Suggested Questions for Researching your African Kingdom
Use your chart, books from the library, & the ipads to find facts about your kingdom. These are suggested questions. In some cases we have no facts about a question, so just move on. You may find something that I didn’t think of, add that to your fact sheet.
- What year did the kingdom rise to power?
- What circumstances helped bring it to power? How did the kingdom get powerful?
- Who was the ruler when the kingdom first became powerful?
- Is there a year where it is considered the ‘peak’ for the kingdom?
- Who was the ruler at its peak?
- Why was this kingdom so powerful?
- When/What year did the kingdom collapse or was it taken over by another kingdom?
- Who was the ruler when the kingdom collapsed?
- What circumstances (Why) did the kingdom collapse?
About the kingdom:
What was education like? Was there formal education? Could most people read and write? Only men? Only wealthy people?
What was family life like? Were there defined roles for men/women/children/grandparents? How old were people when they got married? When they died?
What kind of art, architecture, cultural things were around during this kingdom? Did any of it survive to today?
Trade! What was traded? What was the most valuable? How did they get the salt, gold, or whatever other products? (Mining, farming, weaving, etc) Who did they trade with and how? Did they use ‘silent bartering’ or something else? Did they trade in human beings? How valuable was a human being?
Religion. What was their religion? Several types? When Islam and/or Christianity arrived how did it arrive? How was it welcomed or accepted? Did people adapt their current religion to the new religion? How?
Write these answers neatly on another page so that you can share the information with the class. Include the names of everyone in your group.
Once you have completed your research decide what you will use for bartering goods. Example: 1 chocolate kiss = 1 nugget of gold and you need 10 nuggets of gold to buy 3 pounds of salt. 1 lb (pound) of salt = ?pieces of candy or whatever. Each group will come up with their own values for their goods. The last day of this project groups will barter for goods, so candy and other goodies will be changing hands. Keep all values under 10.
Large Paper Mural Drawings
Draw an outline of the part of Africa where your kingdom was located.
Draw trade routes into and out of and all around the kingdom. (use your research for this)
Draw towns or villages along the trade routes and in your kingdom.
Draw some people: families, traders, rulers.
Draw trees, water sources (ponds, lakes, ocean, rivers) sand dunes, desert, oases, whatever might be there.
How about some camels? Or other animals?
Be creative. Don’t worry about scale. Color everything in. Write your names neatly in the bottom right corner of the mural.