History - ancient Maya object activity

This activity supports learning in the series of four, knowledge-rich curriculum lessons about the ancient Maya.

A simple, engaging activity that gets children thinking like historians.

Pupils cut and categorise a collection of Maya objects before using the evidence to make inferences about who they may have belonged to and what this reveals about Maya life.

Guided question sheets support discussion and evidence-based reasoning, followed by illustrated answer sheets explaining each object and its historical significance.

Quick and easy to run with minimal preparation, the activity can work as a short 10–15 minute task or be extended into a much longer session through group discussion, justification and comparison of pupils’ ideas.