Ancient India Activities
Ancient India Lesson Plans
If you’re an Ancient Civilizations teacher and need some Ancient India activities for your unit, you’re in the right place! We’ve compiled our top free and paid resources to help you have a successful Ancient India unit. We want to help you succeed, whether you use these as an outline or to help supplement your existing unit! All links and resources below are what we personally use in our Ancient India unit.
Ancient India Activities for Middle School
Introductory Vocabulary Activities
Just like all of our units, we start them off with vocabulary-based activities. These vocabulary activities for Google Drive are fun ways for students to practice the Ancient India vocabulary words in a variety of ways. They range from matching, fill-in-the-blank, synonyms and antonyms, quizlet links, everything you would need for vocabulary!
Ancient India Word Wall
Along with our vocab activities, we always find that word walls are a great vocabulary tool! This resource includes 24 Ancient India vocab words ready to print and display on a bulletin board. And because images are included on every card, they’re also helpful for your visual learners! Even better, an editable Google Slideshow is included with all words and images, so you can edit the definitions as needed!
Never used an ancient civilization word wall before? This blog post will teach you how to set up, organize, and use them effectively in your classroom!
Ancient India Inquiry Activity
Once we complete vocabulary, we like to incorporate inquiry in our unit to help students build analyzing skills. This image analysis and prediction activity gives students the chance to observe a selection of 8 images that pertain to the geography and history of Ancient India. Students not only have to describe what they see but also make predictions about the image’s significance. We like this activity because you can use it for any ancient civilization unit!
Introductory Research Activity
If you’re looking for a simple and no-prep research activity, this resource helps provide context about Ancient India by connecting it to present-day India. It also helps peak student’s curiosity about things they’ll learn throughout the unit. The resource goes through topics such as geography, language, population, and more!
Monsoon Videos
One critical part of understanding India is the monsoons and how they affect life in India both past and present. There’s no shortage of videos on monsoons, but one video we like to use gives a general overview of monsoons. Another video we’ve found was uploaded in July of 2020, regarding how the Indian population has had to combat monsoons while experiencing Covid-19. It’s a great way to discuss how geographical weather has its benefits but also its drawbacks and consequences.
Ancient India Mapping Activity
After discussing monsoons, it’s a good time to transition into geography. Instead of having students label a traditional paper map, this activity has students create a visual map of important landmarks. In addition to labeling the locations from the slide, students find and include a photograph of each landmark on their map. This allows students to better visualize what these places look like and offers more relevance than just labeling a paper map.
Ancient India Bell Ringers
If you’re looking to improve your classroom management and help students review material, these bell ringers are perfect! This set includes 20 Ancient India Bell Ringers for Google Drive that are 100% editable and ready to use. These warm-up prompts cover a variety of topics that come up in an Ancient India unit while also building helpful skills!
Ancient India Daily Agenda Slides
Need a way to stay more organized during your Ancient India Unit? These Ancient India Daily Agenda Slides Templates will help you save time and better immerse your students in the unit! These 22 slides for Google Drive are editable and each template features an Ancient India-themed photograph, as well as clipart. They can be used to share your daily agenda, bell ringers, and more!
If you haven’t ever used agenda slides, check out our recent blog post for more details on daily agenda slides!
Ancient India Slideshow + Note Sheet
We find it helpful to share background information at the start of the unit, so students can make connections during other activities. With this Ancient India Slideshow for Google Slides, teach your students about the GRAPES of Ancient India! This 47-slide Google Slideshow provides a detailed overview of Ancient India, including geography, Hinduism, the Gupta Empire, and much more! This no-prep resource also includes both printable and digital note sheets!
History 101: Mohenjo-Daro Video
For more geography activities, there’s a great video from National Geographic that gives an overview of Mohenjo-Daro and what it’s about. It gets into the layout, when it existed, and what mysteriously happened to them and why they might’ve disappeared.
Explore Mohenjo-Daro
For more activities on Mohenjo-Daro, we’ve found a website from the British Museum that goes over the subject really well. This website is a little old-school, but it does provide students a chance to click around a bit and explore some different artifacts that were found at Mohenjo-Daro. It’s also a great primary source for students to use.
Ancient India Early Finisher Activity or Emergency Sub Plan
To help build upon Mohenjo-Daro, we’ve got an early finisher activity that combines elements of Mohenjo-Daro with urban planning. We usually like to have these kinds of activities as a little extra project during the unit, but it’s perfect to finish up your Mohenjo-Daro discussion! Students have to build their own Mohenjo-Daro while sticking to a budget, guidelines, and specific resources. It’s a fun, low maintenance activity that can wrap up discussion and understand the process of urban planning and budgeting.
Caste System Reading and Activity
Building off of the previous activity, we also have the Caste System vs. American Society resource. It’s a reading diving into what the Caste System is about and comparing life in India to the United States. It compares how in Ancient India, regardless of your qualifications, you would be stuck in the Caste you were born in, and the inequalities of opportunities in American society today. It helps get across these difficult, sometimes abstract concepts to students.
Ancient India Timeline Activity
If you’re looking to make your Ancient India Unit more hands-on and engaging, this printable Ancient India Timeline is the resource you need! In this interactive timeline project, students construct a timeline that features reading passages, maps, and images. The information included in these features covers the Indus Valley Civilization, Vedic Period, Mauryan Empire, and the Gupta Empire. Not only will this activity give students the chance to physically build a timeline, but it will also become a learning tool that they can refer back to throughout the unit!
Overview of Hinduism and Buddhism
Another topic you can’t forget about when teaching Ancient India is addressing two of our five major world religions. Hinduism and Buddhism both originated in India, and like discussing any religion, just be conscious of how you present information. Hinduism can be difficult for students to understand, but we’ve found a video that does a great job presenting it. There’s another video that’s great for Buddhism, discussing the story of Buddha and what the religion is about.
Hinduism and Buddhism ABC Slideshow
An activity that students can do with the information from the videos is this Google Slideshow activity. It’s a great in-class activity for students to work through a variety of vocabulary words and topics within Hinduism and Buddhism. Students have to find the definition of each word and which religion they belong to. This allows them to organize their thoughts in a way that helps them better understand the material.
Ancient India Job Fair
When discussing the major leaders of Ancient India, a fun way we’ve presented it is through a job fair activity. In this activity, students are given resumes of different leaders, and they decide who to hire for specific jobs. We love this activity because students get the opportunity to have some career practice from the evaluator’s perspective. We love this activity, as it can work with other ancient civilizations as well!
Ancient India Test + Study Guide
At the end of your unit, you can assess your students using this Ancient India Test and Study Guide. The test is perfectly aligned to the other resources mentioned in this activity guide, 100% editable and available in 2 different formats: Google Forms (self-grading) and Google Docs. The day before the test, have a review day with the provided study guide, and then give the exam in whichever format works best for you!
Ancient India Newscast Project
For a great assessment assignment, we like to use a newscast project at the end of the unit. In this activity, students take on roles connecting to one component of Ancient India or the unit. Then as a class, they put together a complete news broadcast with a variety of different segments! It’s a nice way to sum everything up that students have learned throughout the unit. So while it starts out as an individual project, it comes together wonderfully as a class project during the presentation!
Ancient India Printable Bookmarks
These printable Ancient India Bookmarks are a fun addition to your Ancient India unit! This set includes four different designs that feature images and clipart that are related to Ancient India. The bookmarks are 100% black and white so that students can color in the images or personalize them as they wish! These coloring bookmarks make a great prize, short early finisher activity, or can even help students save time when using their textbooks!
Ancient India Unit Plan
When teaching any ancient civilization, it’s always important to have activities that make the content fun and engaging for students. If you liked any of our Ancient India activities, you’ll love our Ancient India Unit Bundle! This bundle contains 17 resources and is a great way to supplement your textbook or curriculum materials about Ancient India! We’ve had great success with these resources, and our students had a blast!
As of 2024, we now have all of our Ancient Civilizations unit bundles available on our own website, which you can check out here. We believe the organization to be even better than how you can receive the files on TPT, and it also helps if your school district blocks Google Drive files from TPT!
Looking for ideas and inspiration when planning your Ancient India unit? If so, this free Ancient India resource guide can help! It showcases each of our Ancient India resources to help you decide which options will be best for your students. For more details about how we fit these resources together and how long we spend on each activity, you can also download our free Ancient India unit plan!
If you liked this list of 16 Ancient India Activities for Middle School, consider watching the corresponding video here!
Are you looking for some new teaching ideas to engage your students in your social studies class? If so, you’ll love our FREE guide: 5 Creative Projects to Ignite Student Engagement in Your Social Studies Class. These activities have both printable and digital options and can work for any social studies subject!
