I remember loving the study of Greek mythology when I was in middle school. My teacher was tough but let us do fun projects, and the stories were fascinating. I’ve been looking forward to teaching my own kids about Ancient Greece and including those myths and projects.
Unfortunately, when I sat down to do some planning, I realized that I remembered much about the myths, but we never learned about Ancient Greece – and I only remember one of those projects, and so I’d have to start from scratch – if it weren’t for Home School in the Woods‘ Project Passport World History Studies unit about Ancient Greece.
It’s set up in a really neat way – as if you are going on a trip throughout Greece. Everything is referenced according to that ‘journey’ – you’ll pack, make a printable ‘suitcase’ to hold certain items you’ll want to keep and reference over and over, each day’s lessons are a ‘stop,’ etc.
Each day’s plans are laid out for you, though I must admit that it took me a bit of time to find that document in my download. Until I did, I felt quite frazzled – because all that awesome information feels overwhelming when you don’t know how to use it. Be smarter than I was, though, and open the document called “start” first. It will tell you what you need to know, and it’s even hyperlinked for you to open the related projects and printables to make navigation even easier.
If you plan to make use of everything in this unit, plan to do a lot of printing. Again, that’s because of that wonderful thoroughness – there’s a really cool lapbook, timeline info complete with little people, a passport to print and use with all of the Home School in the Woods’ related projects, and printables to accompany other projects, too. The up side to all of that printing? The directions are very precise, so you’ll know exactly how to do it to make the projects work as planned. The down side? Well, it’s a lot of printing – and each page is saved in as a separate document, not each project – so plan to open a lot of windows on your computer. When I have a lot to print, I often send it out to the local print shop, where we get a discount through our local homeschool group. These separate files mean that I can send them exactly the ones I want printed, so while it may take a bit more work on my part at the front end, it will be easier for the printers to follow my directions and not print pages I don’t want.
One of the first projects involves maps. My kids both love maps, and they were excited to work on this one. They knew nothing at all about the geography of Greece, and so they spent a bit of time studying a picture of the completed map. While they colored, I read the accompanying text, and since that was short, I moved on to another story that we’re reading together.
What makes this map so great is that it’s more interactive than your standard color-and-label map. The labels are available to print, cut, and glue on, and since that was different for us, the kids were excited to do it. They didn’t have to worry about coloring over their labels. The font and font size also differs a little bit for labels of different types of things, and so it makes the map more interesting to look at.
While My Big Helper was very precise in the coloring and labeling of her map, My Little Man went wild with his. He enjoyed studying the map carefully to pick out all the islands from the seas and then using a variety of bright colors to denote that land.
Unusual? Yes. It made him happy, though, and he did label the map accurately and study it thoroughly, so … I’m picking my battles. 😉
At another stop, we began to learn about the famous people of Greece. We printed postcards that already had messages from one Greek person to another – and that was so cool! I’ve had my kids make their own letters from one person to another, which is a great review activity; but by having the message already written, it became a starting point for research and a great critical thinking and analytical activity.
My Big Helper was careful to study each word on the postcard, trying to infer as much as possible from it. She got a kick out of trying to add subtle jokes to the picture she drew on the back of the postcard to illustrate the text, and I could see from her drawing that she really understood the message. It was a fun project!
While we haven’t completed this study yet, we’ve studied it carefully and have plans for much more of it. We’re going to have our own Greek dinner soon, and we’re taking a batch of the spiced wine to a homeschool Ancient Greek event. My Big Helper is going to sew her own outfit, and she can’t wait to build a model of the Parthenon. My Little Man loves Archimedes and Aesop’s Fables, and I can’t wait to see what he writes when he writes his own fable.
Want just the facts? There are 25 lessons, or stops, in this unit. They can be spread out over 8 – 12 weeks and are recommended for use with Grades 3 – 8. It is available as either a digital download or on a CD. Supplies are not included.
There are a wealth of lesson plans and projects in Home School in the Woods‘ Project Passport World History Studies unit about Ancient Greece. It’s all well organized, easy to use, and very thorough. If you have a world history unit coming up, I highly recommend giving Home School in the Woods a try!
