Greek Study Stations Round 2

The 1-2 kids are continuing their learning of the Ancient Greek world! There are new activities at each of the learning stations that groups have been rotating through in this second round. 

At one station, kids are doing research into life in Ancient Greece and have uncovered some very interesting facts including the use of olive oil to wash with, the dangerous risks of chariot racing (not unlike NASCAR racing today), and the pride of Ancient Greeks in their culture!

Kids at the musical station are learning about traditional Greek dance through video clips and are then choreographing their own dance incorporating some elements of what they observed. They perform their dance to traditional Greek music in front of the group during our share time after stations are complete. The collaboration of the students in this endeavor is quite impressive to see!

Our mathematical task centers around the story of Pandora's Box - the forbidden box Pandora opened, releasing all pain, disease, misfortune and misery into the world. Luckily, she snapped the lid closed in time to keep Hope from escaping. The 1-2 kids are designing a new box and decorating it with gifts they would like to give back to humanity - love, peace, clean environment, kindness, and so on. They then need to cut out the outline of their box and fold it into its 3D shape: a cube, a pyramid, or an octahedron. This part is where some of the real challenge is!

At our visual-spatial station, students are trying their hands at designing a piece of Greek pottery. While in the Ancient Greek world, these were known as red or black figure vases (depending on what color the subject was depicted in) our medium allows for a more colorful option. Using scratch art paper, students outline one of the Greek vessels used for various purposes in the home: an amphora for storing food, a kylix for drinking from, an oenchoe (wine jug), and a lekythos for holding oil, are some of the examples. Scratching away the black surface of the scratch art paper, students then leave behind an image on their vase that shows a god, goddess, symbol of power, or scene from a myth. The results are quite striking!

At another station, students are using cardboard tubes and large index cards to build a 3D temple to a god or goddess. They decorate the tubes to reflect a style of column from Ancient Greek architecture (Doric, Ionic, Corinthian) and then create an image for the pediment with a Greek pattern as a border (Greek key, dentil, egg and dart). The finishing touch is a throne in which they draw the god or goddess seated in the center of the temple. Thank you for your contributions of cardboard tubes to make this project happen!

And finally, at our Linguistic Station, students are doing the challenging task of learning about the Greek alphabet. Some letters look the same as the ones we use in our alphabet, some look quite different. Not every English sound is represented in the Greek alphabet (for instance, there is no J). Then the kids get to work to translate their own name into Greek letters while also "decoding" names of gods, goddesses and heroes from Greek letters into our alphabet. The kids really like to see their name written in Greek!

Enjoy the pictures below of kids at stations.