Materials:

• overhead projector, or chalkboard
• pencils
• Mayan Sacred Rounds Appendix
• Mayan Calendar Calculations

Procedures:

1. Have students carefully cut out each of the two Calendar Rounds.
2. Explain to students that the names of dates were calculated by moving the interlocking Rounds so that each date was assigned a name-number relation.
3. Demonstrate the names for day 1 (from the Mayan Calendar Calculations student sheet). It should read [1 Imix]. Now go through a few more of the days and have students record the name-number relationship of the remaining 48 days on their handout. A teacher correction sheet is not provided in order to let you, the teacher, experience the procedure. (It's really very easy!)

Assessment:

Ask students the following questions:

1. Why was time so important to the ancient Maya?
2. In what ways are Maya calendars like our calendars? How are they different?
3. What would be the difficulties of not having an absolute beginning when keeping track of time? What are the advantages?

Extra Credit:

Have your students create calendar rounds using the Gregorian calendar (one wheel with the seven days of the week, one wheel with the days of the months). They will run into a problem that our months do not have a uniform number of days. See how they think the problem should be solved.