Ancient Aztecs

Please bear with me.  I took a few days off after the presentation (to recover!).  I will endeavour to answer all your lovely comments and visit your blogs over the weekend.  For now, I just need to stare into space….

During this study, the children dressed up, made some Aztec masks and fans as well as trying their hands at sculpting an Aztec calendar.  I also had them write a story about something which had grabbed their attention during their time with the Aztecs:

And the masks they painted:

And the fans they made:

And an Aztec Calender (of sorts), unpainted:

And painted:

I asked the children to write a fiction story about something they felt strongly about with regards to the Meso-America cultures we’d studied.  Here is C9’s story about a boy, caught as a sacrifice:

                                                                                      Human Sacrifice: Zero Skull’s Story

I darted through the crowds and slid in between people’s legs.  Two fat guards, dripping with sweat, colourful with feathers, hurried after me.  I was a sacrifice.  Although I had escaped many a time, I could not run very fast.  I was starved.  I collided into two more guards, they recognised me and grabbed at me, but I slipped through their fingers.  Suddenly I crashed into a raven haired girl carrying a basket of bread.  My mouth watered.

“Please may I have some of your bread?  Please?”

“Shak ren la,” the girl answered and took a few loaves out of her basket and wrapped them in some cloth. “Hes.”  She handed them to me.

Thank you.” I said and darted off.  When I looked back the girl had disappeared.  “Phew” I sighed, “I need a place to sleep.”  Suddenly, I noticed an ally way that stank of rotten food and lay down to sleep in a doorway covered in a sack.

I woke up in the early morning.  The pretty girl was staring down at me.

“Ne la homey,” she said inviting me inside her warm home.  She gave me some cool milk and a roll.

“Thank you.  Who are you?” I asked.

“I am Shaharuzad.  I am a refuge, an orphan.  My parents were sacrificed.  Are you a sacrifice?”

“Sort of. I am also an orphan like you but I am to be sacrificed in a month.  I am a pitiless boy.”  I said that with tears in my eyes.

Suddenly, crash, crash! Bang, bang!  Two guards and a captain raced in.

“Him.” The captain pointed at me and the guards grabbed me, I looked at the wide eyed girl one last time before I was dragged out of her home.

The guards tossed me before Montezuma, the king of the Incas.

“Why did you run away?” Montezuma shouted at me.

“Because I am not going to be sacrificed.” I screamed back.

Monty, (as I called him) glared at me, “Scum! I’ve decided he’s scum!  We’ll sacrifice him tomorrow.  Now lock him up!”

This was my last night in the human world. I had to run away, but how?  This question penetrated my mind. I had to run away.  As I pondered this, my eyes wandered to the window.  It didn’t have any bars! Yay!  Climbing down the window, as quiet as a mouse I slipped into the ally where Shaharazad lived.

Five years later Monty gave up searching for me.  I had lived and hid in Shaharazad’s home and now I was free of the guards.  The guards looked at me with respect.  I became rich.  Also I became a noble and I even married Shaharazad and we lived happily forever more.