Y3 Ancient Greek Day
Date: 14th Mar 2019 @ 7:56am
We were treated to a visit from Hera herself during Greek day. She explained that she was married to Zeus, who was often wicked and cruel to mortals and wanted to turn the children into bugs! We had to prove that we were worthy of remaining as humans.
In the morning we found out about Philo, Sophocles, Archimedes and Pamphile. With our teachers, we learnt about Sophocles the playwright. He created plays to tell the Greeks about the Gods and the lessons we could learn, they created masks to show emotions while someone narrated the story.
We found out that Philo created the water wheel to help save time, effort and slaves lives when lifting heavy blocks of stone out of the quarries. We experimented with how many levers we needed to make it as cheap yet effective as possible and what heights, speed and distance from the middle we should be pouring the water.
We were told (and acted out) the story of Archimedes and how he discovered a way of weighing an objects density using the displacement of water. The children found it hilarious to learn that when Archimedes discovered this he ran around the town naked (having just got out of the bath) shouting Eureka!
We practised spinning cotton wool like Pamphile who found a way of spinning silk from cocooned silk worms which has allowed us to create some of the clothes we wear today!
In the afternoon we went to Hippocrates’s school of medicine and learnt how they would treat soldiers for arrow wounds. Can you believe that they pull the arrow through the arm instead of pulling it out the way it went in! Our budding doctors then took the Hippocratic Oath (which doctors still take today).
We also found out what it was like to write in Ancient Greek times, using a wooden stick and paint instead of a pen was rather frustrating, especially those who are left handed! Many children complained of smudging and being knocked which ruined the writing. Unfortunately, the Greek alphabet does not contain all of our letters so some children couldn’t even spell their name properly!
