Aztec Codices

from Mexicolore

Year 4 Spanish have more or less finished "Family and Pets".  I wanted them to do a summative piece of work, a piece of writing, and needed a new way of doing it.  They have already done two mini-books and so I was looking for something a bit different.  I had a look through this book and found out about Aztec Codices.


An Aztec Codex is essentially a concertina-style book.  The Aztecs filled them with glyphs painted in red, blue, yellow and green.  Many were destroyed by the Spaniards when they conquered the area now known as Mexico in the early 16th century, and therefore not many remain.


In today's lesson, the first thing that we did was to brainstorm and write up on the board everything that we know about members of the family and pets, and what we can say about them.  Then I gave them a quick overview of the Aztecs, including where and when they lived and what was their eventual fate.  Finally we looked at some photos of surviving Codices.

Then we set about making them.  Here are the resources and instructions if you would like to make one:
Aztec Codex

The children were very enthusiastic in making their Codices - we were so engrossed that I almost didn't notice that it was playtime, and we had to do a very quick tidy-up.  About half the class has started writing and illustrating their Codex.  All they have to do is to include some of the family and pets vocabulary and structures that we brainstormed at the beginning of the lesson, the rest is their choice.  The results so far are very promising.