Ancient Greece Unit Study

With Thing One's interest in Percy Jackson, a study of ancient Greece seemed appropriate this fall. I put together a list of ideas for lessons, using several resources.

Usborne Book of Greek Myths
Story of the World Volume I, text and activity book
Kingfisher Book of the Ancient World
History Pockets Ancient Civilizations
Greek Mythology Activities

Some of my favorite ideas:
Use a compare/contrast chart to compare creation myths.
Go for a nature walk to look at the changing leaves, and talk about the story of Persephone.
Go for a spider hunt and talk about Arachne.
Read about Atlas, and discuss what an atlas is, find some at the library.
Plant narcissus bulbs and read the story of Narcissus.
Read about Daedalus and Icarus, and make candles.
Read about the chimera and make up your own mixed up animals.
Read about sirens and play with sound.
Read about Theseus and the minotaur, and go to a corn maze.
Learn about Greek architecture, and make a gingerbread parthenon.

Winter Olympics Theme

Last week we did a simple Olympics theme. I cobbled together enough lapbook resources from various free websites, including the Olympic symbol and oath, a chart for tracking medals and some coloring pages of sports that Thing One was unfamiliar with. He chose Poland as his country to focus on. We looked at its geography, he colored its flag, and we are tracking their medals on our chart. We even ate pierogies and polish sausage last week!

We also studied the origins of the Olympics. We used Story of the World Vol. 1 and the accompanying activity book to learn about the ancient Greeks. We located Greece on the map. We wrote our names with Greek letters.