were a lot of groups of people in the lands around Sumer. Some stayed small, and did not build up big
civilizations. But Sumerians did have dealings with some of these other people.
And Sumer was not the only place that started to
build cities (we already know about the Egyptians). To the north of them was a
place called Akkad, and north of that was Syria (or
Assyria>>>?). In 2340 BC a king of Akkad
named Sargon took over Sumer. There is an interesting
story about Sargon that his mother saved him as a baby by putting him in a
basket in the river. Since many years later Moses’ mother would come from
people who had been from this area, she probably had heard the story, and it
may have been part of what saved Moses’ life! The Akkadians
ruled Sumer for a couple hundred years, and then Sumer was free again, but as you will see later, this was
not for long.
Many of the inventions that we say came from
ACTIVITIES:
Potter’s Wheel: At first pottery was made by rolling clay
into ropes and then making circles from the ropes and piling them on top of
each other; this is called a coil pot. Potter’s wheels make a much more
uniform, pretty pot. You might have access to a potter’s wheel. If so, try a
coil pot and then try “throwing” a pot (that is how they say “make a pot on a
potter’s wheel”). Or you might try visiting your local high school art class
and viewing a demonstration of their potter’s wheel.
Ziggurats: http://www.mesopotamia.co.uk/ziggurats/home_set.html
(be sure to investigate the “story,” “explore,” and “challenge” links).
Story of Sargon of
Try making symbols in clay like the Sumerians used to. See
your initials in cuneiform: http://www.upennmuseum.com/cuneiform.cgi
(be sure to click on the Sumerian Scribe link after you see your initials to
learn some interesting things about this writing system).
More info:
http://www.ragz-international.com/sumeria.htm
Remember that in this unit we are studying the time period
after the flood and the
You can find the
Ancient statues from this civilization show that the women
there used red dye to mark their foreheads, just as women around
The
Links:
http://www.harappa.com/har/har0.html
http://members.aol.com/Donnclass/Indialife.html
Main Concepts: This period of Chinese history includes the Huangdi, Yu the Great, and the Xia
dynasty. They did not have a writing system. The weather and geography of
The Chinese people have passed down their history over four
thousand years. Some of it is an oral history, which means a person who lived
during a certain time tells his children about it, and they tell their
children, and so on. Finally someone writes it down into a written history. One
thing this oral history told about was the first “dynasty”, or a family that
rules for a long time, called the Xia dynasty. This
dynasty came from the Lungshan people. For a long
time, historians, or the people who study history, thought that this part of
the oral history was wrong. They did not believe there was a Xia dynasty, even though the story had been passed down.
But then they found some ancient artifacts that showed that there was a Xia dynasty, just where the stories had said it should be.
The first family member to rule in this dynasty was Yu the
Great: http://www.travelchinaguide.com/intro/history/prehistoric/great_yu.htm
Yu did not mean for his son to rule after him. Up until then
the kings chose someone who they thought would be good for the job to be the
next king. But after Yu, the son of Yu killed the man who was chosen and became
the next king. This family ruled for about four hundred years. The rulers in
this dynasty put on a big show, kind of a mystical magic show, to demonstrate
their power and make everyone believe they should be ruler.
The main difference between this civilization and the others
we have learned about at this time (
Links:
http://www.yutopian.com/history/xia.html
http://www.mnsu.edu/emuseum/prehistory/china/ancient_china/xia.html
http://www.travelchinaguide.com/intro/history/xia/
http://www.travelchinaguide.com/intro/history/prehistoric/banpo_culture.htm
MINOANS/CRETE
>>>>>
PHOENICIANS
>>>>>>
3. Lesson Three:
MEMORY DATES and TIMELINE: 1892 BC Jacob and Esau born, about 1796 BC
Joseph born
More items of note: 1800 iron among
Hittites
1792
Hammurabi becomes king of
4. Lesson Four:
MEMORY DATE: about 1595, Hittites conquer
5. Lesson Five:
MEMORY
DATE: >>>> Moses born, 1349 Exodus of
6. Lesson Six:
MEMORY
DATE: c. 1200 Trojan War
More items of note: Ramses II
7. Lesson Seven:
MEMORY
DATE: 1063 David anointed by Samuel
D.
UNIT FOUR: 1000 BC to Christ's Birth
1. Lesson One:
MEMORY
DATE: 925 BC War between
2. Lesson Two:
MEMORY
DATE: 873 BC the Prophet Elijah
3. Lesson Three:
MEMORY
DATE: c. 800 BC Homer writes the Iliad and the Odyssey
4. Lesson Four:
MEMORY
DATE: 600 BC Lehi’s family leaves
5. Lesson
Five:
MEMORY
DATE: 550 BC Cyrus the Great’s
6. Lesson Six:
MEMORY
DATE: 429 BC Plato is born
7.
Lesson Seven:
MEMORY DATE: 336 BC Alexander the Great becomes king of
8.
Lesson Eight:
MEMORY DATE: 206 BC Han dynasty rises in
9.
Lesson Nine:
MEMORY DATE: 46 BC Cleopatra and Julius Caesar
E.
UNIT FIVE: Christ's Life to 1000 A.D.
1. Lesson One: Jesus and the most important
historical event
MEMORY
DATE: 34 AD Christ’s Atonement and Resurrection
2. Lesson Two:
MEMORY
DATE: 135 Romans destroy
3. Lesson Three:
MEMORY
DATE: 250 Mayan empire rising in
4. Lesson Four:
MEMORY
DATE: 313
5. Lesson Five:
MEMORY
DATE: 400 Nephite’s destroyed
6. Lesson Six:
MEMORY
DATE: 527 Justinian of
7.
Lesson Seven:
MEMORY DATE: 622 Muhammad’s Hegira
8.
Lesson Eight
MEMORY DATE: 800 Charlemagne
9.
Lesson Nine
MEMORY DATE: 900 Toltec Empire rising in
F.
UNIT SIX: William the Conqueror to 1700s
1.
Lesson One: William the Conqueror
MEMORY DATE: 1066 William the Conqueror, 1095 1st Crusade
Concept: In 1066, On Christmas Day, William the Conqueror came
to stay
Lesson:
Memorize:(for each Unit Six history lesson we memorize a jingle to help us
recall the date, review them all
each day)
In 1066
On Christmas Day
William the Conqueror
Came to stay.
Dress up as William the Conqueror (use what you have and do the best you can),
plain,
long-sleeved shirt, plain skirt to knees, hose, bands wrapped in criss-crosses about legs from
knee to shoe, long cape across one shoulder and clasped at the other shoulder,
crown, sword
(note: hair was fairly short.)
Facts: (Tell the facts in the first person, "I") Descended from Rolf
the Viking. Born in Normandy,
France. (SHOW this on a map, right across the water from England). Became the
Duke of
Normandy at age 7. He was in danger while growing up from others who wanted his
position,
many close to him were killed, his tutor slept in his room to protect him. He
often had to hide at
the cottages of peasants for safety.
When he got older he was a great warrior. He fought many battles to get new
land and to keep the
land he already had. William helped the king of England through difficult
times, and in return the
king designated William as the next in line for England's throne. However, when
the king died,
another man named Harold said that just before the king died, the king had said
that Harold should
be king. Harold showed papers that he said the king had signed. No one knows if
this is true, but
William knew that now he would have to fight for the right to be king. The
Battle of Hastings in
Oct. 1066 was his first big victory, and he beat Harold, but he still had to
fight more battles for five
years to get everyone in England to obey him.
On Christmas day of 1066 he was crowned king, although he was still fighting
some people in
England. Soon he built the Tower of London (you could look up this building for
more info.).
William built big stone castles which were a new thing in England, he had his
Norman friends live
in them. He went back to live in Normandy and ruled from there.
Most kings at this time period did not know much about the number of people
they ruled, but
William had a book made, called the Domesday Book,
that counted people and towns and money
in England.
When he died (don't be surprised if these facts are the only ones your kids
recall), the nobles that
had gathered around to pay their last respects hurried home to protect their
own property in the
troublesome times that always followed the death of a king. The servants that
were left behind
with William's body looted the room he was in, and when people returned for him
he was lying on
the floor of a bare room without furniture or curtains. In the middle of his
funeral, someone stood
up and said, "The land you are going to bury the king in is mine, and I
haven't been paid for it." So
they had to quickly pay the man and get him quiet. Then, as the services were
going, they took
William's body and placed it in the coffin, but they accidentally broke one of
his limbs, and the
stench from it was overpowering. They rushed through the rest of the funeral.
As they carried the coffin down the street to the tomb, the procession had to
stop to go put out a
fire, and his coffin was laid down in the middle of the street while they went
off to do this. Finally
he made it to the tomb, which was supposed to have been quite marvelous, but it
was raided and
destroyed twice, and now all that marks his death is a slab under which is a
thigh bone, all that
remains of the great conqueror.
It is interesting to note that William ruled a people that spoke a different
language from himself;
since he was born in France his native tongue was French.
THINK ABOUT IT:
Often we think of people as great by the rank they achieve in life. What really
makes people
great? Would you trade places with William the Conqueror?
LEARNING GAME QUESTIONS: What happened in 1066? (William the Conqueror became
king of England, may be worded differently)
When did William the Conqueror become the king of England? (1066)
Concept: For the First Crusade in 1095 Pope Urban II called
together the Knights
Lesson:
Memorize:
For the First Crusade
In 1095
Pope Urban II
Called together the Knights
This will be a play. Practice and then perform the play. Video and watch it if
you can. You need
Emperor Comnenus, Pope Urban II, the Knights, the
poor people, Peter the Hermit (parts can be
doubled up, use stuffed animals to fill in the crowds if you need).
EMPEROR: Pope Urban, the Muslim Turks are a threat to my Byzantine Empire.
Would it be
possible for you to get the people of the Roman Empire to help me fight them?
POPE: Well, Emperor Comnenus, that is something to
think about. The Turks will not let my
Christian people visit the Holy Land, which they control. I think this could be
considered a holy
war. Yes, I will get my people to help you fight those Turks, because it will
free the Holy Land so
that we can go there.
(Pope speaking to a large group of Knights and regular people at a conference
in France)
POPE: My Knights, you have developed some very bad habits. You continually
start fights with
each other. You kill each other in these fights. Even when you do not fight,
you have competitions
in which men die. It is time to stop spilling the blood of fellow Christians.
It is time to free the
Holy Land. Will you heed your spiritual leader and use your strength to fight
the Turks? Will you
go on a Holy Crusade to the Holy Land? You will receive rewards if you go. You
will receive
pardon for your sins, and you will get money, land. Will you do it?
KNIGHTS (shout together): God wills it!
(Later, Peter the Hermit speaking to the poor people)
PETER: We have heard the call of our Pope. The knights say they are preparing
for this Crusade,
but still they dilly dally. IT is up to us, the people, to free the Holy Land.
Are you with me?
PEOPLE: We are!
(They follow Peter out, cheering.)
(Emperor, pacing back and forth)
EMPEROR: The pope promised me help, and what do I get, a rag tag group of poor
people, who
do not know how to fight, who march through my empire toward the Holy Land
demanding shelter
and free food and stealing what food they want all along the way. Many have
been killed just for
that, and I have just received word that the group that was left has been
mostly slaughtered by the
Turks. When will those armies get here?
(Knights come to Emperor)
KNIGHTS: We are here, sir. We have been sent by the Pope.
EMPEROR: Then come join my men. Let us go fight!
(They Leave)
(1/2 of Knights, speaking to Pope)
KNIGHTS: It was very difficult, but we have succeeded. The Holy Land is ours.
Many of our men
have died, and some remained behind to rule the Holy Land. It has been four
years since you
called us together, but now we can report a victorious Crusade.
POPE: Well done. You have secured a place in heaven for yourselves.
THINK ABOUT IT: Do we believe that this was really a way to get to heaven? How
do we really get
to heaven?
LEARNING GAME QUESTIONS: What happened in 1095? (the First Crusade)
When was the First Crusade? (1095)
2.
Lesson Two: King Richard
MEMORY DATE: 1194 King Richard returns
Concept: In 1194 King Richard came back from war
Lesson:
Memorize:
In 1194
King Richard came back from war
Make a comic strip. For each numbered item, have the children draw a picture in
one of the
squares.
1. King Henry II of England had five sons. Some of the sons
wanted more power and fought their
father, but they did not win.
2. The oldest son died, and when King Henry died, his son
Richard
became king.
3. Soon after he was crowned king, King Richard went of on
the Third Crusade to get back
Jerusalem.
4. While Richard was gone, his brother John took over the
country.
5. The Third Crusade did not work, they did not get back
Jerusalem. But Richard did get the ruler
over Jerusalem to agree to let the Christians visit holy
places in the city.
6. Richard headed home, but on the way he was captured by
the ruler of Austria. The two of them
had argued during the Crusade. Richard was thrown in prison.
7. In 1194 Richard was set free after the people in his country
paid lots of money. His mother
helped get all the money.
8. Richard went home to England and took the throne back
from his brother John. But then he
went right out to fight a war in France with a man who had
helped his brother John take over the
country while he had been gone on the Crusade.
9. While the king was riding with a group of his soldiers to
capture a castle in France, a man from a tower shot
Richard with an arrow. It is said that Richard stood in his
stirrups, saluted the man who shot him,
and congratulated him for his great aim. He died from this wound.
10. Richard was known as Richard the Lion-Hearted for his
great bravery in battle. His brother John
became king when he died.
Do parts of this story sound a little familiar? They should. The legend of
Robin Hood (which is
probably based on a real Robin) comes from this time period. If you watch the
Disney Robin
Hood, you will hear John called the phony king of England, you will see the
people cheer "Long
live King Richard!", and you will see Richard finally come back from the
Crusade and take back the
throne.
LEARNING GAME QUESTIONS: Who was king of England in 1094? (Richard)
When did King Richard come back from the Third Crusade? (1094) BONUS: why was
he delayed on his return? (He was imprisoned in Austria)
3.
Lesson Four: Magna Carta,
MEMORY DATE: 1215 King John forced to sign the Magna Carta
Other items of note: Marco Polo,
Kahn
5.
Lesson Five: black death,
Renaissance, Ming Dynasty
MEMORY DATES: 1347 Black Death, 1368 Ming Dynasty rising in
6.
Lesson Six: Bible, Columbus
MEMORY DATE: 1453
Gutenberg’s printing press, 1492
Concept: In 1453, Gutenberg printed the Bible for everyone
to see.
Lesson:
Memorize:(for each history lesson we memorize a jingle to help us recall the
date, review them all
each day)
In 1453
Gutenberg printed the Bible for everyone to see.
ACTIVITY/LESSON:
Start by selecting a page from the Bible. Sit everyone around it at the table
with pencil and paper,
and tell them to copy the page, word for word. After a minute, ask them if they
want to keep
copying the page. It gets tiring very quickly. Explain that just a few hundred
years ago, every
book was written by hand. Of course, it took a long time, so books were
EXPENSIVE. There
were not very many, and only the rich had them. Then a certain kind of printing
was invented, but
it was still difficult. Every page had to be carved out of wood, then ink
poured on it and paper
pushed down on the ink. You think it took a long time to write some of the
Bible, try carving one
page. How about a whole book of pages. People didn't have time for that.
The leaders of the church were some of the few people who had copies of the
Bible. They could
read the Bible, and then they could teach the things from the Bible any way
they wanted to. The
regular people could not read the Bible and say, "Hey, he taught us wrong,
it says something
different in the Bible." If the leader said something was in the
scriptures, everyone had to just
believe it.
Heavenly Father knew that to bring the gospel back to the earth, everyone would
need to be able
to read the Bible. They would need to find out the truth for themselves. So a
man named
Johannes Gutenberg was inspired. He invented a movable type printing press. For
this, several
little blocks with the letters of the alphabet were made. These could be put
together like a puzzle
to make words, paragraphs, even pages of words. So Gutenberg could put the
letters together to
make one page, print off a bunch of copies, move the letters around to make
another page, print it
off, and use the same letters again for a third page.
It was still much more difficult than running off a copy on the copy machine,
but it was so much
easier than the old ways that it changed the world. People started buying their
own Bibles, they
started to learn to read, and they started to say, "Hey, the Bible says
this, not that."
THINK ABOUT IT: Would Joseph Smith have gone into the woods to pray if it had
not been for
Gutenberg's printing press?
ACTIVITY: Do a potato stamp, cut a
potato in half and carve a letter, heart, or other object onto the flat side
(so that the object sticks out). Dip it in paint and stamp it onto paper. This
is a lot like the old fashioned printing.
LEARNING GAME QUESTIONS: What happened in 1453? (Gutenberg printed the Bible on
his printing press)
When did Gutenberg first print the Bible on his movable type press? (1453)
7.
Lesson Seven:
MEMORY DATE: 1517 Martin Luther
8.
Lesson Eight:
MEMORY DATE: 1607
Other
items of note: Manchus in China
9.
Lesson Nine:
MEMORY DATE: 1776 Declaration of
Other items of note: French Revolution
G.
UNIT SEVEN: The 1800s through today
1. Lesson One:
MEMORY
DATE: 1805 Lewis and
2. Lesson Two:
MEMORY
DATE: 1830 Church restored, 1865 Civil War
3. Lesson Three:
MEMORY
DATE: 1914 WWI
4. Lesson Four:
MEMORY
DATE: 1929 Great Depression begins as stock market crashes in US
5. Lesson Five:
MEMORY
DATE: 1941
6. Lesson Six:
MEMORY
DATE: 1950 Korean War, 1957 Vietnam War begins, 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis, 1969
Moon Landing
7. Lesson Seven:
MEMORY
DATE: 1988 Cold War ends
8. Lesson Eight:
MEMORY
DATE: 1990 Gulf War
9. Lesson Nine:
Current Events
MEMORY
DATE:
Go back and fill in
You
have a skeleton of history in your mind now. You should relate any other
history you learn to the names and dates you have studied in the previous
units. Historical fiction can be a great way to get a real feel for the past.
Other history projects include reports, speeches, and collections (collect as
much information in as many creative formats as you can about a topic, put it
together in an organized way in a binder).
