Ancient Greece

My entire second grade is teaching Greece next week and the week after. We have seven teachers. We are each going to teach one lesson and the students will rotate each day to another teacher. We have: flag lesson (about the greek flag, then each class will make a class flag), worry beads lesson, greek mythology lesson, cooking lesson (and food groups, planning a meal for olympic competitors and also a greek meal), travel brochures (learn about greece and then make brochures), an olympics reader's theater, and an Olympics traditions lesson. On the first day, the class will stay with us and we will set the room up like an airplane. Each child will have a passport and ticket. We will fly to Greece. We will watch a movie about Greece or the Olympics as we "fly". Any movie ideas?? On the last day, we will have a guest speaker and we are doing the olympics. Olympics will be kind of like field day. It is going to be really neat.

I had my students read and make up a play based on medusa. They had so much fun. THey also made mosaics, and pottery. They partnered up with a student and wrote one scene. They made backdrops and props. The students brought in food and parents came and watched the play and took a tour of their artifacts. You can make the pottery out of clay or paper mache. I got real tiles and used bisque plates but you can use paper for the mosaics. Have fun

I taught Greece to 4th graders---Get the video, Ancient Civilizations for Kids: Ancient Greece---it's great.

Also I put the kids in groups and each group was assigned a polis or city--we had the Spartans, Athenians, Corthians, etc. They would do projects and different things to earn points---this led to talking about how competion was HUGE in Greece---I had a handout with over 60 projects they could do with an assign point value--they each had to earn 150 points for their team. Projects ranged from taking pictures in their community of the 3 different columns to making Greek coins out of clay to wearing a "toga" during the school day (which surprisingly the kids LOVED dressing as a Greek for the day)!
Hope that helps!

Melanie

When I taught Ancient Greece, I always had a Greecian Olympics. I put the groups together and gave them information about how that city state would have behaved. They participated in a variety of games (toss paper balls into the trash, javiline-pencil throw). They were awarded medals made from paper. The city state with the most medals won the Olympics. I would suggest that you google it. I used a great site that had Mr. in the title.

I usually do project folders for Ancient Greece...Any classwork or activities we do is put into a construction paper folder that has been decorated with the child's name in the Greek Alphabet. I do cinquain poems about the Greek Gods, Democracy and voting activities, and a reading Olympics Competition! This works well because I am also their ELA teacher. There are a few others things in their as well, mostly activities I got from the Teacher Created Materials Ancient Greece unit. I then collect the folders at the end of the unit and use a rubric/checklist to give them a grade.

I have had a Greek Game project were the students look up information and they make a game board out of it. They have to make 50 questions. Along the way I check how far they are and give them extra points if they stay on task.

We used Crayola Model-Magic one year and made pottery. It's white, but you can paint it, or use markers to draw on it. My kids made minature vases, mortar/pestal, bowls, etc.

Start the unit explaining about important trade was to the ancient Greek people. The marketplace, the Agora, is where people trade goods. Make cooperative groups/families and each family is has something they will trade at the Agora. I wrote different scenarios regarding economic status and what they have to trade and what they need to acquire.

Each family reads their scenario and makes up signs for the marketplace and creates their "goods" . The goods are like "10 cows" SO they draw one cow on a scrap of paper and write 1 cow below it. Or maybe they have bolt of linen.

On the written scenario it explains what the family needs to trade for at the Agora. (I made sure that each family needed something that another family had to trade).

Big market day: Students put up signs, reread their scenario to determine what they need to trade for and then, let the trading begin...it gets wild and loud. At the end you evaluate who traded for what they needed and who came out ahead. Talk about economy, etc.

My students loved this. They talked about it for months. It was one of the activities where my normally lower achieving students totally excelled.

I cannot claim this as my idea. I read it in a book somewhere, but modified it and created my own scenarios to fit my class size and needs.

I always read myths about a god/goddess, especially the Olympian gods. The students love to hear them and I have them summarize the stories in their own words. After we have done quite a few, they have some matching activities to do. We also make vanity plates for a particular god or goddess, which they love to do. After I have read several myths, I show them the movie "Jason and the Argonauts".
We also study the Greek alphabet and I have them make name plates for themselves in Greek.

I just finished a unit. Check out Mr. Donn's and Maxie's units. I did a lot with Greek Mythology.

My favorite activity were the persuasive letters we wrote to Zeus. It was a R.A.F.T. (Role Audience Format Topic) activity.

Role: a god or goddess from Greek Mythology
Audience: Zeus
Format: Persuasive Letter
Topic: Persuade Zeus to give you a new power that will help you do your job better

The students were very creative with this.

I am finishing up my unit and I have this idea that I will try next year. I like to do a little acting so I will dress as a Greek woman and role play. I will introduce a little culture to the students to get them interested in the history and I would tell them things they can expect to learn throuhout the unit. It will be a total surprise. I will tell them they will have a sub the day before so they won't expect it. Thoroughout the unit we will do things like: the three governments of Greece flipbook, discuss Greek heros and watch, Hercules and The Odyssey. They will learn to write a letter from Odysseus to Penelope, his wife in Greek. They will create a Greek Pottery etching. They will learn about Greek mythology and create a book of the Gods and Goddess. Those are a few ideas for you. I hope your unit goes well and good luck!

We write tabloids about the gods. Students are in groups and come with a name for their tabloid ( Greek Gossip) and then work together to come with far out stories. Ex. "Hercules on Steroids" or "Aphrodite Has a Facelift". The students make a book and present their stories to the class.
We also do ads featuring the Gods. Students pick characters from Greek mythology and put them in ads for their product or come up with new product for them to advertise. They love this and they can include their ads in the tabloid.

Have your students run a talk show on which the gods are guests. Choose an outgoing student to be the host and have the audience ask questions of the guests. Give the students a list of questions ahead of time so they know what information they need to find out about their chosen gods. You can also have small groups research a specific god and then play a jeopardy type game. If you are old enough to remember the old show "What's My Line?" ( a 20 questions type game) that is very fun to do as well. Students who can stump the audience win a small prize- candy bar, homework pass etc.

I introduced the theme with Greek music and food tasting of feta cheese olive bread grape juice and baklava. Passed pictures around to begin a stimulus. Asked the students what they knew and wanted to know.

Explored websites and books

Vaughan, J.(1988). We live in Greece.
Oram, S. (1974) Starters Places Greece
Allard, D. (1996). Postcards from Greece.

Taught recipe genre to my year 2/3 class by making a Greek salad, on an oht I let the class direct each member to do each step reading from oht, I took a digital camera picute of each step. We then made a cut and paste booklet of the steps photo copied from Over head transparancy and got enough pictures for students to have a picture of each step.

With older grades you could do a 5 W's of ancient Greece lifestyle. Olympians, men women from watching videos of ancient theatre and oympians.

WE also boiled eggs let them cool crack them around but not peel, boiled further in red food dye added to water. This linked to marble being a commom structure in Greece and leading into religious ceremonies easter and christianity of Greek history.

We wrote what it would be like to have lived in Greece then. For older you could use democracy, theatre, olympics, religion etc.

Good luck