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Making History Come Alive
The past has come alive in Mrs. Hall’s fifth-grade Social Studies class! Rather than just reading about ancient Mesopotamia and the city of Ur, Mrs. Hall decided her class would get to immerse themselves in the rich culture and lives of the Sumerians. She broke out her trusty game board, dice, and playing chips so her students could play the Royal Game of Ur.
Also known as the Game of Twenty Squares, or simply as The Game of Ur, this ancient game was first popular in Mesopotamia in the third millennium B.C.E. At one point, the game was thought to foretell your fate or convey messages from the Gods. The game was unearthed and rediscovered in the 1920s by British archaeologist Sir Leonard Woolley. He would dub it “The Royal Game of Ur” because he found the artifact in the Royal Cemetery of Ur.
Mrs. Hall explained, “Whenever I can bring in an activity relevant to the lesson, the students have a much better time grasping the concept. History becomes less abstract when you have a physical piece of the past there for you to see.” We cannot agree more, Mrs. Hall!
