Pyramids and simple machines

Loved this article. Themes that can incorporate other content areas are a great way to get the most out of teaching. This article's theme is about the ancient pyramids...a fascinating topic... See More

Loved this article. Themes that can incorporate other content areas are a great way to get the most out of teaching. This article's theme is about the ancient pyramids...a fascinating topic for any student. This article talks about researching the history of the pyramids, designing simple machines to help model how the ancients built them, and testing the machines the students built. This activity incorporates both NGSS and STEM standards as well as providing cross curricular extensions for Social Studies, language arts, and math. If you want a fun activity using simple machines, here is one that I encourage you to try.

Learning Science Through a Social Studies Prompt

This short article is an example of how a teacher of a third grade class combined social studies with science. While students were learning about Egypt the teacher used the pyramids to help... See More

This short article is an example of how a teacher of a third grade class combined social studies with science. While students were learning about Egypt the teacher used the pyramids to help students engage in understandings about how they were built and why simple machines were probably helpful in accomplishing that task. She brought in examples of simple machines from her home. Next she encouraged her students to build simple machines and test them to see how useful they might have been. In this article she also explains how she used interdisciplinary activities to cover math and reading as well. This is a good idea for a self-contained classroom.