How I Am Connected to Mesopotamia

Lesson Plan - Get It!

Audio:

Around 7,000 years ago, the people who lived on the planet didn't have homes they lived in for long periods.

They were called hunters and gatherers. They hunted and gathered their food from what was around them.

• What does hunting mean?
• What does it mean to gather something for food?

Discover the answers in the video below.

Since the hunters and gatherers hunted animals and gathered plants and berries, the people had to move when their food source ran out.

Eventually, people learned how to farm the land.

• How do you think this changed how people obtained food?

• Have you seen farmland before?
• If you have, what was growing on the farmland?

Look at this picture and explain what you think is growing on this farm.

Now, think back to the video of the hunters and gatherers.

• If people began growing their food on a farm, would they have to keep moving around trying to find wild food or animals?

No, they wouldn’t and didn't!

Once people learned how to farm, they could build homes where they would live for a long time around that farmland. When people built houses close to each other, they created the first small towns and villages.

If people had not learned to farm, we would still be hunters and gatherers, moving from place to place, looking for food.

Watch the video below to learn how humans went from hunters and gatherers to farming.

People who study history as their career are called historians.

Historians believe the first villages were built in the Fertile Crescent. Fertile means farmable land.

• Do you know what shape a crescent is?

Here is a crescent.

The Fertile Crescent was a large crescent-shaped area for farming. A big part of that area was called Mesopotamia.

It is a big word that means land between the rivers.

• Why do you think the land between rivers would be good for farming?

Below is a map of the Fertile Crescent. Using your finger, draw the purple crescent shape on the map.

Now, find the word Mesopotamia. It is between squiggly blue lines, which are rivers.

Many important things still used today were invented in Mesopotamia!

For example, the wheel, the measurement we call an hour, the measurement we call a year, writing, school (for rich boys), and the sailboat were invented then.

Check out this Ancient Mesopotamia slideshow to learn more.

Continue to the Got It? section!