To understand history, we need to conceptualize the past. Young learners can be really challenged by this. One learning target could be: Students draw timelines of their own lives. This can lead them to a solid understanding of what might be called "Recent" history.

 

From this reference point, a teacher could introduce other terms that measure time, such as "generation", decades, centuries, and millennium. You may refer to a simple timeline at this website: Roman Timeline. Another facinating reference is this one that shows a sequence of events that happened in Ancient Greece.

 

Ancient history has been defined in different ways, although one common understanding is that it ended with the fall of the Roman Empire in 476 AD. The play takes place about 2000 years ago, and that qualifies to be called "ancient" given this definition.

 

If you made timelines, you could standardize a length with a period of time, such as an inch represents a year. After timelines were built, you could use that scale to refer to meaningful events in your students' lives. For example, how many of your lifetimes would it take to show when our town was founded? How far back (measured in your lifetimes) was the United States formed? And, in the context of the play, how long ago were the first Olympic games? One school used the model (1 inch=1 year) to show when the first Olympics took place; the hallway of the school was transformed!

 

Through this kind of activity, we could build on the students' understanding of "How far back" things happened.