Complete this word puzzle to learn about the Maxwell Museum and SW culture.
Learn about the Japanese art of origami and make your own origami dog.
Ancestors Exhibition Virtual Tour
Take a virtual tour of our Ancestors exhibition and go behind-the-scenes of the museum collections and laboratories.
Ancestors virtual tour vocabulary list
Ancestors Scavenger Hunt PowerPoint presentation
Ancestors Scavenger Hunt PDF
Ancestors Scavenger Hunt answer key
Download our scavenger hunt to go around the web and discover more about our early ancestors.
Journey back in time and meet our earliest ancestors. Learn who they are, where their fossils were found and what traits they had and how they changed. Then complete a timeline of the human family tree and make your own ancestor flash cards and trading cards to keep or give away.
Discover the traits necessary for bipedalism – walking upright. Compare the features of chimpanzees, early human ancestors and modern day humans, then explore footprints. Make your own footprint trackway and analyze footprints just like a Forensic Anthropologist would!
Learn how the fossil and archaeological record shows how our physical and behavioral traits have changed through time. Compare fossil skulls, make calipers to measure 3-D objects and try our opposable thumb challenge.
Make your own cave art! Cave painting is one of the oldest forms of art found all over the world. Explore some cave art and get inspired to make your own.
Cave Painting Tutorial
Southwest Archaeology
Archaeology - Puzzling it Together!
Dig deep into archaeology terms and methods, then try some puzzles. Complete a matching activity and word search puzzle, then color and assemble your own pottery puzzles.
The Great Houses of Chaco Canyon
Take a virtual trip to Chaco Culture National Historical Park with an interactive Google Earth presentation. Fly around the park and identify the Great Houses and learn about the features that make them unique. Complete and color a worksheet to remember your tour.
Google Earth Video Tutorial
Archaeoastronomy - Time Keeping
Time travel to the past and keep time like the ancient ones with these fun solar activities. Make your own sundial and track the sun with the Stellarium app. Make daily and yearly observations of the sun and learn about time and the seasons.
Dig deep into the principle of stratigraphy and the Law of Superposition! Learn how archaeologists use the layers of the earth in relative dating of artifacts. Use your best observation skills and decipher the clues to recreate a timeline of artifacts in the Southwest.
Learn what petroglyphs are, how they are made and why they are an important record of the past. Then carve some petroglyphs of your own design. Includes information and resources to learn about and explore petroglyphs right here in the Rio Grande Valley!
Take a close look at stone tool shape and design. Describe projectile points like an expert and play an I Spy guessing game. Then sketch a tool of your own design.
Discover how dendrochronology is useful in archaeology. Create a timeline of historical events and make a tree-ring project that tells your own story!
Maxwell Museum docent Diana Shea presents our Weaving in the Southwest traveling trunk. Learn about types of weavings and the steps taken to make a woven item.
Geraldine tells her story, The Goat in the Rug! Learn about the beautiful tradition of Navajo rug weaving. Recommended for pre-k to 3rd grade.
Instructions for making your own cardboard loom and weaving a rug sampler. Includes techniques for adding designs from weaving cultures from around the world.
Explore a collection of coiled and woven baskets from the Maxwell Museum collection and weave your own paper basket using recycled materials.
How to make Paper baskets
Explore a small sample of pottery from the Maxwell Museum collection, read a story about pottery making and identify the parts of a pot. Resources and instructions to design a pot and for clay pot making included.
How to make a Yucca paintbrush
Hispanic Culture
Make your own paper flower bouquets. This Hispanic tradition is used for decorating any celebration. Learn a new creative use for decorative scrap or recycled paper!
Make a traditional punched tin frame to hold a photograph or drawing of your own. Get creative with recycled materials and designs, much like Nuevomexicanos did in the past.
Explore the traditions of El Dia de los Muertos-Day of the Dead. Complete word puzzles and coloring sheets and make your own Dancing Skeleton. Prepare for the upcoming fiesta!
Dia de los Muertos paper crafts
Get ready for Dia de los Muertos by making some fun paper crafts. Instructions for papel picado (paper cutting), skull masks, stamp printing and more will inspire your creativity!
Celebrate Dia de los Muertos and make an ofrenda. Pay homage to your ancestors and welcome them back with an altar beautifully decorated by you!
World Culture
China
Learn about symbols and make a Chinese Fortune Teller.
This Chinese legend tells the story of one of the eight famous Chinese horses, Moon Dragon, through the shadow puppetry tradition.
Shadow Puppets and StorytellingLearn about the history and practice of Chinese shadow puppetry and make your own shadow puppets. Includes additional resources to make your own puppet theater, write a shadow puppet play and experiment to discover the properties of light and shadow.
Egypt
Ancient Egypt-hieroglyphs, tombs and temples
Explore ancient Egypt and discover hieroglyphs, pyramids, temples and more!
Maya
Ask an archaeologist - grades 5-8
Ask an Archaeologist - grade 9-adult
Dr. Loa Traxler, Professor of Anthropology and Museum Studies Director at UNM answers questions about the field of archaeology and her career as a Mayan Archaeologist.
The vernal or spring equinox marks a time of equal day and night. Docent Diana Shea reads Journey of the Nightly Jaguar, a Mayan legend about the mysterious jaguar and its relationship to the sun and night.
Try sky watching like the ancient Maya and make your own star finder to identify constellations.
Discover the story of the stars in the night sky and make a constellation viewer to tell your own story.
Write like the ancient Maya and make your own codex.
Discover the history, technique and patterns of Maya weaving. Complete your own weaving word puzzle and make your own friendship bracelet.
Music
World Music and Folk Instruments
Travel around the world and discover folk instruments. Make your own instruments and play them to accompany various songs, chants and dances. Includes additional resources with lessons on musical instruments, cultural heritage and the science of sound and music.
Dolls
Explore dolls from around the world and make your own paper dolls.
How to make Corn Husk Dolls!
Suitable for students in upper elementary and middle school, this guide provides a focus to explore our early ancestors, their biological traits and cultural behaviors.
Suitable for upper elementary and middle school students, this guide provides a focus to study the material remains and archaeological processes of Southwest Puebloan sites presented in the exhibition.
For grades 2-4, this worksheet directs students to look closely at, and think and write about an object in the museum.
For grades 9-12, this worksheet directs students to look closely at, and think and write about an object in the museum.
For grades 5 - 8, this worksheet directs students to look closely at, and think and write about an object in the museum.
For group visits, please share these guidelines with all students, teachers and chapreones visiting the museum and ask for their cooperation to make everyone's visit a pleasant one.
Interdisciplinary lessons for grades 3-5 to utilize the hands-on materials in the loan kit focusing on indigenous communities of the Bering Sea region, their material culture, art, environment, and lifestyle.
These archived activities of the Weaving Generations Together exhibition provide information and ideas for hands-on activities exploring the traditional weaving practices of the Maya of Chiapas, Mexico.
Visual Literacy exercises for grades 6 and up that use Sabino Osuna’s photographs to understand how visual images shaped events of the Mexican Revolution as they were happening and, as primary sources, add to our understanding of this chapter of Mexican history in a broader context.
3rd- 5th grade curriculum to supplement the Maxwell Museum’s signature museum visit experience. Taking an interdisciplinary approach, lessons include storytelling, analysis, vocabulary exercises, art projects, and more, to look for evidence within objects that provide an invaluable source of information about human behavior.
