Christian Unschooling: Ancient Greece & Olympics Part 1

Saturday, November 21, 2009

Ancient Greece & Olympics Part 1

This is what we did Ancient Greece, Week 1, in the Magic Treehouse Bookclub. Some activities can be found at the publisher's site: Random House

Ancient Greece, Week 1 Outline

1. Discuss various areas of expertise the Greek world had
ie Sculptures, Music, Mathematics, Philosophy, Poetry. I showed them a copy of The Odyssey, and various famous statues from the time.

2. Make an abacus
Each child had a shoebox lid. They cut lines down the lid and inserted paper fasteners. Sadly, for us this was not very functional. Many of the kids cut wide, jagged slits...which allowed the fasteners to slip through. When we opened up the fasteners, then they were not able to move back and forth. Maybe pre-made slits with an xcto knife would have worked better?

Elias making an abacus

3. Brought out a real abacus and did math problems
Each child got a turn, they really got the hang of it quickly.

The real one

4. Talked about the role of Masks in Drama

5. Made masks showing our emotions
Out of paper plates

6. Read the story of the Trojan Horse

7. Recreated the story of the Trojan Horse
We used a sheet and a pony stick....half the kids got "in the horse" and half were the "sleeping city. They took turn after turn after turn...really enjoyed "killing" each other in their "sleep" and being "inside" the Trojan Horse.

Trojan Horse