It's All (Ancient) Greek To Me

We started our study of Ancient Greece with a lot of reading. There are many books on Ancient Greece that you can read for free online. We enjoyed reading one by Helen Grueber. We also read a stack of books from our library. If you want ideas for children's literature books, check out the Travel For Kids website.

Our first project was painting amphoras. We used black acrylic paint on terra cotta flowerpots. I also found an amphora coloring page. I saw another project using scratch art to make a paper representation of an amphora. (You color really hard with red crayon, then cover with black tempera paint, allow it to dry, and then scratch your pattern onto the "pot".) I think if we study Greece again sometime, we will try this.

We also made mosaic placemats using colored paper and laminating envelopes. We were going to make frescos, but we never got around to it. But we did build a papercraft model of the Parthenon and the Lighthouse of Alexandria!

Next, we made jewelry by glueing a coil of hemp cord flat onto 1 1/2-inch circles of cardboard, painting them with gold paint, and glueing "jewels" in the centers. These were glued along lengths of cord for necklaces. Bigger circles with smaller jewels glued around the (top) outside edge were used for belt buckles on thick gold ribbons.

We also made "bones" out of Sculpty to play the game of Knucklebones.

In ancient Greece, the knuckle bones from legs of mutton, were thrown to prophesy the future. They were also used like dice for gambling and, most frequently, for playing the game which is still known today as knuckle bones.

How to Play
Knucklebones may be played by two or more children, though interest may flag if there are more than four. The game consists of performing various 'figures' -throws and catches of the bones- in a chosen sequence. The names of the figures may vary in different regions, but most of the movements are the same all over the world. A basic and ancient knucklebone figure is even depicted on a Roman fresco from Pompeii. The player tosses all five bones into the air and tries to catch them on the back of his hand. Then he throws these up and catches them again in his palm. The score each player obtains can be used to determine order of play in succeeding figures.

To play the figure called 'ones, the first player throws the bones onto the ground. He picks up a single bone, which is then called the jack': he tosses it into the air, picks up one of the bones on the ground, and catches the jack as it falls. He transfers the picked-up bone to his free hand and throws the jack again, repeating the movements until all bones are held. If he drops a bone, misses the jack, or moves another bone, he is out, and must repeat 'ones' on his next turn before starting another figure. Next, he goes on to twos, in which the bones must be picked up in pairs: 'threes, in which he picks up three bones and then one, and fours, picking up all four bones at once.

We documented our study with various coloring pages and notebook pages. And we wrote our names using Greek letters. The biggest disappointment about Greece was that we never got around to having a feast. Oh, well! There's always modern Greece!