Hi Year 2,
Please could you find out some top facts about Ancient Greece and post them on our blog? We’ll have a look at all your comments in school on WEDNESDAY! The more strange, exciting or funny, the better!
Remember to learn your spellings too!
Have a lovely weekend!
Miss Cumming
Here’s one from me to get you started!
Did you know that Spartan men used to comb their hair before battle?
Miss Cumming
Beards were in fashion. Beards were an art. The better the beard the more manly you were. Some beards were triangular.
In Sparta reading and writing was unimportant. Boys learned to be good fighters! In Athens it was very important to be educated to be able to vote.
Greece is the home country of the Olympic Games! This was one of their four most important sports festivals. The name Olympics comes from the city Olympia.
The Ancient Greeks believed in many gods. They built a temple for Zeus!
Zeus was the king of the Ancient Greek gods. His symbol was a thunderbolt.
Greek girls were not allowed to go to school. School was only for rich boys.
The Greeks would dye their clothes with berries and wash them in the river. They would smack them against stones to dry them.
They were very proud of their cities, Athens was the capital city and the most important.
The first Olympics games were held in 776 bc at the Greek city of Olympia.
Spartan boys were removed from their parents at the age of 7, to start their warrior training. If we lived in Ancient Greece now year 2 would be warrior training class……
In Ancient Greece the nursery boys drank a cup of wine to show they were nearly men.
If they though a baby boy was too small or weak then they would abandon them on the top of a cliff, they would check the next morning to see if it had survived and could go in to the army.
They didn’t use napkins they wiped their faces and hands on bread and then fed it to their dogs.
Ancient Greek men competed to have the biggest and best beards.
They did not have shops only markets.
Did you know that the Ancient Greeks invented theatre and plays? But only boys and men were allowed to act in them which is so unfair!
Year 2 I am LOVING your top facts! Keep them coming…
Miss Cumming
On a trip to the market, you would often see slaves standing on a round platform waiting to be sold.
The Ancient Greeks believed the gods played with them like pawns in a game of chess. A bit like checkers!
All competitors in the Olympics were naked!
Hippocrates lived in ancient greece and was one of the first proper doctors. He was one of the first people who thought that sickness was caused by things around you (like poisonous berries and germs). Most people thought that illness was because the gods didn’t like you.
Antaeus was Hercules’ enemy. He defeated him by holding him up in the air. Why? Because Antaeus was a ground god so Hercules had to separate him from the earth so he couldn’t get his strength back.
We get the word ‘alphabet’ from the first two letters of the Greek alphabet – alpha and beta.
In 490 BC, Pheidippides ran from Athens to Sparta to ask the Spartans for help against the Persians in the Battle of Marathon. That’s why the marathon race in the Olympic Games is so called.
The ancient Greeks believed that their Gods and Goddesses were all related and lived in a cloud palace in the sky above Mount Olympus.
Ancient Greeks used their pee to treat wounds and also to whiten their teeth!
All the olympic games were done in the nude even the wrestling, that could have been very dangerous! Some men ate sheep’s testicles before the games to make them stronger!
Greek actors used masks with large mouth holes so their voices sounded louder.
Theatre comes from Ancient Greece.
The ancient Greeks believed their gods and goddesses lived on Mount Olympus, the highest mountain of Greece.
The Greeks had some strange superstitions about food.
Some Greeks wouldn’t eat beans as they thought they contained souls of the dead !
The Ancient Greeks held many festivals in honour of their gods. To celebrate the god Zeus, for example, the first Greek Olympics were held in the city of Olympia in 776 BC and are thought to have inspired our own Olympic Games! The winners of each event were given a wreath of leaves, and when they returned home, they would be given free meals and the best seats in the theatre!
9. The Ancient Greeks held many festivals in honour of their gods. To celebrate the god Zeus, for example, the first Greek Olympics were held in the city of Olympia in 776 BC and are thought to have inspired our own Olympic Games! The winners of each event were given a wreath of leaves, and when they returned home, they would be given free meals and the best seats in the theatre!
The Greeks loved their pets especially dogs ,like most modern societies ,dogs were the most common pets in Ancient Greece .
In Ancient Greece, boys went to school at 7, while girls stayed at home and were taught by their mothers. Some girls learned to read and write, but many did not. Wealthy families sent slaves to walk to school with the boys, and stayed with them all day!
There were many myths about a fearsome monster, half bull and half man, called a Minotaur!
The Greek diet was very healthy. Food in Ancient Greece consisted of grains, wheat, barley, fruit, vegetables, breads, and cake.
The Ancient Greeks grew olives, grapes, figs and wheat and kept goats, for milk and cheese. They ate lots of bread, beans and olives.
In the Summer months there were plenty of fresh fruit and vegetables to eat and in the winter they ate dried fruit and food they had stored like apples and lentils. As most of the Greeks lived very near the sea, they also ate a lot of fish, squid and shellfish.
The Ancient Greeks developed new ideas for government, science, philosophy, religion and art.
They ate dinner while lying on their sides and they also invented the yo-yo.
In Ancient Greece they worshipped many Gods. Zeus was the king of the Gods and threw lightening like a spear.
Most houses in Ancient Greek towns were built from stone or clay. The roofs were covered with tiles, or reeds, and the houses had one or two storeys. The floors of the rooms were tiled to keep them cool, althoug in winter fires in metal baskets, were sometimes needed.
A famous legend has it that the Greeks conquered the city of Troy by hiding inside a wooden horse. The people of Troy thought it was a gift, but when it was wheeled inside the city walls the Greek soldiers climbed out and captured the city !
Ancient Greece was split into many different states, each one was ruled in its own way. Each state had its own laws, government and money but they shared the same language and religion. The two most important city states were Athens and Sparta.
The ancient Greeks had lots of stories to help them learn about their world. The gods featured heavily in these tales, and so did mythological monsters – like Cerberus, a three-headed dog that guarded the gates to the underworld;
Medusa, a slithery sorceress whose look could turn people to stone; and the Cyclops who had one eye in the middle of its forehead.
Also
Events at the Greek’s Olympics included wrestling, boxing, long jump, javelin, discus and chariot racing. But those taking part in the wrestling event had to be the toughest, as there were hardly any rules – and they had to compete naked
It’s believed the first Ancient Greek civilisations were formed nearly 4,000 years ago (approximately 1600 BC) by the mighty Mycenaeans of Crete (a Greek Island). The Ancient Greek Empire spread from Greece through Europe and, in 800 BC, the Greeks started to split their land into city-states, each with its own laws, customs and rulers.
There was a medicine mikst with the cut and there wee wee and there bogies and there earwax.
If a baby was weak some parents would leave it on a rock to see if it would die. Anyone finding an abandoned baby could adopt it and take it home, perhaps to raise it as a slave.