On a hot sunny day 3700 years ago in the city of Nippur under the rule of the Hammurabi Dynasty (circa 1900 - 1600 BC) a young boy was learning to be a scribe.
His classroom was most likely in a private home; his materials: a reed stylus and clay tablets.
The lesson of the day was to practice writing thousand year old Sumerian cuneiform characters.
Higher levels of Babylonian learning involved studying the Sumerian roots of their civilization.
Literacy and knowledge were the tickets to a prosperous life as a scribe in the ever-growing government and religious bureaucracies.
The day's lesson was a routine, but important, practice in handwriting and vocabulary.

The Round School Tablet

from the Babylonian city of Nippur during the Hammurabi Dynasty

This type of school tablet is called a "lentil" or "bun."
The convex shaped back fits naturally into the palm of the hand.
There are 4 rows of signs on the front of the tablet.
The teacher in ancient Nippur inscribed the signs in rows 1 and 2.
The student then took the soft tablet and copied the text into rows 3 and 4.

Our student was learning Sumerian signs that were already 1000 years old.
The signs in row 1 were pronounced gi-gur which translates "reed basket."
Row 2 reads gi-gur-da and that means a type of large reed basket.
This lesson was both for handwriting and vocabulary.

Info @ http://www.museum.upenn.edu/new/Games/cuneiform.shtml