Summer, September, Circe, and Sea Monsters
Title: Circe
Author: Madeline Miller
We spent a good chunk of our summer reading ancient history and mythology. The summer months of sunshine and blistering heat seem to be the best months for mentally spending time in the mediterranean, Egypt, and all the other places we think of when we imagine gods and goddesses.
I read Lightning Thief by Rick Riordan out loud to my nearly nine year old. Last time I’d done that she was maybe two or three. I picked up history books on Athens and Amazons faster than I could read them; I’m still finishing some of them up now. We recently started Sea of Monsters, the second in the Percy Jackson series, my daughter is smitten, I’m gloriously amused.
One historical novel that did stand out, though, was Circe by Madeline Miller. It started out sounding forcefully archaic, cold, like someone trying to hard to tap into a world of Homeric myth; but as I kept reading I found myself smitten by the sea-witch nymph–just as I believe Miller intended us to be. She starts out cold and heartless and grows warm with each mortal interaction.
It’s interesting to me how pervasive witches, goddesses, and nymphs are in modern day culture, despite having been born of myth thousands of years ago. We are enthralled with books like Deborah Harkness’s All Souls Trilogy, captivated by the Percy Jackson series, completely taken in by anything resembling immortality.
Is it our hearts longing for Heaven as Richardson says in Eternity in Our Hearts? So we invent ways that might allow us to stay? Or create reasons why it is better that we don’t? I know I find these stories most intriguing as I watch everything around us die for the oncoming winter.
I look forward to reading The Song of Achilles.
The Olympians
We finally finished The Lightning Thief (book one of the Percy Jackson series) a week or so ago. Man, reading that thing out loud was a bit of a doosey and took us a whole month of before bedtime reading. While reading Percy Jackson by night, bless his little adventurous demi-god heart, we’ve been going over our next Magic Tree House Adventure by day…
Magic Tree House #16: Hour of the Olympics
Magic Tree House Research Guide: Ancient Greece and the Olympics (which we just finished this morning over breakfast and coffee).
Also during this little stint we’ve read and re-read the Golden Books: Disney’s Hercules… over and over and over again. And the little Grecian wanna-be has enjoyed the movie probably too many times than can be good for her little developing brain.
The Odyssey retold by Robin Lister is a gem, but at this point – with kiddo not even three yet – we’ve only browsed through the pictures while actually reading Gods & Goddesses in the Daily Life of the Ancient Greeks. Kiddo is really into all this stuff and is still insisting we have her “Percules Birthday Party with three candles.” Which is poor people code for: all the children shall wear sheets and we’ll do a laurel wreath craft and play with cardboard swords because I’m not buying decorations. Also, it will be a good excuse to serve a lot of grapes…
All in all, tromping through this stuff now with her so little has helped me wrap my brain around the plans we have for ages 5 & 10, roughly. Keep lots of wiggle room in mind.
Ancient Greece & Rome Lesson Plan/ List Age 5
Start Latin Lessons
Haywood
pages 46-57
Black Ships Before Troy – Sutcliffe (Iliad) along with Haywood pg. 206
The Odyssey Retold by Lister
Memorize some facts about the people listed on Haywood pgs. 50-51
Haywood pgs. 108-115 (2 crafts)
Gods & Goddesses from Greek Myths
Haywood pgs. 168-175 (2 crafts)
Haywood pgs. 228-233 (2 crafts)
Haywood pgs. 342-349 (3 crafts)
Haywood pgs. 404-411 (3 crafts)
In Search of a Homeland – Lively (Aeneid)
Haywood pg. 466 + Mosaic project
Haywood pgs. 472-477 (2 crafts)
Of course I’d like to include a trip to the museum.
Relevant Magic Tree House Books: #13 Vacation Under a Volcano, RG Ancient Rome & Pompeii, and of course #16 Hour of the Olympics, RG Ancient Greece & The Olympics
Relevant Magic School Bus during any Pompeii study: #15 Voyage to the Volcano (although this title occurs in modern Hawaii, it explains in true Magic School Bus form all the inner workings of a Volcano)
Then come age 10-ish, we will start repeating the Ancient school lessons, as per our classical education plan. We’ll re-use Haywood, do projects we may have skipped over, repeat ones she liked a lot… but add these things…
Ancient Greece & Rome Lesson Plan/ List Age 9-10
Start covering the Greek Alphabet (we hope to be pretty Latin literate by then)
Archimedes and the Door of Science
Gods & Goddesses in the Daily Life of the Ancient Greeks
The Usborne Encyclopedia of the Roman World
The Odyssey as Retold Mary Pope Osborne (to be read on her own or together as a family), the author of the Magic Tree House books.
The Percy Jackson series by Riordan
Greek Mythology… with children
(Weekly Low Down on Kids Books)
Unfortunately this awesome image is not from a book. I think it’s from a video game.
The kiddo and I have been reading Percy Jackson & The Olympians: The Lightning Thief by Rick Riordan. Is she a little young to catch everything, of course, she’s not yet three. Is she following the story? Better than you might imagine. I highly recommend that parents read kids stories that are far outside the child’s reading level. By doing this they are exposed to mature language styles sooner, learn new vocabulary words, and in the case of Rick Riordan, appreciate Disney movies like Hercules that much more.
We’re not finished reading Percy Jackson, so this review isn’t about that. This review is about picture books we’ve been reading during the day in preparation for our before bed time romps with Riordan’s Olympians.
Title: Gods and Goddesses from Greek Myths
Publisher: McGraw Hill Childrens/ Peter Bendrick Books/ Octopus Publishing Group
Retold by: Pat Rosner
Illustrated by: Olwyn Whelan
ISBN: 1-57768-508-3
Typically I provide links and images to the book, where you can find and purchase it, etc. But it seems that Gods and Goddesses lives an off the grid book life. It seems to be extremely difficult to find online and I was in the middle of typing here that I could not find it when I got the idea to check hpbmarketplace.com. I purchased it from a Half Price Books a few years ago, but sure enough the marketplace wins again! As you browse through the prices, you’ll see some are quite expensive. I only paid about $5 for this at the store, I wonder if it is currently out of print. Mine is in mint condition.
The illustrations are delightful, the retold myths thorough but easy to grasp. It’s not kiddo’s favorite book, but I can tell it has helped her grasp what is happening in the Percy Jackson books. Sometimes she just flips through the Greek style pictures while listening to me read Riordan’s work.
If I were in McKinney, TX right now I’d purchase the Fantastic Creatures from Greek Mythology as well, because I like these so much and I think Olwyn Whelan is a genius illustrator. Everything she touches, I think, would be great homeschooling resources.
Other resources we enjoy:
Anakalian Whims 