Year 4
It has been an incredible start to our learning journey this term! Our transdisciplinary theme of ‘ How we Organise Ourselves’ exposed the children to how the Ancient Greeks lived. This is linked to the central idea that : Communities can be created by invasion and settlements. The term started off with our very exciting provocation where the children participated in several activities that the Greeks enjoyed such as olympic games, marathon and researching about Ancient Greeks facts. It was very interesting to see the display of strength and perseverance during the marathon challenge. The children raised many questions about what they’d like to learn about the past civilization which informed our planning for the next stage of our learning.
After we introduced our topic we delved deeper into the inquiry where we looked into the structures that shaped the society. The children thoroughly enjoyed learning about how their societies were organised and were fascinated about how well they were structured, particularly the Athenians and the Spatans’ societies. They compared the different societies and drew conclusions about where they’d rather live if they were to live back in time. They were also intrigued that an ancient civilization was so advanced in their thinking and that they were the first to introduce democracy.
Following our understanding and research of the structures of Ancient Greek society, the children used their knowledge to write some incredible odes poems about the Greek gods and goddesses. It was amazing to see how engaged they were at applying literary devices to captivate their readers. We then moved on to explore monoprint art technique and the children used this skill to create some stunning Greek patterns.
For our second line of inquiry, we learnt about how invasion can lead to new communities. The children participated in a fun ‘treasure hunt’ finding out about his legacy and influence. They tested the hypothesis about whether he was the reason Ancient Greek was so successful by summarising information from various sources using key vocabulary. They were truly inspired by his bravery to conquer all the countries he did to expand the Greek empire.
Additionally, the children enjoyed learning about the Ancient Greek myths and legends! Our class reader, ‘Who Let the God’s Out’ has been a major highlight of the term. The children were totally engrossed in every chapter, anticipating the next series of events. It provided them a wealth of information about the Gods and Goddesses in such a fun and captivating way. It fueled their interests to write some outstanding narrative stories using high level vocabulary and descriptive language.
Our final line of inquiry, how decisions and laws influence democracy, enabled us to,’ think like a Greek,’ by participating in a mock election to debate environmental issues which is linked to our geography inquiry.
It was a fantastic term and we had lots of fun learning!
