When people tell me little kids can’t learn about ancient history, I always give them a strange look. My kids loved learning about ancient history in our homeschool history lesson. Take our ancient Greeks lesson.
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Ancient Greeks for Preschool
We read about Sparta and Athens in Mystery of History 1* and did a Venn diagram about the cities. Honestly the kids didn’t get much from this activity, but sometimes an activity is more about introducing the concept, Venn diagrams, than it is about mastery of a subject. But, after a lot of repetition they got the big differences.
It simplified down to Sparta fights a lot, and everyone fought in their town, everyone learns how to be a soldier.
Athens is the city of art and democracy. That simplified down to art. All the discussion of how their government was just flew over their heads.
And they were the same because they were both city-states.
Ancient Greeks craft
Supplies: terracotta pots* (I got mine at the Target dollar spot several years ago), markers* (if you have older kids you could do this with sharpies* or acrylic paint*, but washable markers are perfect for preschool)
But that’s boring. We finished up by taking the same pots from our earlier sunflower game and made them into greek pots.
And the boys pots were very greek showing fantastic battle scenes. I’m not sure what Princess’ was.
Looking for some more Ancient Greek ideas? Maybe for someone who’s not a preschooler?
Then I’ve got you covered, try some of these out:
Or just check out my Ancient Greece tag, or for over 100 Ancient history ideas check out my Mystery of History 1 board:
I love their pots, they took away something from their lesson, everyone fought!
Maybe it will lay a foundation for study, when they come across those cities in later years. At least they'll have heard of them.
Or, maybe you'd have better luck explaining them as like the Klingons and the Vulcans 🙂
Your boys WOULD make very Greek pottery art! I'm impressed you even try to teach them government – we're working on numbers past ten at our house!
I'm impressed that you did this. Great foundation.
Leah's comment cracked me up. I agree – it might all come up later through play or discussion. It often happens here.
You will be surprised how great this lesson absorbed in the mind the next time you visit a lesson around Greece, children are tricky like that but they have very good memories. The pots were a very creative tie in. Thank you for sharing.
love to read your posts, hardly ever comment, but did want to say that if I lived near you and I know for a fact “our” schools aren't as many over there I'd unite and ask you to pretty please take on another homeschooling student….There's a mom at our church that is a single mom and her two kids go to another homeschooling mom and they get it done! Fun stuff.
I remember when I learned about Ancient Greece in 6th grade, we had painted spaghetti jars brown and then painted scenes on the side, similar to what you did 🙂
If you are like us, we will have gone over the Greeks four times before they graduate. Like Leah said, each time you add another layer of knowledge on the layer you have planted before. Don't worry too much about getting it all at this age. There is plenty of time.