People and
Cultures
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Primary Level: Grades K-3 Primary Standard: Family, School, and Community
Use the unit's online maps to identify where the ceramics were created and to determine geographical relationships among cultures.
Consider how a culture's belief system influences the function of ceramics.
Identify the characteristics of ceramics as artifacts, and discuss the kinds of information that artifacts can provide about cultures.
Produce various clay objects that express individual or cultural attributes:
- An object that represents something that would be personally important to bring into an afterlife or eternity
- An object that represents a personal attribute
- An object to bury in a time capsule--something that reflects contemporary life and that could become an artifact for study by future archaeologists
To complement study of ceramics within the unit, listen to readings of Mayan, Chinese, Greek, Yoruba, and Pueblo Indian creation stories, and find similarities and differences among the stories.
To complement study of the Hydria, discuss the meaning of attribute and think of attributes that could identify the school and the community.
Do writing or speaking assignments based on various "Think" questions that complement study of the unit's ceramics:
- If you could bring one object into an afterlife or eternity, what would you bring and why?
- What objects could you bury in a time capsule that would show people in the future about your life? Explain why you chose each object.
- The Hopi-Tewa people continue to make pottery in the tradition of their grandmothers and great-grandmothers. What is a tradition? Do you have traditions in your family that you can trace back to your ancestors? What are they? If you don't have any traditions, what traditions could you start?
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