Text+Set+&+Websites

**__The Aztecs by: Michael E. Smith__** Michael Ernest Smith’s book, __The Aztecs__ goes into detail about the origin, civilization, and the different realms of Aztec religion, science and thought. It also describes the conquest of the Spanish over the Aztec empire and the fate of the Aztec descendants. I found it interesting that the book describes the Aztec descendants in present day. **__Aztecs of Mexico by: George C. Vaillant__** __Aztecs of Mexico Origin, Rise And Fall Of The Aztec Nation__ by George C. Vaillant is a very informative 300 page book. This book describes all the different aspects of Aztec culture, religion, economy, and what Tenochtitlan was like. This book also describes the different time periods of the Aztec empire. **__Daily Life of the Aztecs by: Jacques Soustelle__** __The Daily Life of The Aztecs: On The Eve Of The Spanish Conquest__ by Jacques Soustelle describes the daily life of an Aztec citizen. It also describes the Aztec language and how it relates to the Spanish language. **__City of Sacrifice by: David Carrasco__** __City Of Sacrifice: The Aztec Empire and the Role of Violence in Civilization__ describes the role of sacrifice in Aztec society. It also explains Aztec religion and compares life in Tenochtitlan to modern life in a city. **__Aztec by: Gary Jennings__** The book, __Aztec__ by Gary Jennings portrays a fictional character named Mixtli-Dark Cloud who lives in Tenochtitlan. It also describes how the arrival of Cortez and his men devastated the Aztec empire. **__Egyptian Booklist__** __**Eyewitness: Ancient Egypt by: George Hart**__ This book gives a detailed look at life in ancient Egypt; focusing on the pharaohs all the way down to the field workers. There is thorough information about the life of nobles and pictures of places and tombs where they were laid to rest. There is a description of how the deceased were prepared for the afterlife and the kinds of things that were enclosed in their tomb with them. There is even mention of what kind of clothes, weapons and toys were available in ancient Egypt. It also spotlights Tutankhamuns tomb and how it was discovered. Also the discovery and deciphering of hieroglyphs from thousands of years ago is included. It is a very informative and useful book for both student and teacher alike.
 * __Aztec Booklist__**

__**Spend the Day in Ancient Egypt by: Linda Honan**__ This is a great book filled with crafts that can easily be introduced to the classroom and are focused on ancient Egypt. This book takes you through a day in the life of an ancient Egyptian child. Along the way it has craft ideas that can be done in the classroom and help further students understanding of ancient Egypt. You can create an Ankh Amulet, a pleated gown for the girls and a kilt for the boys, a scarab and many more. I feel this will keep the students attention because it is filled with so many hands on activities that are related to an ancient civilization. __**A****ncient Egypt by: David P. Silverman**__ This book is a collection of intriguing and authoritative essays about the most recent discoveries and theories about Egypt. The book touches upon everything we associate with ancient Egypt and more and is filled with hundreds of beautiful color photographs. It opens your mind to another side of ancient Egyptians besides the processes and celebrations associated with the afterlife. I feel like you can understand what daily life was like in ancient Egypt. I enjoyed the maps and charts presented and think they would be valuable for presenting to my students along with the actual photographs to have concrete pictures in their mind.

__**Mummies, Pharaohs and Pyramids: A Book About Ancient Egypt by: Gail Gibbons**__ I am a big fan of Gail Gibbons non-fiction work, because he creates very educational books that are on an elementary level. This book introduces children to ancient Egypt through vocabulary, interesting illustrations and extra captions throughout. I have read it with elementary students before and they really enjoyed it. So this is a great book to acquire information as a teacher but is also one students can read independently for a variation in genre.

__**Who was King Tut? by: Roberta Edwards**__ I also really love the Who Was series of books about different famous people. This one is a perfect addition to the unit because King Tut will be introduced a little and he is a Pharaoh most students have heard of before. This makes a great book for children to read independently before, during or after the unit to learn a little more about this famous King. The book is filled with illustrations and explains the life and times of King Tutenkhamun. It covers the tombs discovery in 1922 by Howard Carter and discusses the myths and curses associated with the tomb. Mummies and tombs are always a case of great interest for younger students so this gives them factual information in a fun way. __**Greek Booklist**__ __**Ancient Greece (DK Eyewitness Books) by Anne Pearson**__ __**Ancient Greece by Peter Connolly**__ __**The Ancient Greeks (People of the Ancient World) by Allison Lassieur**__ __**Hour of the Olympics (Magic Tree House #16) by Mary Pope Osborne and Sal Murdocca**__ **__Magic Tree House Fact Tracker #10: Ancient Greece and the Olympics: A Nonfiction Companion to Magic Tree House #16: Hour of the Olympics by Mary Pope Osborne, Natalie Pope Boyce, and Sal Murdocca__** **__Roman Booklist__** **__Rome Antics by David Macaulay__** This book shows the city of Rome through the tale of a Pigeon. It shows a modern Rome and how past and present are represented in modern day. This pigeon takes a path through the city of Rome and visits and sees many different historical buildings. At the end there is a map with the pigeon’s path marked out. It also describes the buildings in the back. This would be a good read-a-loud book.

**__City: A Story of Roman Planning and Construction by David Macaulay__** This book uses black and white pictures to show the how and why the city was built the way it was. It follows the planning and building of a fake Roman city named Verbonia. The point of it though is to show how they built these successful cities. This would be a book that I would keep in the classroom library. It could be incorporated into a project on building cities.

**__Classic Myths to Read Aloud by William F. Russell__** This is a collection of Ancient Greek and Roman mythology. At the beginning of each story it gives an introduction and definitions of some vocabulary words that are found in the story. This would be a great book to use in the mornings during morning circle. I would read a different myth to them every morning. I would make sure to read the Roman ones during our week on Rome and the Greek ones during our Greek week.

__**Ancient Rome (DK Eyewitness Books) by Simon James**__ I would keep this as a reference book on our bookshelf. It would be a book that would be out and available for students to look through as they need them for information. It mixes pictures and kid friendly text to inform children about Rome. I would also as we needed information just share snippets of the book with my children.

__**Classical Kids: An Activity Guide to Life in Ancient Greece and Rome (A Kid’s Guide Series) by Laurie Carlson**__ __**Aztec Websites**__ __**@http://www.aztec-indians.com/aztec-culture.html**__ This website is very easy to navigate. There are 5 subjects you can click on: Aztec culture, religion, civilization, daily life, and warriors. Each of the tabs provides a couple of pages of information about the particular subject. @http://www.fotosearch.com/photos-images/aztec.html It provided lots of pictures of Aztec artifacts, ruins, and art. These pictures create an image of what Aztec culture was like. @http://www.yale.edu/ynhti/curriculum/units/1992/2/92.02.05.x.html This provides lesson plans for teachers about the Aztecs. These lessons are described in depth and make it easy to implement the lesson plan. This website also provides a ton of information on Aztec history. @http://www.kidinfo.com/american_history/ancient_americas_culture.htm This website describes all different aspects of the Aztec life and history. The first page lists 25 topics you can click on, and each contains about five pages of information. The site also provides links to lesson plans and educational games for teachers and students. Most of the pages present pictures as well. @http://aztec.com/page.php?page=newscast This is another very useful website. There are four titles you can click on labeled history, culture, society and economy. When you put the cursor on each of the titles about 5 more subtitles appear. This makes it easy to navigate and locate specific information.

__**Egyptian Websites**__ I found this site very informational from a teacher stand point because it contained a vast amount of information about Ancient Egypt. Also the site contained videos to share with the students, and interactive maps and photographs to share as well. It is user friendly enough that the students could explore it on their own. Also the site has fun educational games the students can play and quizzes to test their knowledge once the site has been explored. @http://www.buzzle.com/articles/ancient-egypt-facts.html This website would be used by the teacher more so, to buff up on information about Ancient Egypt. This site is filled with useful information, but is not so kid friendly because it is mainly reading text. There are sidebars that can be clicked on to focus on Egyptian symbols and their meanings, fashion/clothing, and Ancient Egyptian inventions. I like that this website covers information I did not find on other sites, for instance their invention of a clock and the sun calendar. This is useful information that I think the students will find fascinating. @http://giza3d.3ds.com/en-experience.html?L=en I found this to be a great resource to share with the class because it is a guided tour of the Giza Plateau. It has an oral introduction that describes what is pictured on the screen, including the three main pyramids. Also it introduces unique vocabulary associated with pyramids and describes the purpose of the different temples shown. He even continues on by describing why different locations were chosen to build the pyramids and related temples. There is a photo gallery that can be perused and includes pictures dating back to 1906 of the pyramids and surrounding area and then closer to the present which shows a booming city nearby. I think this is a great learning tool for students. @http://www.historyforkids.org/learn/egypt/ This website was very kid friendly with many links that can be clicked on for further information. I found a couple of books listed here that I decided to include in the unit as well and make available to the class. The site also includes craft ideas and teacher guides for how to present information about ancient Egypt to the class. There are instructions on creating your own papyrus which might be fun to take a step farther and have children draw their own name in hieroglyphics on it. @http://www.ancient-egypt.org/index.html I enjoyed this website because it introduced me to the fact that there was other writing done by the ancient Egyptians than merely hieroglyphics. I feel like each website I go to reveals more information about the Ancient Egyptians than the last. Here I learned about other forms of written language and even a bit about their grammar back then. The main use of this site was that it lead me to other sites, books and videos that were very helpful as well and can be shared with the class.
 * @http://www.eyelid.co.uk/index.htm**

**__Greece Websites__** www.ancientgreece.com** à ** informational www.greece.mrdonn.org** à **for teachers and kids www.bbc.co.uk/schools/primaryhistory/ancient_greeks** à ** geared towards kids www.loc.gov** à ** informational/ to show Homer’s //The Odyssey// www.chiddingstone.kent.sch.uk/homework/greece/interactive ** à ** interactive for kids

**__Roman Websites__** This website is full of games, information, crafts and lesson plans. This would be a good website for kids to get to use maybe during centers where they could play the games. They could also use it for researching different topics dealing with Rome. All the text is nice and kid friendly. The only problem with this website is it does have advertisements on them. I would have to make sure we talked about not clicking on the ads on the side. I would also have to have it set up for them. Like if I wanted them to be on the games I would have it already loaded to the games page for them. This would be another website for the kids to explore. They have multiple topics the kids can click on and read about such emperors, engineering and construction, the army, and wars. They also have a timeline from 753 B.C.E to 1453 C.E. At the end of each topic they also have a link to a quiz the kids can take. After they finish the quiz it tells them their score and the correct answers to the ones they got wrong. This could be used just for them to do for fun or an actual review to see if they understand the material. Ancient Rome This website would be more for me as a reference. It gives a lot of good details and information. It has art and architecture, entertainment, geography, history, laws, people and even a link to other resources. It might be a little to much for my students to use. At the same time though it is a safe website that if my kids wanted to look up more information I would let them freely explore it. @http://dsc.discovery.com/games/colosseum/tour.html, @http://www.panoramicearth.com/305/Rome/Colosseum_of_Rome Both of these websites have a diagram of the coliseum that the students can click on and explore. There are eight sections for them to explore: the awning, seating, gate of death, animal elevators, emperor’s box, arena floor, arches, and columns. When they click on the blue bulls-eye by each topic it opens up a box on the side that describes it. The second one is more like a Google earth type image of the coliseum. The students get to navigate around a 360˚ view of the coliseum. I would have this up on the computers for my kids to explore during centers on the day we learn about the coliseum. This way they are not just seeing the pictures, that I brought in and showed them, they are also getting to explore a little more in depth on their own. Ancient Rome Brainpop Since I am not a member I will say I wasn’t able to fully explore this website. We have seen a sample topic of this from Mrs. Bothello. This would be a great website to have as an option for your kids to go to and do on their own. It gives them a fun, technological way to just learn more on the subject.
 * __Ancient Rome for Kids__**
 * Ducksters: Ancient Rome**
 * __Virtual Roman Coliseum__**