Free Ancient Greece Lesson Plans, Simulations, Classroom Activities for 6th grade - can be adjusted for any grade Illustration

Free Ancient Greece Lesson Plans, Simulations, Activities for 6th grade - can be adjusted for any grade

For Ancient Greece: These are Free Use lesson plans, classroom activities, simulations, interactive activities, review activities, concluding activities and projects written by us and by other teachers for ancient Greece. We have had great success with these ideas in our classroom. We hope they work as well for you.

Geography:

  • Greek Geography Activity: Working in small groups, be real estate agents. Sell your site. Use real location names. If its a sea, name it. Give reasons why anyone should settle down in such a mountainous area. Remind students that the Greeks were independent. Their culture developed from villages that grew into unique and independent city-states. Have groups create a "For Sale" brochure or sign.

  • Geography Lesson Plans - several

  • Travel in Ancient Greece, a mix of city-states and locations - how geography affected the development of ancient Greece

Government:

Religion/Greek Gods

  • Gods, Goddesses, Myths - many, include projects and classroom activities

  • Business Cards: Tell the kids the gods are really getting upset. People are coming to the temples asking them to do everything. They don't do everything. They have jobs. People need a reminder of what jobs each god can do. In frustration, the gods have come to you to fix this. You need to create for them some business cards that they can use to advertise what they do best. (Example: Apollo, Want a sun tan? See Apollo. Or Hera: Wedding Consultant. Aphrodite: Love Advice for the Lonely. Work in groups. If you have multiple classes, work in large groups. Give each class different gods. That way, when they are all posted on the wall, the kids in each class can enjoy them. Assign groups the gods they will be helping. Give them some time. Have each class them share their business cards ideas with the class. Collect the card so can make a montage of all the cards from all classes on your wall.

  • Job Application: Zeus is retiring. Apply for his job.

  • NEW: Comparing stories and myths, in three steps

  1. Step One: Language Arts/Social Studies - Using Ancient Greece as the location and setting, and the personalities of the ancient Greek gods:  Case Files of the Hercules Detective Agency (original short stories about ancient Greece)  Join Herc and his buddies as they solve the many problems facing the ancient Greek people. Meet some monsters! Visit the Olympics! Find out how kids got an education. How did men get their hair cut? How did people meet each other to get married? Who were the Oracles? What were the gods really like and how did they get along? What was the stone zoo?  What happened to the missing olive trees? How did Hercules and the Minotaur become best friends? Way we use these stories in the classroom: Small group activity: Divide into small groups. Assign each group a different case file (story) to recap, illustrate, and present. Have students explain how the story used the setting, daily life, and the gods of ancient Greece to create a fictional story. Next step: Draw names from a hat to create the next small groups and have each group write an original story using Ancient Greece. They must start with a list of characters (including deities or monsters if any), a location, an event, and then build from there. Illustrate and present their story to the class. This assignment was a lot of fun and taught the kids a great deal about ancient Greece. Nothing like using the real gods characters to make sure they fit the story. Then we finish this part of the activity by bringing in the real myths that we have already discussed, myths that were told over and over by the ancient Greek storytellers.

  2. Step Two: Write their own Greek Myths: Monster Myths: Small Group Activity. I especially like having the kids write their own monster myths, complete with Greek God villain and/or hero/heroine and a happy ending, early in the unit. First, have your students read some additional Greek Myths if time permits as a review the Greek gods. Point out especially for this lesson the myth of King Tantalus  (beware mere mortals who think they can lie about the gods or use the gods for their own purposes.) Working in small groups, have kids write a short made up myth. As kids read their myth aloud, by giving parts to various group members or by selecting a narrator, the rest of the class has to ooh and ah and cheer because that's how things were done when the Ancient Greek storytellers told their tales. It was the myths. legends, and heroes that gave the early Greeks the unity and confidence they needed to escape the rule of the hated Dorians.

  3. Step Three: Conclude this activity: Compare the difference between a story and a myth. (The difference is that a story does not need to include a god or goddess or mythical being.  A myth requires it.)

Daily Life

  •  Pieces of the Past: Tell your students: Imagine you are a famous archaeologist and you have just discovered the ruins of an ancient Greek home. Go through each room, carefully piecing together the clues. Each group in your class is assigned a room. The group creates clues (pieces of the past) for that room and its purpose in ancient Greece. Then, each group's room becomes an exploration station. Set up your stations around your classroom and allow students to explore each station and create a list of "discoveries" that tell us about daily life in ancient Greece. Then open class discussion. Although this is fictional writing, it is also technical writing as the assignment requires the discovery of artifacts and clues. We teach multiple classes. Some of our groups during this two-day activity chose to add to existing rooms. Some created nearby businesses. Some created neighbors. I had two groups, actually, who challenged the findings of two different discovery stations. One group was clearly, based on their presentation, seeking a grant to correct misinformation. Very fun. Our two-day activity became a four day one and I left the discovery stations up for about 10 days.

  •  Trading Market Simulation, barter in ancient Greece. Optional use: Students can create products that would be needed in ancient Greek daily life to barter. This can be as simple as a word on a piece of paper or a quick drawing. 

  • The News, what's going on in the ancient Greek world: The Daily Athenian, newspaper project

  • Lesson Plans and Activities for Daily Life, Homes, Women, School - many, include projects and classroom activities  

  • Worksheet:: Ancient Greece, education, lesson plan
  • Worksheet: Ancient Greece, home life

Greek Olympics:

Famous People

Achievements/Inventions/Art/Architecture

Concluding Activities and Review: 

Complete Units:

Early & Classical Greece Units - 6th grade (Mr. Donn)  

Ancient Greece, with essential and guiding questions, 8th grade (Mrs. Baldwin)

Ancient Greece Unit (133 pages)

Ancient Greece and Rome, a comparison (35 lessons, Core Knowledge)

Ranch View Middle School Ancient Greece - unit handouts

Welcome to Ancient Greece, Overviews & Units

More free use activity and project ideas for kids and teachers to use in your unit study of ancient Greece. These activities can be adjusted for any grade.

Critical Thinking Activity: Question what you read on the web! - computer lab, small group activity

Choose Your Own Adventure (from a long and creative list of Classroom Activities and Possible Assignments)

Activities: Over 90 Ancient Greece Activities for elementary and middle school Kids and Teachers - some ours, some sent to us

Great Links from Poulsbo Middle School, Kitsap County, WA - Ancient Greek Civilization

Webquests & Resources

My Ancient Greek Activity Book - Includes making business cards for the gods.

Choose Your Own Adventure from over 70 different classroom activities and possible assignments

New teachers: Easy desk arrangements for the classroom - I move my desks around all the time, depending upon the activities I'm doing that day. It took me forever to realize I can have the kids move their desks, after I mark the spots with masking tape. You don't want to have the kids moving into formations all the time, but occasionally it's a smart thing to do. Tell them you need their help prior to movement. It's a team building activity. It's not your classroom that way, it's "our" classroom. They will want to help you. 

Greek Worksheets -