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Year 4 · Ancient Egypt

Asking historical questions worth answering

Address and sometimes devise historically valid questions about change, cause, similarity and difference, and significance

25 minutes4 checks6 exit questionsNational curriculum objective

Lesson overview

What you'll learn in this lesson

Address and sometimes devise historically valid questions about change, cause, similarity and difference, and significance

Key learning points

  • • The four question types
  • • What makes a question answerable
  • • Trying it on Egypt
  • • Answering properly

This lesson at a glance

  • 25 minutes
  • 20 parts to scroll through
  • 4 quick checks
  • No marked quiz yet
  • Gentle pace: short sittings with pauses

Words to know

addressdevisehistoricallyquestionschange

Scroll down — the lesson carries on below

Part 1 of 20 · Discover5%
1

Watch & discover

Part 1 of 20

Watch first

Asking historical questions worth answering

Explore the Nile, the pyramids and the mummies of ancient Egypt.

In a nutshell

Address and sometimes devise historically valid questions about change, cause, similarity and difference, and significance

2

What you already know

Part 2 of 20

Before we start

What you already know

You know some achievements of Ancient Egypt.

Recap: y4-history-5
3

Key words

Part 3 of 20

Key words

Words you'll need today

cause
Why something happened.
significance
Why something mattered, then or now.
similarity
A way two things are alike.
difference
A way two things are not alike.
4

Learning cycle

Part 4 of 20

Learning cycle 1 of 2

Part 1 — Four kinds of question

A short piece of teaching, then a check to make sure it has landed.

5

Explore the idea

Part 5 of 20

Learn

The four question types

Change: what was different by the end? Cause: why did it happen? Similarity and difference: how were two places or people alike and unalike? Significance: why does it matter? Nearly every good history question is one of these four.

6

Explore the idea

Part 6 of 20

Learn

What makes a question answerable

'Was Tutankhamun nice?' cannot be answered — nobody recorded his personality. 'What did Tutankhamun's tomb show about Egyptian beliefs about death?' can, because objects survive. Answerable questions point at evidence that exists.

7

Quick check

Part 7 of 20

Quick check

'Why did Egypt grow along the Nile?' is a question about...

8

Quick check

Part 8 of 20

Quick check

Which question can evidence answer?

9

Reset break

Part 9 of 20

Pause

That's sitting 1 of 2 done

Stretch, get a drink, look out of the window. There is no timer and nothing is counting down — your place is saved, so you can come back in five minutes or tomorrow.

Stop here for now
10

Learning cycle

Part 10 of 20

Learning cycle 2 of 2

Part 2 — Writing your own

A short piece of teaching, then a check to make sure it has landed.

11

Explore the idea

Part 11 of 20

Learn

Trying it on Egypt

Cause: why did Egypt grow up along the Nile and not in the desert? Similarity: how were Egyptian and Sumerian cities alike? Significance: why do we still know Egyptian names three thousand years later? Each one sends you to different evidence.

12

Explore the idea

Part 12 of 20

Learn

Answering properly

State your answer in one sentence, then give two pieces of evidence, then say what your answer does not prove. Real historians always say where their evidence runs out — that is a strength, not a weakness.

13

Quick check

Part 13 of 20

Quick check

Comparing Egyptian and Sumerian cities is a question of...

14

Quick check

Part 14 of 20

Quick check

A good answer includes...

15

Investigate evidence

Part 15 of 20

Evidence 1 of 1

object

Objects from Tutankhamun's tomb

Egyptian craftworkers; excavated by Howard Carter's team, Buried about 1323 BC, found 1922

Furniture, jewellery, models, food, chariots and a gold mask, all packed into a small tomb for one young king.

The tomb was recorded object by object as it was cleared. Those records are why the objects can still answer questions today.

Think like a historian

Write one question about Egyptian beliefs that these objects could answer, and one they could not.

Source: The British Museum and museum collections worldwide

View the archive record ↗
16

Common mix-ups

Part 16 of 20

Common mix-ups

Things people often get wrong

  • Asking questions nobody can answer from surviving evidence.
  • Thinking a 'why' question can be answered with one cause only.
  • Thinking you must sound certain. Saying what evidence cannot show is good history.
17

Challenge round

Part 17 of 20

Game · Sort it

Which of these are true?

Drag each card into the right column. Tap a card first if dragging is fiddly.

True

Not true

18

Challenge round

Part 18 of 20

Game · Fill the gaps

Finish the sentences

Choose the word that belongs in each gap.

____: what was different by the end?

Answerable ____ point at evidence that exists.

19

Mastery quiz

Part 19 of 20

No quiz for this one

This lesson has no marked quiz attached yet.

20

Lesson round-up

Part 20 of 20

Lesson round-up

Ready when you are

Quiz score

Not sat

Games

Not played

Points this lesson

0

Best run

0 in a row

Luna: 0 out of 4 on the practice checks. Only if you feel up to it — one more?

Ask Luna

Do the work

Your written work for this lesson

This is the part you'd do in your book at school. Pick the pieces below, write here or on paper, and photograph anything you draw or work out.

Source

A factory inspector's notebook, 1842

"I visited the mill at seven in the morning. The machines were already running. I counted fourteen children at the frames, the youngest no more than nine years of age. The overseer told me they work from six until seven, with forty minutes for dinner."

"The air is thick with cotton dust and the windows are kept shut so the thread does not break. Two of the children showed me hands cut by the shuttles. The owner assured me that the work is light and that the families beg him for the places, since without the children's wages the rent cannot be paid."

"I have written to the magistrates. I doubt much will follow from it."

Original source-style text written for Good Learning Co.

Reading questions

  1. Who wrote this, when, and why might that make it useful to a historian?
  2. What does the source tell you about children's work — and what does it not tell you?
  3. How far does this source show that mill owners were to blame? Answer with a judgement and evidence.

Source for this lesson

Use this for the source work task below.

Objects from Tutankhamun's tomb

object

Egyptian craftworkers; excavated by Howard Carter's team, Buried about 1323 BC, found 1922

Furniture, jewellery, models, food, chariots and a gold mask, all packed into a small tomb for one young king.

The tomb was recorded object by object as it was cleared. Those records are why the objects can still answer questions today.

Source: The British Museum and museum collections worldwide

View the original record ↗

  • Source work

    Reading

    Read the source closely. Write who made it, when, and what it tells you — then what it does not tell you.

    2 paragraphs

  • Essay answer

    Writing

    Answer the enquiry question with a clear judgement. Use two pieces of evidence and finish with a sentence that weighs them up.

    300–400 words

  • Timeline

    Diagram

    Draw a timeline of the events in this lesson with dates, then photograph it.

    6–8 events

Saved as you type.

Part 1 of 20 · Watch & discover

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