Summer SAVY 2017, Session 3/Day 2- Mirror of Mythology (Rising 2nd/3rd, Byrd)
Dear SAVY Parents!
Another thrilling day of stories, discussion, and research in mythology! We are making more and more connections with these ancient stories to our modern culture in architecture, language, and literature. We began sorting out some of names of different gods and goddesses – and we’ll continue observing and recording personal character traits and discovering what we can learn from them.
Today we specifically looked into artifacts and some recorded evidence of the Nordic and Greek/Roman cultures. We learned about the similarities of characters and story lines in the latter, and began to correlate them in a table (to eliminate chaos by providing structure and organization)! It was fascinating to observe the students share what they already knew, as well as think more deeply about how these cultures both form and result from ancient stories. We discussed a few stanzas of an Icelandic Rune poem to learn more about their culture, and tomorrow we will be looking online at the figures in the East pediment of the Parthenon to check out another primary source for a well known Greek myth. We have some pretty rigorous criteria for our sources! What implications do these stories have in preserving cultural elements? How will these students use their knowledge of concepts found in myths in their future writings and chosen activities?
On Wednesday, the children will begin to individually research a group of select Greek gods in provided text resources, and we look forward to including more online research as well. Each student will choose a “favorite” to target their remaining investigations. Tonight, you might discuss and observe lessons from our class that could be applied in your home. What elements of Greek architecture can be found in your home that add to it’s aesthetic appeal or structural strength (decorative columns or arches)? What positive character traits can your child identify (in common with a Greek character such as Demeter or Persephone) that benefit your family (gentleness, generosity, strength)? Finally, my personal favorite, how can the concepts of chaos vs. structure and organization be used in your home? This one of course comes straight from our creations myth discussions! Looking forward to tomorrow!
Mrs. Byrd
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