As It Was! is an interdisciplinary approach to various cultures in history. It takes broad-based concepts and applies them to a particular culture, people, or period of time. Students are provided with opportunities to investigate aspects of past cultures through the following disciplines:
      • Language Arts
      • Social Studies
      • Science
      • Math
      • The Arts

This book is divided into three units.
      Issues: Activities are designed to provide students with opportunities to understand and analyze major historical topics.

      People: Activities are designed to provide students with opportunities to understand and analyze major historical individuals.

      Places: Activities are designed to provide students with opportunities to understand and analyze major historical locations.

Each unit is divided into the following three sections:
      Get the Idea!
      This page introduces and defines the concept. It includes an activity which teaches the concept

      Get the Facts!
      These pages provide multi-curricular activities based on the concept. Activities are designed to provide students
      with an opportunity to apply and analyze the concept via content.

      Make the Connection!
      Each Make the Connection page contains an open-ended activity which enables students to synthesize and
      evaluate the relationship between the concept and the content.

Mayas, Incas and Aztecs
This book contains activities related to Issues, People, and Places specific to each of the three cultures featured in this book: the Maya, the Incas, and the Aztecs.

      Mayas
      The Mayan civilization was centered in and around the Yucatán Peninsula in what is now Mexico. The Mayan
       culture developed as early as 2600 BC and reached it zenith around AD 250.

      Incas
      The Incan civilization was centered in the Andes Mountains in what is now Peru. The civilization extended from the
       Isthmus of Panama to the Amazon Basin southwest to modern-day Chile. The Incas’ control of this area began in the
       twelfth century AD and ended with the Spanish conquest in the seventeenth century.

      Aztecs
      The Aztec civilization centered around Lake Texcoco in the central valley of Mexico in what is now Mexico City. In the
       early 1300s AD, their civilization became formalized; it ended with the Aztecs’ defeat by the Spaniards in the sixteenth century.

Note: Dates for any civilization are, at best, approximations. Record-keeping and documentation were destroyed, damaged, lost, or non-existent. Anthropologists and scientists have made their best estimates in dating events in the past, but there is always disagreement and few, if any, absolutes.
Also Note: There are variations in accepted spellings of several names.

Objectives
Students will…
      • participate in experiences to develop concepts;
      • use research skills to “Get the Facts!” related to the learned concept;
      • work with information integrating the disciplines of Language Arts, Social Studies, Science, Math, and The Arts to
        explore the concept;
      • connect the concept and the content;
      • use factual information incorporating higher-order thinking skills (analysis, synthesis, evaluation); and
      • work creatively with information integrating content areas.

Download the Table of Contents page here.

Grades 4–8. This volume focuses on the Mayas, the Incas and the Aztecs.