Summer SAVY, Session 1 Day 4, Ancient Roots and Ruins (5th – 6th)
Happy Thursday! Since students enjoyed our senate debate on Tuesday so much, they requested a similar activity today, so we started our morning with a debate on how much power Julius Caesar should have as emperor. From there, we transitioned to learning about daily life in ancient Rome, especially focusing on the laws that governed daily life, the central Roman baths, and the famous Roman villas. As we learned about each component of daily life, students had the opportunity to add their own version of the laws, houses, and baths to the cities that they are creating for their final projects.
In the afternoon, students had some time to keep working on their city projects. They should be nearing completion with these projects, though we will have some time to finish working in the morning before presenting the projects in the afternoon. As students worked, we also viewed parts of the animated film Gladiators in Rome about Timo, a teenager in ancient Rome who trains as a gladiator to impress his childhood best friend, Lucilla.
Since tomorrow is the last day of our course, we will be having a toga party! If possible, we would love for each student to bring an old bedsheet (or something similar) to use for the toga fashion show (we will not be drawing or coloring on the sheets, so they will come home in good condition). We will also have extra materials for students, so it is totally fine if they are not able to bring a sheet from home.
Main takeaways from today: understanding what the day-to-day life was like in ancient Rome, detailing the styles of columns and mosaics that Romans used for decoration, and applying all of our knowledge from the week in our city project.
Some dinner table questions:
- Which style of decorative column is your favorite, and why?
- Which of the Latin phrases that we learned today is your favorite, and why?
- Which of the ancient Roman laws did you think was the funniest?
- How is your city project coming along?
I look forward to our final day of the course tomorrow!
Ms. Waxman