The House I Live In: Rome

The HBO Rome series is excellent. There were great pains to be historically accurate and Polly Walker is worth the price of admission alone. Digitizing will allow editing out the violence and nudity. HBO has several behind the scenes clips for historical perspective and the web site has much of value. Any 6th grade class that wants to take on the home theme and stay within the 6th grade scope and sequence would be well advised to go with Ancient Rome. Here's the 6th grade content by the books: Grade 6: The Eastern HemisphereThe grade 6 social studies program emphasizes the interdependence of all people, keying on the Eastern Hemisphere. Many of the lessons and activities for this grade level draw on specific examples of nations and regions in the Eastern Hemisphere chosen by the district. It is highly recommended that lessons also compare and contrast this specific information with similar data from the United States, Canada, and Latin America. The grade 6 program focuses on a social science perspective emphasizing the interaction of geography and economics. The core disciplines of geography and economics are used to develop and draw relationships and understandings about social/cultural, political, and historic aspects of life in the Eastern Hemisphere. Historical insights are used as a means of developing a total perspective rather than on organizing framework. The focus should be on major turning points that segue into the 7th-grade social history of the United States. Each district has a responsibility for extending the student’s content examples from cultures other than the student’s own, and from a variety of geographic, socioeconomic, ethnic, and racial groups. History of Eastern Hemisphere nations
H1. Time can be measured in years, decades, centuries, and millennia.
H2. Key tuning points and events in the histories of Eastern Hemisphere nations can be organized into different historical time periods. The study of Eastern Hemisphere nations should include
countries from each continent.
H3. Different peoples may view the same event or issue from different perspectives.
H4. The Neolithic revolution was a technological development that radically changed the nature of human society.
H5. As the river civilizations of the Eastern Hemisphere (Mesopotamia, Egypt, China, and the Indus valley) turned to agriculture, world populations grew. (Focus on two of these.)