1st Greek Olympiad

Question: What do you do on a beautiful homeschool day while learning about Ancient Greece?

Answer: Hold your own 1st Greek Olympiad, of course! 

After co-op today a few of us decided it was way too nice to be indoors so we met down at the splash pad together.  It's going to be very hard to say goodbye to this beautiful weather come fall! 

As we've been learning in school, the Greeks loved sport and the Olympic Games were the biggest sporting event in the ancient calendar.

"The Olympic Games began around 1776 BC in Olympia, in southwest Greece. Every four years, around 50,000 people came from all over the Greek world to watch and take part. The ancient games were also a religious festival, held in honor of Zeus, the king of the gods."

To celebrate, we were decided to start ours with a short torch ceremony. 

The night before, Kurt had the idea to make a torch out of a paper bag and some tissue paper.  We gathered the kiddos together and had them pass the torch to one another as we signified the beginning of our very first Greek Olympiad. 

As you can see, some were more method actors and really got into it. This, by the way, makes me extremely happy. It's the reason we wanted to revere these learning milestones with mini-celebrations.  

Learning together as a family, across grade and age levels is one of the greatest blessings of homeschool. Seeing them learn something new with this much excitement and be able to experience it (kind of) first hand, is one of the joys I get to experience often. 

Let the games begin! 

We know that the Greeks had 5 original competitions, aptly named the pentathon, so we decided to do our own.  We started out with the relay race.

There were no gold, silver and bronze medals in the first Olympics.  Our winners were also given a wreath of leaves and a hero's welcome back.  While athletes in ancient Greece competed for the glory of their city and winners were seen as being touched by the gods, our winners were awarded a delightful Greek feast.

Learning about food such as Olives, pita bread, hummus, and honey that Greeks used in their food.

As you can see, some Greeks used the food for not only nourishment but for ornamentation as well. 

After so much excitement, we could tell our darling little athletes could use a little break, so we took a time out of the games to enjoy some much needed cooling off.  

We were soon back to business though as Amelia adequately demonstrated the shot put. 

We also had the javelin event,

long jump, and yes- even some wrestling (sock wrestling, that is!)

If you haven't tried sock wrestling (an old Scout game), you should.  It provided a great deal of entertainment at the end of a very enjoyable afternoon. 

Congratulations, darling Greek Olympians!  

"Our children are children for such a small season of life.  Let their laughter ring out, their imaginations soar, their feet stomp in puddles, their hands clap for joy.  Too soon they will grow up and out of their youthful exuberance and zest and settle into the life and routine of adulthood." 

- L.R. Knost