Ancient Greece!

Well, B's afternoon lessons have been evolving.  My original plan was to do different subjects every month, but it's becoming clear that some things - like physics, chemistry, and ancient history - could easily fill three or four months. So I'm adjusting as we go.

Beatrice is still working on both physics and chemistry (more on that later) but these days she is OBSESSED with ancient Greece.

It was a little hard to know where to start with world history, but I decided for now to open with the Minoans, even if we eventually circle back to Egypt, Assyria, and other things.

Depictions of the Minoan Earth Mother Goddess

Making a Minoan fresco by painting on wet Plaster of Paris

Then we moved on to Mycenae, the Trojan War, the Dorians, and finally, Athens.

Modeling ancient Greek drinking vessels like amphora and krater

Carving Zeus out of a giant block of soap

Beatrice's favorite gods are Zeus and Hades - the other day when we passed a small church in our neighborhood, she asked if she could go in to make an offering to Zeus. She also loves Odysseus.  And at school on Friday, she dedicated the worksheet she was doing "To Demeter."

Early this month I took Beatrice on a trip to the Getty Villa in Malibu, a reproduction of a villa in Herculaneum filled with ancient Greek and Roman art. We had so much fun! We looked at everything in the museum, we had lunch, and we played in the museum's small but very well-designed kids' area. I used to love The Getty Villa (then, just The Getty) when I was a kid, too.

Beatrice walked around carrying a huge armload of information she'd printed out from the internet about gods and goddesses.

Kneeling before Zeus

 

 

In the kid's area, they had this great shadow screen that put your image on the side of an amphora (an idea I'm stealing for Beatrice's Trojan War-themed birthday party next month).

 

B with sword and shield

They also had write-on vessels you could decorate with dry erase pens - here Beatrice is drawing the story of Perseus and Medusa.

 

 

And today, Beatrice performed her classical play, The Tragedy of Tantalus, complete with Greek masks and a chorus. (And yes, I know Dev and I are wearing Roman costumes, not Greek, but that's what we had on hand.)

Painting the set, Mt. Olympus

 

Dev as Tantalus

Arthur as a chorus member

Zeus scolds Tantalus

The chorus

Dev with his two Tantalus masks, happy and sad

Then we had a Mediterranean feast of wine, lamb kofta, lavash bread, feta cheese, two kinds of eggplant spread, olives, and barley, with grapes, pomegranates, and baklava from Sarkis for dessert.

B's Greek vessels decorated the table.

 

Not real wine

The kids were delighted by the fact that the ancient Greeks didn't use utensils to eat.

And it's not just Beatrice who loves Greece now, Arthur is getting excited about it as well. Tonight at bath time he told me he was only going to use a few bath toys so his bath would have the minimalist, classic style of ancient Greece.

Here are some great resources I've found for teaching little kids about ancient Greece:

1. I highly recommend the (sadly out of print) book, Ancient Greece! 40 Activities to Experience This Wondrous Age.
There are a few pretty cheesy parts (including The Iliad told in the form of a rap), but the craft and project ideas are really good. That's where I got the idea for both the Minoan goddess figure and the fresco.
2. B loves The Magic Treehouse series, so this month she read Hour of the Olympics and Vacation Under the Volcano (about Pompeii) and the accompanying nonfiction fact guides on Greece and Rome.
3. The same author who writes The Magic Treehouse series wrote a six-part children's retelling of The Odyssey that's excellent.
4. We've checked out dozens of books on ancient Greece from the library but a few Beatrice liked were The Greeks, You Are in Ancient Greece, Tales of the Trojan War, and the Profiles in Greek and Roman Mythology series.
5. Lastly, the website History for Kids is great. There are also lots of Greek gods and goddesses materials online, including coloring sheets, word searches, crossword puzzles, etc.

Also, I made up some worksheets of my own that I'll post here if anyone wants to use them:

Ancient Greece chronology (PDF)
Ancient Greece geography (PDF), which I used with this blank map of ancient Greece
Ancient Greece: historical figures (PDF)
Ancient Greece: mythological figures (PDF)