Build Rome in a Day
Ancient History or Latin Lesson Plan
Designed by Katie Ward, Polytechnic School, Pasadena, California
Rome Lesson Plan
PRESENTATIONS AND TOURS
This project provides a great opportunity to invite outsiders to come see students engaged in active learning. Encourage parents, administrators, staff members, and other teachers to attend the presentations and tours. If your school includes elementary students, invite the K-5 teachers to bring their classes to come see ancient Rome as well.
To get everyone into the spirit of ancient Rome, have your students bring in twin-sized bed sheets to wear toga-style over their clothes while they give their presentations.
During each regularly scheduled class period, have the students give short (1-2 minute) presentations on the monuments they have built using data from the “Information Charts” they have prepared in advance. While a student is speaking, they can either point to or pick up the model, depending on its size. In addition to describing the history and significant features of the monument, they should also describe how they made it.
If you have multiple sections of your classes collaborating to put together the entire city of Rome, many of the builders of the models will not be present in any given class period. Therefore, you might assign each student to research one monument in addition to the one they built, so that more of the structures are covered in the presentations. Make sure that the most famous ones—the Colosseum, the Pantheon, and the Circus Maximus—are included in the presentations in each class period.
It is then fun to open the floor to questions. Often the audience has great questions about what the buildings were used for and how the students made them.
You can also celebrate your accomplishment with a Roman feast! Have students research Roman foods and bring in modern-day versions for a Roman-style banquet.