Resource+1

Royal Ontario Museum Website: []


 * Explanation**

This interactive timeline, from the Royal Ontario Museum Website, gives effective and useful information on the various time periods of ancient Egypt. This timeline should keep children engaged with its pictures, pop-ups and informative facts, as it is both engaging and appealing. Through this resource, the children should begin to develop a sense of understanding of not only the progress and development of the Ancient Egyptians, but also an understanding of the way in which we look at history and the important people, places and things in history. As there is a considerable amount of information in this timeline, the teacher could choose which parts to use. The information given is written as a factual text, allowing the students to experience this text type, and begin to interact with the language of a historian. As Santoro (2004) emphasises, students “are required to decode and encode a wide range of subject specific vocabulary…and graphic symbols” including timelines (p. 54). This resource is an excellent introduction into the subject-specific vocabulary of Ancient Egypt. The Royal Ontario Museum website has multiple other Ancient Egypt resources, all of which could be used with a year 5 class as they are interactive, engaging and appealing to that audience. This website presents information in a stage appropriate way while remaining factually accurate.


 * Relevance to outcomes**

CUS2.4: Describes different viewpoints, ways of living, languages and belief systems in a variety of communities.

This resource looks at the ancient civilisation of Egypt. Not only could this website be used with the whole class, but it would be an excellent starting point in independent or group research. Children could use this timeline to discover what historical information exists about a relevant topic, whether it is pharaohs, mummies or pyramids, and then further their knowledge from this starting point. According the NSW K-6 HSIE syllabus (2007), children should be able to gather information and explain various lifestyles and experiences that different cultural groups have (p. 29).

This resource is used in lesson one to introduce the class to information on Ancient Egypt. Not only does it present the information in an engaging and interactive way, the information is presented in the style of a factual text, using historical language. According to the UK Standards and Effectiveness Unit (2001), literacy across the curriculum in areas such as HSIE is necessary. The style of writing and sentence structure will vary according to the KLA, and historical writing styles should be modelled and broken down before being constructed (pp. 17 – 25).


 * Resources**

Board of Studies. (2007). //HSIE K-6 syllabus// . Sydney: Author.

Santoro, N. (2004). Using the four resources model across the curriculum in A. Healy & E. Honan//. Text next: New resources for literacy learning.// Newtown:PETA.

UK Standards and Effectiveness Unit. (2001). //Literacy across the curriculum// . Crown: UK.

**Andrea Watts**