- Year 6
The calendars of the Maya
I can explain why calendars were so important to the Maya.
- Year 6
The calendars of the Maya
I can explain why calendars were so important to the Maya.
These resources will be removed by end of Summer Term 2025.
Switch to our new teaching resources now - designed by teachers and leading subject experts, and tested in classrooms.
These resources were created for remote use during the pandemic and are not designed for classroom teaching.
Lesson details
Key learning points
- The Maya believed the sky was where the gods lived; watching it carefully they tracked the movement of celestial bodies.
- The Maya had lots of different calendars, some were based on these movements, others on the time it took maize to grow.
- The Maya used these calendars to make sure they carried out religious ceremonies at the right times and to measure time.
- The Maya used cycles to measure time, so their calendars were circular and relied on great mathematical understanding.
- Using these calendars, the Maya recorded the dates of when important things happened, using their hieroglyphic writing.
Keywords
Celestial body - a celestial body is an object in space, like a star, planet, moon, or comet
Calendar - a calendar is a chart that's used to keep track of days, weeks, months and years
Cycle - a cycle is a sequence of events that occur repeatedly and follow the same pattern each time
Common misconception
The Maya had just one calendar.
They actually used several interconnected calendars. The most notable ones are the Tzolk'in (a 260-day ceremonial calendar), the Haab' (a 365-day solar calendar), and the Long Count calendar, which tracked longer periods of time.
To help you plan your year 6 history lesson on: The calendars of the Maya, download all teaching resources for free and adapt to suit your pupils' needs...
To help you plan your year 6 history lesson on: The calendars of the Maya, download all teaching resources for free and adapt to suit your pupils' needs.
The starter quiz will activate and check your pupils' prior knowledge, with versions available both with and without answers in PDF format.
We use learning cycles to break down learning into key concepts or ideas linked to the learning outcome. Each learning cycle features explanations with checks for understanding and practice tasks with feedback. All of this is found in our slide decks, ready for you to download and edit. The practice tasks are also available as printable worksheets and some lessons have additional materials with extra material you might need for teaching the lesson.
The assessment exit quiz will test your pupils' understanding of the key learning points.
Our video is a tool for planning, showing how other teachers might teach the lesson, offering helpful tips, modelled explanations and inspiration for your own delivery in the classroom. Plus, you can set it as homework or revision for pupils and keep their learning on track by sharing an online pupil version of this lesson.
Explore more key stage 2 history lessons from the The Maya: what made the Maya so distinctive? unit, dive into the full primary history curriculum, or learn more about lesson planning.
Licence
Lesson video
Loading...
Prior knowledge starter quiz
6 Questions
Q1.Match the word to its meaning.
indigenous people of Mesoamerica
a region encompassing parts of Central America
a country in Central America
Q2.Maya cities typically had a ceremonial centre. What other features were also found in most cities?
Q3.What is a stela?
Q4.Why did the Maya practice bloodletting?
Q5.The Maya used seeds from the plant to make hot chocolate.
Q6.The Maya thought that maize was a sacred crop; it was used to make flat pancakes called ...
Assessment exit quiz
6 Questions
Q1.The Maya believed that the gods lived in the sky. That is why they tracked the movements of ...
Q2.A chart that we use to keep track of days, weeks, months and years is called a ...
Q3.A is a sequence of events that occur repeatedly and follow the same pattern each time.
Q4.What purpose did calendars NOT have for the Maya?
Q5. was essentially the written language of the Maya, made up of symbols that represented sounds, words and concepts.
Q6.Match the Maya calendar to its function.
a solar calendar
a sacred calendar
a linear calendar