Fourth Great Lesson - How Writing Began

Today we learned about how writing began, based on the 4th Montessori Great Lesson.
Early humans created tools to make life easier, hunted and fished to meet their basic needs and now they began developing their own cultures and societies. Early humans started to communicate with one another. First with sounds, then with symbols, then pictures, and finally with talking, writing, and reading.
We talked today about the development of cave drawings, hieroglyphics, cuneiform (as some of the early forms of writing). We talked about the Phoenicians and the invention of paper and purple dye.
After our Great Lesson, students explored a variety of materials to create their own early forms of communication - charcoal, clay, sketching with rocks.
We then had a chance to dye some cloth Tyrian purple and create paper that is similar to the early forms of papyrus.


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