Exploring Ancient Greece

My first grader this year is really interested in Greek mythology, particularly as it is written in the middle grades chapter book series Goddess Girls, Heroes in Training, and Myth-O-Mania. From here, it was pretty easy and natural to transition into teaching her a little about Ancient Greek history. She doesn't do well with a lot of dry nonfiction, though, so I looked for some creative ways to keep it exciting and appealing to her.




This book is part of a series which I've only just discovered about three kids who go to a travel agency that specializes in time travel. They are given a guidebook which, when they start reading, transports them to a different time. In order to get home, they need to finish the guidebook. So, while this is a fictional narrative about time travel, each page has excerpts from the guidebook which give lots of facts and information about ancient Greek society.




My daughter has read all the Magic Tree House books, but I thought we'd re-read this one as a read aloud and include my four year old this time. This is a highly engaging series for kids that introduces and builds interest in different historical moments. In this one, Jack and Annie travel to the Ancient Olympics. What I like best about it is that for each book, there is also a non fiction fact tracker that includes non fiction information on the topic of the book. You can also find games and quizzes related to both the novels and the fact trackers at Magic Treehouse.




This video series, which is available on Amazon Prime is really cute and engaging. There are two separate videos for Classical Greece in the first season.

For researching the history of Ancient Greece, younger kids will probably enjoy this site on Growing up in Greece from the BBC. For older kids, there are great videos about Ancient Greek history here.

I found some great sites with games too to keep the learning fun for kids. Winged sandals has four adorable games that deal with Greek mythology, as well as a story time section and some historical research material.

Scholastic also has some cute Ancient Greece games, which deal with subjects like the Greek influence on the English language.