We had a Greek Mythology Day

My children have been enamored with Greek myths after listening to Percy Jackson and the Olympians: The Lightning Thief.  I knew they would enjoy a short mythology study and today was the day.  I gathered a few resources and we were ready to go. From the Ancient Greece History Pocket book I printed out two activities about the main Greek gods and goddesses.  Then we combined the activities into creating their own books!  There were 12 pictures to color and cut out.  The younger children simply focused on this part of the activity and made picture books from these. As you can see from the pictures I’ve included the second half of the activity was an information box about each god or goddess.  The older children were to read it and draw a symbol for that character.  They then cut out these pieces and matched them up with the colored figures they had glued in their books earlier.As an extension of the day we started listening to the second Percy Jackson book during quiet time (The Sea of Monsters).  It kept the attention of my four oldest children and they begged to stay in bed and keep listening when quiet time was over.  Daddy and I said no.  Instead we all gathered on the couch with a snack and I read some of D’Aulaires Book of Greek Myths, a library book.  It was so fun to see and hear the children making connections between the book they made earlier in the day, the stories we were reading, and the Percy Jackson book they had been listening to. 

I have two other books on Greek mythology from the library right now and Makayla has been reading from those both on her own and to her siblings.  They are: Favorite Greek Myths retold by Mary Pope Osbourne and The McElderry Book of Greek Myths retold by Eric A Kimmel.  Each book tells stories in their own way, with varying styles of art.  I like having the variety to pull from and I imagine over the next week or two we’ll read some more from each of these books.

Have you taken a current interest from your children and made a fun learning day from it lately?  If you haven’t then I encourage you to do it – they remember so much more when it’s something they’re already interested in!