Ancient Greece Unit Study
Objective: My daughter requested a tour of the ancient world, starting in Greece. While exploring the ancient world, we wanted to examine some myths, and learn about some of their contributions to science, math and the arts. I create daily worksheets dealing with the days topic and a daily chore. My daughter gets five or six questions while my son gets three or four. I include questions about the activity of the day and if there is room, either math (simple equations or word problems) or language arts questions (like rhyme, syllables, synonyms).
Spelling List and Sentence of the Week for K/1st grader:
Language Arts lessons include some simple questions about the spelling list, like finding the nouns, making rhymes or counting syllables. We read and write our sentence of the week every weekday.
Greece, stars, triangle, volume, hope, fear, olive, boat, space, horse
Athena is wise.
Hermes is fast.
Ares is mad.
Zeus is strong.
Iris loves rainbows.
Myths:
Every week we read a myth and did an activity based around the myth. For the first week, we read the Greek creation story and about Pandora's box. We found an old box and wrote down some of the things that scare us to put inside the box. Then we taped the box shut and taped words that help us fight our fear, like love and hope on the outside.
Next we read about Cepheus, Cassiopeia and Andromeda. This is a great story for learning about constellations, as all the key players were placed in the sky. I love that Cassiopeia was punished for her vanity by sitting on a throne that is sometimes upside down. We made our own constellations, playing connect the dot and went outside to look at some constellations. Cepheus and Cassiopeia are pretty easy to recreate, so we drew their constellations. Cepheus is a slightly uneven house shape, with a square on the bottom and triangle on top. Cassiopeia is a lopsided W.
We read the story of the Trojan horse. For those who like papier mache, this is the perfect opportunity to make a horse or other pinata, and make a hypothesis about how many of a certain object you can fit inside. You could do the same with a pre-made pinata, if you don't want to make one. My kids don't like papier mache, so I did a very simple activity. I wrote the word horse in bubble letters and let them fill the letters.
After reading about the Trojan war, the Odyssey is a perfect next step. There are many adaptations of this story, each including different encounters Odysseus faced along the way. We read two different versions. Both including the encounter with the Cyclops, and we talked about the wisdom of introducing himself as no one. We also read about Charbydis, Circe, and the sirens. My daughter in particular liked the sirens. Both stories also ended with his faithful wife and the challenge she set forth to all her suitors. After enjoying the story, we designed our own boats for Odysseus out of Legos, as well as recycled materials boats using plastic bottles or aluminum foil. We love making boats and testing whether they will float, then adding passenger pennies to test them.
We ended our Monday myths with the story of Persephone and Hades. This story deals with some darker themes, as Hades literally kidnaps Persephone and tricks her into having to stay with him by getting her to eat some pomegranate seeds. But the compromise struck in the end is a great take on the reason for the seasons. Hades is so often portrayed as the bad guy, and his methods in this story reflect that, but Persephone does at least have a positive influence on him and helps to soften his heart. We used this opportunity to try some pomegranate seeds. My daughter used to be an adventurous eater, but my son's unwillingness to try new foods has pushed her into a pickier realm. This story was a great excuse to try something both of them thought they wouldn't like.
Math:
At least once a week, our math activities would tie in with a different theme from ancient Greece. Our first week, we read stories about Pythagoras. Julie Ellis wrote two great books, one about angles and the other about ratios. These are both fun stories. After reading, these stories we read another great book; this one by David Adler. He has a number of great math books for kids on different topics, but since we were talking about Pythagoras, we started with Triangles. We practiced making different types of triangles, especially right triangles. We talked about multiplication and the classic 3,4,5 triangle with the Pythagorean formula.
Our second week, we talked about Euclid. We couldn't find any kids books about Euclid, but we talked about how he was an ancient Greek mathematician. He was known for Geometry, so we practiced drawing and dividing shapes. We also talked about how Euclid encouraged the use of logic and fact when making an argument. We chose the argument "Why should our family have pizza for dinner?". We worked together to make a chart, asking people if they thought we should have pizza for dinner or not. Then my daughter presented her argument.
Our third week, we continued our work with shapes, and talked about pi. My kids mostly have an idea about the first three digits of pi because we usually celebrate pi day. We read another David Adler book that had some fun monster dimensions, Perimeter, Area, and Volume. After we discussed perimeter and area in shapes like rectangles, we talked about the challenge in measuring circles. We found the radius and diameter and practiced dividing circles.
The fourth week, we talked about squaring a number and finding a square root. We don't dive in deep to these topics, but we introduced the topic. We drew a square and made three columns and three rows, and counted the squares inside. So 3 groups of 3 equals 9. We tried it again with a square divided into 4 columns and rows, making 16 little squares inside.
The fifth week, we read a short biography of Hypatia from Women in Science. We continued our talk about perimeter and area, this time talking about a classic Greek math problem, the Delian problem. The Delian problem presents the challenge of doubling a cube. If you double the sides of a cube, why is the cube size not doubled? I just presented the question to my kids, and let them work out an answer on their own. I wasn't looking for the correct answer, just wanted them to do some logic work.
Art:
We began our exploration of Greek art with one of my favorite activities from working at the Duke Energy Children's Museum in Cincinnati. My co-worker, Elizabeth Hardin, presented this activity. We started with looking at some classic Greek pottery, talking about the orange and black colors typically seen, as well as the types of patterns we might see. There are different options for this activity depending upon your materials at hand. We have painted old corelle plates orange and paper plates orange, using black markers (permanent of the nicer plates if your kids can handle it) to draw patterns. Or you can use clay to make your project, to include the clay work. Create your clay piece using coils or pinch method. Then use the materials you would use to typically color it. My kids like working with Model Magic. We usually keep a supply of white around, and then color it as needed. We made a pottery piece, allowed it to dry overnight, and then painted it orange. We allowed that to dry, then used black markers to create patterns along the edge. My daughter made a larger picture inside to tell a story.
For our second week, we looked at my daughter's favorite building in ancient Greece, the theater. Every opportunity she could find, she would try to build a model of an open air theater like in ancient Greece. She used Legos, Duplos, wooden blocks, and anything else she could get her hands on to build a model. We talked about the role of the chorus and looked at images of the masks used to represent theatre, and some masks used to communicate emotion and help a small group of actors fill a large number of roles. Then my kids took some time to create their own play.
For our third week, we looked at a few books about ancient Greek architecture. We'd already seen a theater, but we spent some time looking at some other types of buildings. We noted buildings that had columns and looked at the type of column used. Then we made our own simple columns by taping paper into tubes. We experimented to see what type of weight our columns could hold by adding books. We had the best luck balancing the books if we had at least three columns. Less columns could hold the weight, but it was difficult to place the books evenly.
My daughter got a loom for Christmas, so we spent our fourth week reading the story of Athena and Arachne and practicing weaving. For those who do not have a loom, it is simple to cut a length of cardboard (the thicker cardboard will help the loom last longer). Cut an equal number of notches in the top and bottom. Tie a thread around the first notch on the top. Pull the thread down and loop it around the first notch on the bottom. Continue the up and down pattern of the thread across the loom until you reach the end, where you will tie another knot. This is the warp. Take another length of thread for the weft. Tie the end of this thread to the bottom edge of the warp. You can tie the other end to a plastic needle to help make it easier to move the thread. Alternate over and under across the warp. When you reach the end, remember to wrap the thread around the end of the warp, so that if you ended on an over, you start the next row under. Make sure to push the weft down every once in a while to keep the threads tightly woven. When you reach the end, you can lift the warp from the notches. Make sure to tie the end strings to the weaving to prevent unraveling.
For the fifth week, we took a look a some different examples of ancient Greek instruments. We tried to decide if the aulos and the lyre were wind or string instruments. Then we made our own lyres, cutting some cardboard into a u shape. We tied a string across the open end of the u, and then tied a series of strings down from the string to the bottom of the u. It wouldn't play, but we could look at it and pretend.
Science:
My kids love doing science experiments, and ancient Greece was the perfect place to start with some fun science experiments. We started our first week with a look at the classic story of Archimedes' Eureka moment. We then filled a bowl to the brim with water, after putting it in the tub. We took turns dropping in different items and watching to see if we observed any displacement. After dropping in a few items, we noticed some were floating while others sank. We made a chart to keep track of the items that sank and we would make a hypothesis before dropping any more items in to see if we could figure out beforehand which items would float.
For the second week, we talked about how many ancient civilizations studied the moon, stars and solar system. We talked about how originally many people thought that the Earth was the center of everything, as it looks like the sun spins around us. We used a flashlight as the sun and the kids revolved around me. If you use a ball to represent the moon, a second child can walk around the "Earth". Note the way the light shines on the ball as it moves around the "Earth." You can see the phases of the moon. We included information and ideas from Home Science Tools Explore Science Space Kit. It has a number of great activities. We modeled the moon using Oreos and used Cheerios to demonstrate the size difference between the Earth and the sun.
For the third week, we returned to Archimedes and read The Lion's Slave by Terry Deary. We noted whenever we found a lever in the story. We pulled out our blocks to build a castle. We then used balls and ramps to try to attack the castle. We then decided to be a little more like Archimedes, and used a catapult we'd built earlier.
The fourth week, we introduced Hippocrates and talked about how he was an ancient doctor. We all repeated the Hippocratic Oath to "First do no harm." Then we talked about how ancient doctors didn't know as much as doctors today. Doctors today know about germs. We had been using the Magic School Bus Germs Kit. We had worked through most of the yeast activities, but I purposely saved the germ half for this lesson. We made agar dishes as instructed. Then we followed their lessons, splitting each one in half. This first dish was before and after washing hands with soap and warm water. The second dish compared between two peoples toes. The third took a mouth swab and covered half with toothpaste. The fourth took a swab of your choice, but half was covered with antibiotics. The fifth was similar but used yogurt instead. We watched these and compared the growth over time. It was really impressive how well the toothpaste worked. The kids also enjoyed comparing the colors from the different samples and watching to see which toe sample would be worse.
Since we still had observations going from our germ experiment, we took it easy the last week and talked about how the Greeks were great recorders of Natural History. They liked to share observations they made about people, plants and animals they encountered. So we took some time to observe animals. We both watched our yard for a little bit, noting any animals we saw and spent some time observing our cats. Surprise, our cats mostly slept through their observation session.
Miscellany:
We did a few other activities to touch upon other features of ancient Greece. We practiced some library science, trying to look up both online and in books, when and where the ancient Greeks lived. We talked about democracy and the right to vote. We read about how the ancient Greeks could vote to ostracize someone. We held homeschool outside one day, talking about how the philosophers liked to meet outside and hold discussions. We read some of Aesop's fables and tried to guess the lesson. We talked about which ones were our favorites. Finally, we held our own Olympics, with some foot races, high jumps, long jump and frisbee toss. We looked at some pictures of what kind of sports might have been in the ancient Greek Olympics and some video of modern Olympics. My kids did not like the idea of competing naked like the ancient Greeks, so they are glad there are new events and new rules.
Spelling List and Sentence of the Week for K/1st grader:
Language Arts lessons include some simple questions about the spelling list, like finding the nouns, making rhymes or counting syllables. We read and write our sentence of the week every weekday.
Greece, stars, triangle, volume, hope, fear, olive, boat, space, horse
Athena is wise.
Hermes is fast.
Ares is mad.
Zeus is strong.
Iris loves rainbows.
Myths:
Every week we read a myth and did an activity based around the myth. For the first week, we read the Greek creation story and about Pandora's box. We found an old box and wrote down some of the things that scare us to put inside the box. Then we taped the box shut and taped words that help us fight our fear, like love and hope on the outside.
Next we read about Cepheus, Cassiopeia and Andromeda. This is a great story for learning about constellations, as all the key players were placed in the sky. I love that Cassiopeia was punished for her vanity by sitting on a throne that is sometimes upside down. We made our own constellations, playing connect the dot and went outside to look at some constellations. Cepheus and Cassiopeia are pretty easy to recreate, so we drew their constellations. Cepheus is a slightly uneven house shape, with a square on the bottom and triangle on top. Cassiopeia is a lopsided W.
We read the story of the Trojan horse. For those who like papier mache, this is the perfect opportunity to make a horse or other pinata, and make a hypothesis about how many of a certain object you can fit inside. You could do the same with a pre-made pinata, if you don't want to make one. My kids don't like papier mache, so I did a very simple activity. I wrote the word horse in bubble letters and let them fill the letters.
After reading about the Trojan war, the Odyssey is a perfect next step. There are many adaptations of this story, each including different encounters Odysseus faced along the way. We read two different versions. Both including the encounter with the Cyclops, and we talked about the wisdom of introducing himself as no one. We also read about Charbydis, Circe, and the sirens. My daughter in particular liked the sirens. Both stories also ended with his faithful wife and the challenge she set forth to all her suitors. After enjoying the story, we designed our own boats for Odysseus out of Legos, as well as recycled materials boats using plastic bottles or aluminum foil. We love making boats and testing whether they will float, then adding passenger pennies to test them.
We ended our Monday myths with the story of Persephone and Hades. This story deals with some darker themes, as Hades literally kidnaps Persephone and tricks her into having to stay with him by getting her to eat some pomegranate seeds. But the compromise struck in the end is a great take on the reason for the seasons. Hades is so often portrayed as the bad guy, and his methods in this story reflect that, but Persephone does at least have a positive influence on him and helps to soften his heart. We used this opportunity to try some pomegranate seeds. My daughter used to be an adventurous eater, but my son's unwillingness to try new foods has pushed her into a pickier realm. This story was a great excuse to try something both of them thought they wouldn't like.
Math:
At least once a week, our math activities would tie in with a different theme from ancient Greece. Our first week, we read stories about Pythagoras. Julie Ellis wrote two great books, one about angles and the other about ratios. These are both fun stories. After reading, these stories we read another great book; this one by David Adler. He has a number of great math books for kids on different topics, but since we were talking about Pythagoras, we started with Triangles. We practiced making different types of triangles, especially right triangles. We talked about multiplication and the classic 3,4,5 triangle with the Pythagorean formula.
Our second week, we talked about Euclid. We couldn't find any kids books about Euclid, but we talked about how he was an ancient Greek mathematician. He was known for Geometry, so we practiced drawing and dividing shapes. We also talked about how Euclid encouraged the use of logic and fact when making an argument. We chose the argument "Why should our family have pizza for dinner?". We worked together to make a chart, asking people if they thought we should have pizza for dinner or not. Then my daughter presented her argument.
Our third week, we continued our work with shapes, and talked about pi. My kids mostly have an idea about the first three digits of pi because we usually celebrate pi day. We read another David Adler book that had some fun monster dimensions, Perimeter, Area, and Volume. After we discussed perimeter and area in shapes like rectangles, we talked about the challenge in measuring circles. We found the radius and diameter and practiced dividing circles.
The fourth week, we talked about squaring a number and finding a square root. We don't dive in deep to these topics, but we introduced the topic. We drew a square and made three columns and three rows, and counted the squares inside. So 3 groups of 3 equals 9. We tried it again with a square divided into 4 columns and rows, making 16 little squares inside.
The fifth week, we read a short biography of Hypatia from Women in Science. We continued our talk about perimeter and area, this time talking about a classic Greek math problem, the Delian problem. The Delian problem presents the challenge of doubling a cube. If you double the sides of a cube, why is the cube size not doubled? I just presented the question to my kids, and let them work out an answer on their own. I wasn't looking for the correct answer, just wanted them to do some logic work.
Art:
We began our exploration of Greek art with one of my favorite activities from working at the Duke Energy Children's Museum in Cincinnati. My co-worker, Elizabeth Hardin, presented this activity. We started with looking at some classic Greek pottery, talking about the orange and black colors typically seen, as well as the types of patterns we might see. There are different options for this activity depending upon your materials at hand. We have painted old corelle plates orange and paper plates orange, using black markers (permanent of the nicer plates if your kids can handle it) to draw patterns. Or you can use clay to make your project, to include the clay work. Create your clay piece using coils or pinch method. Then use the materials you would use to typically color it. My kids like working with Model Magic. We usually keep a supply of white around, and then color it as needed. We made a pottery piece, allowed it to dry overnight, and then painted it orange. We allowed that to dry, then used black markers to create patterns along the edge. My daughter made a larger picture inside to tell a story.
For our second week, we looked at my daughter's favorite building in ancient Greece, the theater. Every opportunity she could find, she would try to build a model of an open air theater like in ancient Greece. She used Legos, Duplos, wooden blocks, and anything else she could get her hands on to build a model. We talked about the role of the chorus and looked at images of the masks used to represent theatre, and some masks used to communicate emotion and help a small group of actors fill a large number of roles. Then my kids took some time to create their own play.
For our third week, we looked at a few books about ancient Greek architecture. We'd already seen a theater, but we spent some time looking at some other types of buildings. We noted buildings that had columns and looked at the type of column used. Then we made our own simple columns by taping paper into tubes. We experimented to see what type of weight our columns could hold by adding books. We had the best luck balancing the books if we had at least three columns. Less columns could hold the weight, but it was difficult to place the books evenly.
My daughter got a loom for Christmas, so we spent our fourth week reading the story of Athena and Arachne and practicing weaving. For those who do not have a loom, it is simple to cut a length of cardboard (the thicker cardboard will help the loom last longer). Cut an equal number of notches in the top and bottom. Tie a thread around the first notch on the top. Pull the thread down and loop it around the first notch on the bottom. Continue the up and down pattern of the thread across the loom until you reach the end, where you will tie another knot. This is the warp. Take another length of thread for the weft. Tie the end of this thread to the bottom edge of the warp. You can tie the other end to a plastic needle to help make it easier to move the thread. Alternate over and under across the warp. When you reach the end, remember to wrap the thread around the end of the warp, so that if you ended on an over, you start the next row under. Make sure to push the weft down every once in a while to keep the threads tightly woven. When you reach the end, you can lift the warp from the notches. Make sure to tie the end strings to the weaving to prevent unraveling.
For the fifth week, we took a look a some different examples of ancient Greek instruments. We tried to decide if the aulos and the lyre were wind or string instruments. Then we made our own lyres, cutting some cardboard into a u shape. We tied a string across the open end of the u, and then tied a series of strings down from the string to the bottom of the u. It wouldn't play, but we could look at it and pretend.
Science:
My kids love doing science experiments, and ancient Greece was the perfect place to start with some fun science experiments. We started our first week with a look at the classic story of Archimedes' Eureka moment. We then filled a bowl to the brim with water, after putting it in the tub. We took turns dropping in different items and watching to see if we observed any displacement. After dropping in a few items, we noticed some were floating while others sank. We made a chart to keep track of the items that sank and we would make a hypothesis before dropping any more items in to see if we could figure out beforehand which items would float.
For the second week, we talked about how many ancient civilizations studied the moon, stars and solar system. We talked about how originally many people thought that the Earth was the center of everything, as it looks like the sun spins around us. We used a flashlight as the sun and the kids revolved around me. If you use a ball to represent the moon, a second child can walk around the "Earth". Note the way the light shines on the ball as it moves around the "Earth." You can see the phases of the moon. We included information and ideas from Home Science Tools Explore Science Space Kit. It has a number of great activities. We modeled the moon using Oreos and used Cheerios to demonstrate the size difference between the Earth and the sun.
For the third week, we returned to Archimedes and read The Lion's Slave by Terry Deary. We noted whenever we found a lever in the story. We pulled out our blocks to build a castle. We then used balls and ramps to try to attack the castle. We then decided to be a little more like Archimedes, and used a catapult we'd built earlier.
The fourth week, we introduced Hippocrates and talked about how he was an ancient doctor. We all repeated the Hippocratic Oath to "First do no harm." Then we talked about how ancient doctors didn't know as much as doctors today. Doctors today know about germs. We had been using the Magic School Bus Germs Kit. We had worked through most of the yeast activities, but I purposely saved the germ half for this lesson. We made agar dishes as instructed. Then we followed their lessons, splitting each one in half. This first dish was before and after washing hands with soap and warm water. The second dish compared between two peoples toes. The third took a mouth swab and covered half with toothpaste. The fourth took a swab of your choice, but half was covered with antibiotics. The fifth was similar but used yogurt instead. We watched these and compared the growth over time. It was really impressive how well the toothpaste worked. The kids also enjoyed comparing the colors from the different samples and watching to see which toe sample would be worse.
Since we still had observations going from our germ experiment, we took it easy the last week and talked about how the Greeks were great recorders of Natural History. They liked to share observations they made about people, plants and animals they encountered. So we took some time to observe animals. We both watched our yard for a little bit, noting any animals we saw and spent some time observing our cats. Surprise, our cats mostly slept through their observation session.
Miscellany:
We did a few other activities to touch upon other features of ancient Greece. We practiced some library science, trying to look up both online and in books, when and where the ancient Greeks lived. We talked about democracy and the right to vote. We read about how the ancient Greeks could vote to ostracize someone. We held homeschool outside one day, talking about how the philosophers liked to meet outside and hold discussions. We read some of Aesop's fables and tried to guess the lesson. We talked about which ones were our favorites. Finally, we held our own Olympics, with some foot races, high jumps, long jump and frisbee toss. We looked at some pictures of what kind of sports might have been in the ancient Greek Olympics and some video of modern Olympics. My kids did not like the idea of competing naked like the ancient Greeks, so they are glad there are new events and new rules.
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