DAY THREE

A MYSTERY PERSON

When we arrived in class today there was an outline of a head on the board with a question mark on it.  “Who is that?” “Is it a God?” “Is it Odysseus?” “Is it a Greek hero?.  There was a buzz of suggestions and ideas put forward from the group.

I presented the group with some images and objects from a bag that all had something to do with our mystery person on the board.  The group looked carefully at the images and gathered their ideas.

“he looks like a war leader”

“he is an orator (makes speeches)”

“he is from Athens – the Acropolis is behind him in the picture”

“those letters look like they might be his name”

“he must have been rich and famous to have statues of him made”

Gathering our Ideas about Pericles

Next we split into small groups to read some information about this person, whose name we learnt was Pericles.  Each group shared back some key information about Pericles:

• Athens was a powerful and rich city in the Golden Age and Pericles was the leader of the city.

• Pericles was well educated, intelligent, and a good speaker.

• Pericles led the city not as a dictator but used democracy (voting – letting the citizens have their say in how the city was run).

• Pericles led a big building project on the Acropolis, he wanted to make Athens beautiful and repair all the damage done in the Persian Wars.

• Pericles led the building of the Parthenon with its 12 metre high statue of Athena made of gold and ivory.

• Pericles wanted the building work to provide jobs for many citizens in Athens.

• Pericles lead changes in government included a law that said all Athenian citizens must have two Athenian born parents.  This gave more people rights as many of the wealthy people of Athens had married out of Athens.

• Pericles was a big supporter of the arts, theatre, and music.

• Pericles believed that all people should be well educated and have military training.

COLLECTIVE CHARACTER OF PERICLES

Next we made a collective character of Pericles.  Leon stood in the centre to represent Pericles and the rest of the group took turns to stand behind him and speak aloud possible ideas and thoughts of Pericles.  When someone had read their idea out they sat down and someone else stood up to take their place.  This was quite effective!

“I want people to be more happy and to give me more ideas”

“I want Athens to be the most beautiful polis (city)”

“I think it’s about what we do, not who we are that is important”

 “I think everybody should have the opportunity to have a good job and good money”

“I love plays and art”

“I really want my city to be the most beautiful in the world”

“ I want all the people of Athens to be well educated”

“I love being a politician”

“Athens is a beautiful city of art and theatre and music.  It is a thinking house”

“I think Athens is the best city”

“I think everyone should be able to vote”

“I think we should live in harmony with other cities”

A SMALL COMMISSION

After morning tea I shared a letter with the group.  The letter was from Sophie the archaeologist (a character from a book we read in our first session ‘Archaeologists Dig for Clues’).  Sophie was writing to us for some help.

Dear Team,

I am writing to you in the hope that you might be able to help me and my team of archaeologists understand some artifacts we recently excavated.

Last month we finished a big dig in the Mediterranean near Athens in Greece.  We found a number of artefacts that we believe date back to about 460BC.  We need to present our findings from the excavation at a conference at the end of August but our team does not have much knowledge or expertise about artifacts from this time. We have heard that your team specialises in artefacts from the Golden Age of Athens so we hope you can help us!  We have five artifacts and questions that we need help with (see pictures and questions enclosed).

We look forward to hearing from you soon,

From Sophie (From ‘Archaeologists Dig For Clues’).

We divided into groups to work on the different questions and to write letters back to Sophie with the information she might need.  This required gathering the knowledge we had learnt already and  then looking up other references for more information/detail.

Groups are looking at Panathenaic Amphoras, Athenian coins, sculptures of Athena, Athenian armour, and a piece of pottery with the name of Pericles inscribed on it.  As the groups set to work to analyse their artifact it was impressive how much everyone has already learnt about the Golden Age, it was great to hear so many “aha/I know!” moments.

We will finish these letters next week.

FREEZE FRAMES

Our last activity of the day was to settle down and listen to the next part of the story of the Odyssey.

We listened to the story of King Aeolus and his sack of winds and added this part of the story to our story maps.

Because Samantha had been away last week we decided to make some Freeze Frames with narrators, to tell the story of Odysseus that we had listened to so far.  Each person in the freeze frame was allowed to speak aloud one sentence as well as having one group narrator.  Each group then performed their small freeze frame.  The performances were very fun and entertaining – there are some budding actors and keen performers amongst us!

1. Paris comes across the three goddesses, Athena, Aphrodite, and Hera, arguing about who is the most beautiful.

2. Two men hide inside the wooden horse.  King Menelaus wants his wife back!  Helen and Paris inside Troy.

3. The Cyclops is given wine by Odysseus and then blinded.  The other Cyclops come to his aid but leave again when they hear that “no man” has blinded him!

4. One of Odysseus’s men letting the wind out of the sack while Odysseus sleeps.