Greek Mythology

Greek Mythology--- kids love learning about Greek Myths.  While this isn't a huge curriculum bullet (there usually isn't too much of it covered on most state exams), it is something that will pique the interest of your students.  They especially like it because they can RELATE to it and have PRIOR KNOWLEDGE of most of the content we cover.

Students will draw parallels to:  Percy Jackson and the Olympians and The Heroes of Olympus series, both by Rick Riordan; the God of War video game for PS3; the movie Clash of the Titans; and if you're lucky, they have actually learned a little bit about Greek Mythology from actual textbooks before!

I remember I learned about Greek mythology in 6th grade.  My wonderful, amazing Language Arts/ Social Studies teachers had our teams divided each into a different Greek Polis.  We had competitions against each other, culminating in a huge Olympics competition (I just remember the javelin toss was with pencils).  It was so much fun.

I usually saved Greek Mythology for the week before state exams and the week during.  I did this so students were actually enjoying themselves in class, not just cramming last minute for state exams (like that helps anyway).

I always started off with teaching about the titans (very briefly) and then we got into the myth of the Gods overthrowing Kronos.  And we took off from there.  I always started with a print out of notes for the students.  On each printout would have the names of each God/Goddess (Zeus, Poseidon, Hades, etc), mythical heroes (Hercules, Orpheus, Achilles, Odysseus, etc), monsters (Medusa, Hydra, Minotaur, Sirens, Cerebrus) and general terms and places (Elysium, Hades, Olympus, Crete, etc).  Most of these terms tied to the myths that were from our text book.  Those myths were on:  Prometheus and how he came to give man fire;  Icarus and Daedalus and their metal wings;  Apollo and his son Phaeton, who was too proud to not fly his father's chariot; and Orpheus, who almost brought back his beloved from death by playing beautiful music.

We covered why the Gods and Goddesses were worshiped and I had to explain to students that this was the religion of the Greek people.  Most students were astonished at this news and thought that "Those fools were crazy."  (And that's a direct quote I got).  I told little stories about each God, Goddess, hero, monster, place, person, etc.  The kids saw that I loved the content/subject, and they caught on to that.   Can you guess what unit my students tested the highest on average for?  Yep, it was this unit.

We supplemented some stories.  I printed out stories about King Midas and his Golden touch, Perseus and Medusa,  Theseus and the minotaur, Jason and the Argonauts and a simplified, summarized version of the Odysssey.  The teams randomly picked their myth.  They read the myth together as a team, and then planned an even shorter skit of the myth.  They were graded on their enthusiasm, team work and how accurate their portrayal was.

I really wish that I could have taught more to the students.  Their eyes sparkled and they smiled so much when we learned about Greek Mythology.  And, don't we want our students to like learning?  I always encouraged students to keep reading the content.  I told them that if they hadn't already they needed to read Percy Jackson, not only for the content, but the wonderful middle school sense of humor that Riordan writes with.


There are Greek myths all over the place on the internet.  So, use those if you need a place to get started.  I also used the school library as a source, and had books pulled on Greek mythology.  When students were really interested in one aspect (like the myth of Theseus and the minotaur),  I would encourage them to try to read more about it on their own.

Most of all, when it comes to Greek Mythology, have FUN teaching your students.  They will love it if you do!  If you have no desire to do Greek Mythology, then try something else with your students.  Egyptian mythology, middles ages, or black plague.  Find something that you like to teach and that will engage the students and go.  Remember, that it is impossible to teach a supplemental unit like this all year long.  But it is there to break up the monotony, and give your students something to do that they'll really enjoy!

Best of luck!