Story Tower

Our Ancient Greece unit has recently wrapped up and I want to share a couple of things the students created.

The first thing is a Story Tower.  I found it on Pinterest as an English activity to help younger students place story action in sequential order.  I thought to myself- "Self, why can't I do this for history?"  After all, history is a long story.  

I chose to use it with SOL 5d The Persian War.  Students need to know the two victories at Salamis and Marathon.  We also discuss Thermopylae as a defeat.  

 For this activity you will need 10 index cards, five different colors of markers, and scissors.  Students will need to separate their index cards into five pairs.  The first pair (I chose green because green means go) said "Persian Wars: Greece vs. Persia" and the other "started as a result of Greek riots in Asia Minor".  The next set of cards was in blue and read "Battle of Marathon 490 BCE" and the other "Greek victory over Persians".  The next pair was written in orange "Battle of Thermopylae 480 BCE" and the other "Greek loss as a result of much larger Persian army."  The fourth pair was written in purple "Battle of Salamis 480 BCE" and the other "Greek naval victory due to superior navy". The last pair was written in red (Red means end!).  The first one said "Outcome of Persian War" and the other "More unified Greece for a time".

To construct the tower have the student put their green pair off to the side and then stack the other four pairs on top of the others.  Then one inch into each side cut a slit about 3/4 inch.  The first level is the green, the next level is blue, the third level is orange, the fourth level is blue and then finally, the last level is red.

Students may have a difficult time building the tower.  I would suggest using more heavy duty cards as flimsy index cards have a more difficult time staying up.

Once the students built the tower I gave them a paperclip to keep the index cards in their binder.

Happy Teaching!
C