As we head into our studies of Ancient Greece I have been pulling out some of our favorite books and looking for more, and I thought I'd share a few links. Schola Rosa recommends D'Aulaires' Book of Greek Myths, which is excellent. Mary Pope Osborne also has a nice collection called Favorite Greek Myths, and wrote a fun two-book version of the Odyssey, called Tales from the Odyssey, which is a good for younger readers. Rosemary Sutcliff's versions of the Iliad and Odyssey are a little more challenging and also very well done.
Schola Rosa bases many of the 4-6th grade writing assignments over the next couple of months on Andrew Lang's Tales of Greece and Troy. I took advantage of the free kindle version. Miss A says she is having a hard time keeping track of the story, which I think is mostly because of all the long Greek names. (For context, she read the first of the Pope Osborne series in an afternoon.) I thought the recorded version might be helpful with the names, but Grandma Rolling seems to be having as much trouble as we are! If you are looking for a more polished version, it is available on Audible.
We have also enjoyed the very engaging and dramatic Barefoot Books recorded version of the Adventures of Odysseus.
If you really want to experience the Odyssey, you can catch a live performance this Saturday at Westchester Community College.
What resources do you love for studying Ancient Greece?
We began our Greek studies today with some of the above recommendations plus some recommended by the Connecting With History program. Today the kids enjoyed listening to the the Greek Myths CD by Jim Weiss. We've also been looking at the Usborne "Ancient World" book and the "Classical Kids" book by Laurie Carlson for insight into the life and times of Ancient Greece. We also plan to take a look at "The Trojan Horse: How the Greeks Won the War," an early reader by Emily Little. We borrowed the Mary Pope Osborne Odyssey books from the library as well as the audio CD version.
ReplyDeleteI'm looking forward to learning about all of this too!