Music in Mesopotamia

I thought that it would be interesting to talk about some of the musical instruments that existed in Ancient Mesopotamia with my sixth grade class. We discussed the lyre and the reed pipe. I had videos that I showed them of people playing those instruments so that they could hear the sound that they make. We talked about each one and the sound that it produced. A few of them said things that surprised them and they commented on the sounds of the instruments. They enjoyed being able to hear the instruments being played and not just seeing a picture. 

Then I played a song from Iraq that was more modern and we discussed the similar sounds and different sounds that they heard. It was neat for them to think about how ancient cultures can impact modern day music and even customs. We discussed how in Mesopotamia they had music at special events such as, weddings, funerals and such. Then we agreed that today we have music in similar instances. 

The last thing I did with them was to have them write a paragraph anwering at least one of the following questions: 

• What music have you listened to in the past 24 hours? Did you choose to listen to it? If so, why?
• What similarities did you notice between the purposes of music in Mesopotamia and today?
• What similarities do you notice in the instruments?
• What songs are connected to the U.S. like Iraq with Mesopotamia?
• What can we learn about history and cultures by analyzing music instruments and sounds in that time period?

They turned their answers into their teacher, but it was still a neat experience because they were able to connect music to themselves and how important it can be in all cultures. Overall, I really enjoyed this lesson because they had fun and made some really wonderful connections.

Teaching about Mesopotamia

I went and taught again in my second grade classroom. I knew that they were studying about Mesopotamia and I wanted to connect to the lessons that the students had already been learning. 

The first lesson I taught about Mesopotamia was about Cuneiform and the Sumerians. I started by showing the class a PowerPoint that I made about Sumerians and their form of writing which was called Cuneiform. I went over the writing and the Epic of Gilgamesh which was written in Cuneiform. I was surprised at how much the students remembered about the Sumerians and their way of living. 

We discussed how Cunieform was not written how we would write a sentence in our language. I had them think of nouns and then I would say a noun and they would have to think of a way to represent it as if they were going to write in in Cunieform. I pointed out how each person had a different way to represent the word and we discussed how difficult it would be to come up with a way to write down language. I had the students work in groups and they had to try and communicate something by only using the nouns. I gave each groups five minutes to try and come up with an idea. They had some creative ways to try and communicate, while the other groups would guess what they wanted to say. 

After all the groups showed us their presentation of words, we discussed Cuneiform and how it was for them to try and create and interpret the communication. They commented on how multiple students would say a word, but they would represent it differently. They also commented on how people from neighboring communities would have variations of ways to write the symbols in cunieform. Overall the lesson went well and the students were able to make lots of connections to the lesson. I also like having a way for them to get up and move and be creative together.