Lesson video

Hello, my name is Mr. Cooper, and I will be your teacher for the next four lessons.

And then we have a new inquiry that you're starting in this lesson, which is how did the Mongols create a world empire? Really, really cool story.

Maybe cool is the wrong word, a bit gory, quite interesting lots going on.

So we've got lots of covering in lessons, and today we're going to be starting with Genghis Khan or in fact we should pronounce it, Chingis but we're not going to worry too much about that.

So if you haven't had me as a teacher before, no problem.

What I asked you to do at the start of every lesson we'll do this four times with this particular inquiry, a piece of paper, date of whatever day you're doing this lesson and then the title.

So underlying, both tidy notes, tidy minds, and most importantly, hide your phone, chuck it.

Well, don't throw it, hide it somewhere.

Give it to your parent or your carer, to a sibling that you trust and leave it.

You don't need it.

We don't need to be connected all the time.

It's not necessary.

So we're going to focus on Genghis Khan, really, really interesting character.

Yeah, well, I won't go into it now, but we'll get into it with this lesson.

So pause now, restart when you're done and then we'll get going with the lesson.

So I would, first of all like to you to make sure that you have written down this title, very simple Genghis Khan.

We can also actually call him Chingis.

So Chingis is actually the correct way of saying this word but historians and people in the West in this country usually say Genghis.

So Genghis Khan and then put the dates as I just mentioned.

And then we will start with the lesson.

So pause now just to make sure you've got it all sorted and then we will get going with the lesson.

So I'm going to to tell you a little story about a role that interesting character.

So this boy was born in about 1167, so about 850 years ago.

And this is the kind of world that he was born in to.

You might see those tents in the background, they're called yurts.

And you'll see a few people moving around on horses.

So this is the kind of world that this boy was born into.

His name was Temujin and he had a very unpleasant first few years.

So he was the son, one of several, he had several brothers, but he was the son of an important leader of a tribe, a Mongol tribe.

And his father was poisoned and his father died and Temujin was hoping that he would become the next leader of this tribe, this group, unfortunately for Temujin because he was young, he was rejected and the tribe decided to kick him and his family out of this tribe and leave them to die.

So Temujin and his family spent several years living in very difficult conditions.

And starving, lived in very, very difficult conditions.

Now, boy, Temujin would end up becoming the man that we know as Genghis Khan, one of the most powerful men to have ever lived.

On the story that I will be telling you about today and also in the lessons after is how did it happen that this young boy, this boy who some people say was born holding a blood clot in his hand and of course this probably didn't happen, but in the Mongol world, when somebody was born with a blood clot in their hand, it meant he was destined to be a great leader.

So how was it that this starving boy, Temujin ended up becoming one of the most powerful feared men in the world, very interesting story.

Just to give you an idea of the timeline that we're talking in now.

So on the, the screen, you'll have a timeline 1st century on the left, right the way ever to 2000 in over on the right.

So actually that should say one A.

D.

that should say one.

There's no such thing as zero, year zero.

It should say one, my apologies.

So on the screen, we have a timeline.

Now on the screen, you should hopefully recognise most of those things that are on the screen.

If you don't, don't worry, but these are quite common, quite common events that you might've come across already.

So we have the birth of Jesus Christ.

So we measured our, we'd work out what you were in based on how long ago Jesus Christ was born.

So we are now on the present day and that's 2020.

So today's 2020, rewind 2120 years ago, the birth of Jesus Christ.

Now we have the fall of the Roman empire in just coming up to 500.

Then we have the battle of Hastings, 1066.

And then we have Henry VIII in the early 16th century so around 1509.

Henry VIII, of course had six wives, divorced, beheaded, died, divorced, beheaded, survived.

So you must've seen it on horrible histories, for example.

So we, aren't going to be talking about, and you'll see this orange box has now appeared the rise of the Mongol empire.

So what I've done, I've just given you an idea of which period we're talking about.

So the rise of the Mongol empire and this really is the story of this boy Temujin who becomes Genghis Khan, the rise of the Mongol empire.

We're talking about between a roughly 1170, it's about a hundred years after the battle of Hastings to the end of the 13th century.

So it's a period of about 100, 150 years.

So this inquiry will be looking at this period of time.

So this is just to make sure you've got it clear what period of time we're talking in.

And just to give you an idea of where we're talking about.

So orange arrow pointing out London, this country, blue arrow pointing at Mongolia.

So this is the map today.

So of course these lines were different that's the mark where these countries were because lots of these countries didn't exist.

So the blue arrow is pointing out the area that Temujin who became Genghis where he lived.

Now, if you wanted to walk there, it would take you, as you can see on the map, hopefully 1,678 hours, it's a long way away and we'll be learned, so this is just to give you an idea of the location we're talking about, because you might not have studied when you might not have looked at the history of different parts of the world yet.

So this is just to give you an idea.

So we've got the timeline where we are all about 100 years after the battle of Hastings in 1066.

And we're going to the other side of the world to an area called Mongolia today.

And very importantly, we're going to be talking about the steppe.

Now, the step is, the first picture I showed you of the people on horseback and the tents in the background.

That was an picture of the steppe.

Now, this is a word you might not have come across, the word, the steppe is a type of climate, a type of environment.

Now we can actually call this area in the orange circle, it's called, it's a particular steppe, but we have this type of environment all over the world.

And it's a particular type of climate and the Mongolians, Temujin and the tribes, this was their world.

This was their world.

And it was an unusual world because this world was not like the world that we live in for many reasons.

But the reason that the Mongols lived the way they lived was determined, it was decided by the kind of environment that they grew up in.

And here's this picture again.

So I just want you for a moment to pause here, and I want you to look at this picture, and I want you to look at the question I've put on the screen.

Why do you think this sort of environment would be difficult to live in? Simple question, what's there or what's not there actually, that might the best way of thinking about it.

What is not there that you think would make life easier? The steppe was a very difficult place to live, and this really affected how the Mongols lived.

So pause it then just restart when you're done.

So I'm going to put a few things on the board that I think are the important ones.

So, first of all, and actually you wouldn't have known, you probably wouldn't have noticed this from a picture, but I'm just going to tell you about this particular environment.

So the temperature can range from minus 55 degrees Celsius in winter to plus 45 degrees in summer.

So we're talking extreme temperatures, very extreme temperatures.

And actually that's one of the reasons that the picture shows us very few trees are no farms, and there we go, impossible to farm crops.

So again, we get a lot of our foods, and this has been the way for many, many hundreds of years.

Wheat all these grains, these kinds of crops, they require a temperature that doesn't get too extreme.

I think about how hot it got, it has been in this country in the last few years during the summer, all the time in the steppe and even hotter, actually.

So we're talking 45 degrees in the summer, minus 55 degrees in winter.

So this makes it very difficult to farm crops, another problem, no trees.

So again, in this country, lots of trees, there used to be many, many more trees actually, but they were chopped down to make space for fields.

In the steppe, no trees to use for buildings.

So this is why the Mongols lived in these little tents.

Well, they were actually very big tent actually, they need to call yurts.

And there are groups of Mongols that still live in these yurts.

And this is partly because, there's other reasons for it but partly because there's very little wood to build, to use to build a more permanent homes.

And this is the key here.

So because life was so difficult on the steppe, people living that moved around as nomads to find grass for their horses to graze on.

So this is the really important bit here.

The Mongolians were nomads.

Now a nomad is someone that doesn't live in one place.

They move around.

Why do they move around? Well, they need to find grass for their horses to eat.

So obviously if you put a horse in a field and leave it there for about a year, it will eat all the grass.

And then there's no more grass for the horse to eat.

The horse will die.

And then the people who need the horse for food for transport will be in a difficult situation.

So the nomads, the Mongolian nomads moved around looking for grass for their horses.

And this is something that is really important when we think about the kind of fighting the kind of, the way in which the Mongols attacked and invaded very, very effectively, all of these communities and these countries around Mongolia, very simply the Mongols were fast, very fast.

They could move very quickly along a whole, across the whole steppe.

Remember that picture with the orange circle? It was like a motorway in a sense, a giant horse motorway, possibly not the best description, but you get the idea.

So talking about horses, what do you think made horses such an important part of the Mongol armies? So again, this is a picture that was painted maybe not directly at the time that Temujin was in Mongolia, but when we talk about the Mongol armies, the Mongol tribes' horses were the most important part of their armies.

Pause here why, very simply just pause here and think of a few reasons why that might be.

It's not that complicated actually.

And I gave you a bit of a clue just before.

So simply put, horses were fast, very, very fast.

And actually the particular type of horse that Mongols had, they were known to be very, very reliable.

They were fast and they could deal with these extreme temperatures and actually Mongol, multiple soldiers, they usually had more than one horse.

So when one horse got tired, they could hop on the back of the other horse.

The horses, this is also quite interesting.

The horses were also a food source for the Mongols.

So they rode on the horse and then they ate the horse, which is a bit grim for us, perhaps.

But yeah, that was a, it just meant that they could eat, it'd be like eating your car.

Not like don't eat your car, but the point is they could travel long distances and they also had the source of food they could rely on.

So what happened? Well, we're talking about in this lesson, the starts of Mongol, Temujin this starving boy becoming Genghis Khan in 1206.

So in 1206, Temujin has done something very, very important and you'll read about this in a moment.

He has brought together all of these different Mongol tribes into one united tribe.

And by 1279, this is the land that he controls.

So I'm just going to return.

So you can see 1286, 1279 so in a short space of time, it wasn't just him so Temujin who became Genghis Khan, he died in 1220s but then his children continued expanding the empire.

So stretching, right the way across from China, all the way to Eastern Europe.

And this is why we are learning about this particular empire.

It was a huge one.

So what you're going to do now is something that you may have done already, but I'm going to explain to you just to make absolutely clear what you have to do.

You're going to, in a short moment, pause this video.

You're going to close the video and you're going to click next on the bottom right hand corner of the screen.

You're going to move to the next part of the lesson.

You'll then find some slides that you're going to read through, not too much.

You're going to read through these slides.

And then at the end of those slides, you're going to find these five questions.

And what I want you to do is to answer these five questions in full sentences.

Now, this is really important.

I don't want you to write single word answers.

I want you to write full sentences because part of becoming a good historian is learning how to write well, historians, what do they do? Well, they read and they write, so this is exactly what we're going to be doing now in this lesson, when you've done that, you're going to come back to the video and then I'm going to talk through the answers.

So do it, do the best you can.

Don't worry as you find it too hard, that's absolutely fine.

And I will then go through the questions, the answers with you together.

So pause the video now, read the slides, answer the comprehension questions and resume the video.

Once you're finished, don't want you to be taking hours over this, but don't also don't rush it.

Hopefully you'll be interested in the topic about Genghis Khan.

He's a pretty interesting character.

So do your best and then return in a short moment.

So first question, the screen, the answers on your screen might not be the answers that you've written down exactly, but that's fine.

It's just to give you an idea of the kind of thing I want you to want you to be writing.

So, first question, what does Genghis Khan mean? Well, the acceptable answer, it means universal ruler.

The good answer, Genghis Khan means universal ruler.

Now the difference isn't huge.

It might not seem huge to you on the screen, but there's a big difference.

The good answer is a full sentence, and it's reusing the words of the question so that if you want to come back your notes or your book in the future, that would be a very useful thing to see.

If you just came back to your notes and you saw a universal ruler, not very helpful because it wouldn't make any sense.

It would just be to do random words on a page.

So this is why we do these full sentences and why I'm going to keep going on about it in the next few lessons as well.

So next question, why was the steppe a difficult place to live? Acceptable answer, extreme weather.

True, but I want more, I want full sentences and more detail.

So the good answer, the steppe was a difficult place to live because the weather was so extreme.

It made it impossible to farm crops.

So people living there relied on animals for food and clothes.

So that is a fuller answer.

It's giving me more information and it just reads better than the acceptable answer.

So this is the kind of answer I'd like you to be going for.

Three, what is a nomad? Acceptable answer, someone who moves around.

I'm not even sure that's acceptable, to be honest, the good answer, a nomad is a person who doesn't live in one place all year round, but instead moves around from place to place.

So there are all sorts of nomads.

We're talking about particular type of nomad in Mongolia, but then lots of people aren't nomadic, that's the adjective so again, the good answer is a full sentence, giving you more information.

Why was Temujin such an effective leader? So again, Temujin, the name of, his name, Genghis Khan his title that he was given in 1206, the acceptable, sorry, I've just gone to the next one.

The acceptable answer, he killed his enemies and rewarded his followers.

Simple, that's acceptable, that's true.

The good answer, Temujin was such an effective leader because he killed those who refuse to accept him and rewarded the people who were loyal to him.

So again, more information about Temujin and what made him such a powerful leader and yeah, you can clearly see the difference between the acceptable answer and the good answer and question five, why do you think horses played such an important part of Mongol life? To really understand the success of the Mongols, the success of Genghis Khan, why the Mongol empire became so big.

We have to understand this relationship between the Mongols themselves and the horses, because this really was the thing that made them such an effective fighting force.

So the acceptable answer, they provided food and the way to travel, the good answer horses played such an important part of Mongol life because they were source of food, made travelling long distances easy and allowed Mongol armies to attack quickly.

So clear difference between the acceptable answer and the good answer.

So we are now going to do a writing activity, do not panic.

I do not want you to do more, spend more than maximum 10 minutes on this.

We're going to answer this question together.

How did a boy Temujin unite the Mongol tribes? So what this exercise is going to do is, it's going to bring together all this knowledge that we've learned in this lesson so far.

And then we're going to turn into a nice paragraph and the answer these question clearly.

Now, the reason we do this is as I've already mentioned, historians read and they write.

And the two skills that we're going to be practising in each lesson that we do are those two skills, reading, which you've already done.

And then we're going to be writing a good paragraph that clearly brings everything together.

So don't panic, lots of word on the screen.

I'm not going to ask you to, it's a very simple task.

What I'm going to ask you to do now is to pause here.

And what I want you to do is then work out which of the following statements would help you, answer a question about how Temujin united the Mongol tribes.

So on the screen, there were six sentences.

They're all true, but not all of them are going to be useful for answering this question that I've just put on the screen.

So I want you now to pause the screen, pause the video and to copy down the sentences that you think are going to help you answer this question.

So don't take too long on it.

See how you do.

I will then tell you, which, but I want you to have a go first.

So this is all of this stuff that we've learned about in this lesson just now, which is great.

I mean, think about this stuff.

Think about how useful it is that you know this stuff already.

Now we need to make work out which bits of information are going to be useful for answering this question.

So pause now have a go.

So I have crossed off three and I've kept three.

So make sure those three sentences are on your notes or in your books, because we're going to be using these to write this paragraph in a moment, those are the three things that I think are going to be most useful to help you write this answer.

The other ones are true, but they're not really going to help you talk about Temujin specifically.

Those sentences are describing the world in which Temujin lived.

So make sure you've got those three sentences written down, and then we will go to the last part of this activity.

So to write a good paragraph, how do we do this when we're writing in history? Well, the first sentence has to clearly answer the question.

So the question is, how did a boy called Temujin unite the Mongol tribes, the first sentence reuses the word in the sentence, a boy called Temujin united the Mongol tribes by, so then we, then we simply finish that sentence, clear first sentence means I know exactly what your answer is going to be.

And then the rest of your paragraph is going to be explaining that first sentence.

So this is because that is why an example of this is when, and then if you have another idea, you can have a second point.

He also united the Mongol tribes by, dah, dah, dah, dah.

In addition, he did dah dah, dah, dah, dah.

So these are just some ideas for how you might want to start your sentence.

So what you've got hopefully got on your notes now is a few sentences and some comprehension answers giving these different ideas about how Temujin, who Temujin was, what did he do? How did he become Genghis Khan in 1286? And then what we need to then do is turn this into a nice paragraph, no more than five or six sentences, starting with those sentence starters, and then writing those sentences out.

So take a few minutes.

I don't want you to spend these spending hours doing this.

This is all about practise.

I have to do a very similar thing with my A level students.

So 17, 18 year olds, they also have to do this.

So this is all about practise.

So don't worry if you find this difficult, that's absolutely fine.

If you didn't find it difficult, you wouldn't need to study history at school, simple as that.

So have a go and then when you're done restart the video.

And that brings us to the final slide.

So normally I would get to see what my students are writing and I really missing what my students are writing and what you can do, again, this isn't compulsory.

You don't have to do it, but if you'd like to, you can share your work with Oak National so I can have a look.

So what all you need to do is ask your parents or carer to share your work on Instagram, Facebook, or Twitter, tagging @OakNational and #LearnwithOak.

So that would be, I'd love to see the stuff that you're producing.

Don't worry if you don't want to, it's not compulsory.

It's just because I would like to see.

So that brings us to the end of the lesson.

So that brings us to the end of the first lesson of our four lesson inquiry and looking at the Mongol empire I hope you find it interesting.

I certainly did, a bit gory, very good story, but we'll be continuing.

It doesn't all, it's not all gory actually very important.

We must bear this in mind.

We're coming to, we'll be looking at this in the next few lessons.

So this is why we start and then we build up the knowledge that we get over the four lessons.

And to do that, you need to do a quiz.

Every lesson there's a short quiz, it might seem a bit annoying, but it won't take you long.

It is just to make sure that the stuff that you've learned today in this lesson is stuck in your brain which is the goal, which is the goal.

We want to have interesting stuff in your brains after each lesson.

So do that and then enjoy your day.