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DICTATIONS FIRST SENIORS (7,8,9)

Everyday Life for the Mayas

Maya women rose and started the fires before 4 a.m. Women made breakfast toasting leftover cornmeal pancakes. By 5 a.m., the men had finished eating and left for the fields with their sons. There they harvested their maize. At mid-afternoon, men and boys used to return from the fields and sometimes hunt or check their traps along the way. They used to kill birds with blowpipes and clay pellets. Sometimes they also hunted with spears. When the men got home they had hot baths waiting for them. Some cities had community baths. After bathing, men had dinner but their women didn’t eat with them. The women had to serve the men and then eat their dinner later. Dinner included cornmeal, black beans, meat, maize, rabbit and turkey.After dinner, men usually worked at making wooden and jade objects which were sometimes used in trading. The women would spin cotton and weave.

Ants

Ants are small, dark and silent, and live underground where they cannot be seen. They are venomous and bite, move in legions, and are ugly. But ants are the most successful organisms in evolutionary history. There are over 8,000 species, distributed everywhere on Earth, except in the polar regions. The greatest number of ant species are found in tropical rainforests and savannahs.
Ants, unlike termites, cannot be eaten, because of the formic acid in their bodies, which makes them indigestible, although they can eat us.
Ants are so successful because they have the division of labour built into their system. The colony is almost exclusively female, and the males remain in the nest until the time of their fatal nuptial flight. They mate once, and then die. Ants waste no time and do not play.

Igloos

Every five-year-old knows what igloos look like from the outside, but what are they like inside? And what would it be like to live in one? Imagine yourself inside a hollow dome made of snow and ice, with more ice underneath you. Would it be too cold to sit down comfortably? Would you be able to stand up, or would you have to crawl around on your hands and knees? Could you light a fire? Wouldn’t the fire fill the igloo with smoke and start melting the walls?
The first thing you notice after crawling down through the entrance tunnel is that the igloo is bigger than it looks from the outside. It is also quite warm inside. this is partly because the snow blocks provide very good insulation, and partly because of a stone lamp burning seal oil. To prevent the drips from the snow wall there are animal skins hanging across the ceiling and down the walls. There’s also a small hole which allows the smoke to escape, so that the people don’t suffocate.

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