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6th grade · Social Studies · Unit 2 of 9

Trade Routes & Beliefs

Silk Road, religions and ideas

What your child practices

The Silk Road and Indian Ocean trade, how religions and ideas spread, the Islamic Golden Age, medieval Europe and the Magna Carta, up to about 1450.

Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills (TEKS) teks student expectation: 6.15(A); 6.15(D); 6.17(A) · how trade and travel spread goods, ideas and religions between cultures

How we explain it

Children can open this short lesson before they practice.

  1. Cultural diffusion is ideas and goods spreading, like paper-making from China to the Middle East and Europe.
  2. Religions: Judaism was one of the first to worship one God; Mecca is the holiest city of Islam.
  3. Feudalism: lords gave land to knights for service; serfs worked a lord's land. The Black Death killed about a third of Europe.

Example: Which is an example of cultural diffusion? Diffusion means spreading out. Paper-making spread from China to other lands. Answer: paper-making spreading from China to Europe

Trade Routes & Beliefs in Texas

In the Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills (TEKS), this is unit 2 of 9 in 6th grade Social Studies, after Time & Evidence and before Economies of the World.

Gradelings describes a child's practice on this unit as Beginning, Approaching, Meeting or Exceeding (Four practice steps). That reflects practice, not a report-card mark: the teacher decides the mark.

Source: Texas Education Agency (TEA)

Sample questions

A taste of this unit. In the app, questions change every time and get easier or harder to match your child.

  1. Question 1

    Mecca, in present-day Saudi Arabia, is important in Islam because…

    • Confucius lived there
    • Jesus was born there
    • It is the holiest city, the place Muslims face to pray
    • The Buddha taught there

  2. Question 2

    Islam began in Arabia in the 600s CE with the teachings of…

    • Confucius
    • Jesus
    • Moses
    • The Prophet Muhammad

  3. Question 3

    Judaism is…

    • A Chinese philosophy
    • One of the oldest religions to worship one God (monotheism)
    • A religion of many gods
    • A Roman law

  4. Question 4

    The Black Death in the 1340s was…

    • A war with China
    • A plague that killed about a third of Europe's people
    • A great flood
    • A kind of armor

  5. Question 5

    Which is an example of cultural diffusion?

    • Paper-making spreading from China to the Middle East and Europe
    • A child growing taller
    • A river flooding
    • A volcano erupting

  6. Question 6

    How did monsoon winds help Indian Ocean trade?

    • They froze the ocean
    • They had no effect
    • They stopped all ships
    • Ships sailed one way in one season and back in the other

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