Daily Lesson Plan

Date: 1/20
Overall lesson topic/title and purpose: Mapping China and Preview to the Shang Dynasty
Goals/Objectives for todays lesson: Students will be able to know the location of ancient china,
determine the key locations and physical features of ancient China, impact of physical geography on the
settlement of ancient China, read and analyze different maps to draw conclusions about different regions.

Essential Question: How does geography affect early settlements in China?

Materials & supplies needed: Textbook, packet, colored pencils, atlas
Procedures and approximate time allocated for each event
Introduction to the lesson: (10 minutes)
Opening activity: Students will finish their Mapping China activity. (15 minutes)
OUTLINE of key events during the lesson: (40 minutes)
Students will then complete a preview activity as a class. I will ask students to get into
pairs. I will ask them to come up with artifacts that reflect different categories.
Government, social structure, religion, writing, art, and technology. After they
draw/come up with different artifacts, I will tell students that they are now from the
year 3000 and they will need to write 2 sentences about what that artifact reveals about
the society they have stumbled upon.
Closing summary for the lesson: ( 2 minutes)
Teacher will make a connection about looking at these artifacts that we have and what they
reveal about our society. Ask students if they think that other societies have artifacts and how
those might reveal information about those civilizations.
Assessment(s): The packet will be used as a grade.

Daily Lesson Plan

Date: 1/21-1/23
Overall lesson topic/title and purpose: The Shang Dynasty
Goals/Objectives for todays lesson: Students will be able to describe the government, social
structure, religion, writing, art, and technology of the Shang Dynasty, analyze artifacts to draw conclusions
about the Shang dynasty, justify arguments with relevant evidence, use content vocabulary in contact.

Essential Question: What do artifacts reveal about civilizations?

Materials & supplies needed: Textbook, packet, decoders, artifacts
Procedures and approximate time allocated for each event
Classroom will be set up into stations. Students will come into the class and see the front of
the room in a certain way.
Introduction to the lesson: (10 minutes)
Opening activity: Picture on the overhead. Ask students, what do they see? Whose burial
do you think it is? What items are people bringing to the tomb? Why might these objects
be place there?
OUTLINE of key events during the lesson: (120 minutes)
Students will get into pairs and work on decoding the work. Students will become
archaeologists who have just discovered a Shang tomb. The archaeologists will
excavate the tomb to learn about this civilization. Remind students about the roles
that chance, oversight, and error may play in interpreting ancient history. Have
students brainstorm ways they can avoid misinterpretation as they analyze artifacts
from a Shang tomb.
Review the instructions with the class. Emphasizing these points:
One student from each pair will excavate an artifact by retrieving a placard from
the tomb and then finding the matching decoder. Tell students to rotate the job of
excavating.
Model how to use a decoder. Show students where the section number is revealed (by
reading the numerals that appear after the letters in the decoder slots). Explain that
students will read the section assigned by the decoder and complete the corresponding
Reading Notes in their Interactive Student Notebook.
For Step 5, remind students that artifacts can tell us about more than one
characteristic of a civilization. For example, if an archaeologist finds a gold crown, it
might indicate that a king ruled the country (government). It also reveals that the
culture likely had artisans who worked with gold (social structure and art). Students
should be able to justify any characteristics they check.
When a pair has completed all the required information for an artifact, they return the
placard and the decoder, and then excavate a new artifact.
5 Have students excavate artifacts. Circulate with the Guide to Reading Notes,
2

assisting students as necessary. Give pairs time to analyze most of the artifacts and
complete their Reading Notes. Then have all students return to their desks.
Closing summary for the lesson: ( 2 minutes)
Go over all the decoders and the work. Then we will go through the book and the reading
notes after. This activity may continue into the next week. We will be going through the
chapter section by section looking at the packet.
Assessment(s): The packet will be used as a grade.