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Ready for some fun hands-on learning all about Greece? Grab your (imaginary) plane ticket and join us on an adventure to Europe. Next stop Greece!

Greece for kids! A unit study to learn all about Greece from ancient history to modern times! Appropriate for kindergarten and elementary grades.

Our adventures around the world has lead us to Europe. One of the most exciting places to visit was Greece. The oldest was so intrigued that we went ahead and made a whole unit out of it. Welcome to Greece!

All About Greece: Activities for Kids

Our fabulous librarians put together an amazing around-the-world day that lined up perfectly with our Europe unit. We were lucky enough to get Greece on our ticket, which is really what set off the oldest’s interest in the country.

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 After receiving our ticket we made our way into the “big room” for the class. There, my son chose a suitcase complete with luggage tag and handles to decorate with stickers.
He picked a rat and puddle of slime pictures, and he is still laughing about that when I just showed it to him.

Fun Facts About Greece

After completing our suitcase, there was a variety of activities to choose from. He headed over to the computer right away to look up and record facts about Greece.
“What? That’s where the Olympics started?!? I saw that on TV!!!” He noted “Olympics” as number 1 on his fact sheet. He drew the shape of the country for #2 and his third fun fact is that Greece is very old. Sure is, buddy!
Find facts about Greece online:
Learn About Greek Life!
Next we chose a Greek cookbook to look at together and found that fish is an important food for the Greek people.
He wrote down the title of his recipe: “Fish,” and drew a quick picture of one before running over to the play-doh table to cook:
We then created a Greek flag, well sort of, before heading over to the book shelf to find a book about life in Greece.
After a quick picture walk through the pages he wrote a postcard home with a picture of Greece on the front.
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I just loved these activities. He enjoyed the hands-on learning, even though he was racing through it all. Library events are especially exciting when you’re five!
Possibly his favorite part was presenting Greece on stage. He volunteered to go first, hopped right up there, and told everyone that Greece is a very, very old country where they eat fish. I could not be more amused… and proud.
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The library event inspired us to look more deeply into Greece. We read a few Greek myths, which he loved, and talked about continuing learning about ancient history next year.

He is excited about it! I’m so happy that we had the extra time to dig into Greece, dabble in a bit of mythology, and revisit the Olympics.

Kids Books about Greece

  

Magic Tree House Book #16, Hour of the Olympics by Mary Pope Osborne is an exciting adventure to ancient Greece with Jack and Annie. Companion book, Ancient Greece and the Olympics, is chock full of factual information introduced in an engaging way.

My son really enjoys reading the fact trackers which expand on the real information in the Magic Tree House books, and it gives us a chance to talk about what parts are fact and what parts are fiction.

Some of the great non-fiction books we found at our library include Greece by Madeline Donaldson, Food and Recipes of Greece by Theresa M. Beatty, and Ingri and Edgar Parin d’Aulaire’s Book of Greek Myths. These few books were a great resource for an introduction to Greece culture and mythology.

    

Movies about Greece

Every Friday is movie night in our house, and the whole family enjoyed the Disney movie Hercules. My guys are a little young for Percy Jackson and the Olympians, but that could be a fun addition to this unit.

      

We also loved browsing through the NBC Olympics 2018 website. We watched the 2016 summer Olympics together and talked about Greece a little then. This time around I could introduce the oldest to some favorite winter events that we will see next year.

Love the Olympics? Create your own Olympics at home with the activities from >>> Winter Olympics Lesson Plans for Kids

Greek Art for Kids


We checked out Art Around the World: Loo Loo, Boo, and More Art You Can Do from the library which introduced Greek mosaics. I hadn’t planned on this particular activity, but when he saw it he made the connection to the art in the Greece books and had to make it Right Away!

To make the mosaic, I simply cut strips of construction paper into about 1/2 in squares. He glued them onto the black paper with school glue.

The book’s examples were of mosaics of Greek gods, but the oldest went abstract with his. I think it turned out just lovely. Fridge material, for sure!

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Enjoy Some Greek Cuisine

My hands-down favorite part of this unit was our Greek food night. We sampled gyros, Greek salad, pitas, tzatziki sauce, and olives. My son LOVED the gyro salad. He couldn’t get enough.

He asked what type of meat it was, and I told him “lamb.” For the rest of the meal repeated again and again, “Mmmmmm sheep!” every time he took a bite.

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