SAVY Saturday, Week 1, Percy Jackson & Greek Mythology (5th-6th)
Our first day together was a great success! We started our morning by getting to know each other with a little “this or that” game. Students had to decide between things like going camping or going to the beach, playing video games or playing sports, cats or dogs, and ice cream or candy. This was a great way for our group to break the ice and get comfortable with each other using what we have in common! There was a great uproar about people who preferred sushi over pizza but a general consensus that fantasies are better than mysteries.
We kicked off our exploration of Greek mythology with an introduction to the 12 Olympian gods. Students learned about each deity’s domain and symbols, taking notes while adding colors and drawings to deepen their understanding. Once we had a solid grasp of the Olympians, students took a short quiz to discover which god or goddess they most closely resembled. Artemis turned out to be a popular match, while Ares didn’t make any appearances—much to everyone’s relief! With this newfound insight, students designed their own godly symbols and wrote a few sentences explaining how their symbols represented them. The creativity on display was incredible! Be sure to ask your student about the symbol they created and what it means to them!
During our time together, we are going to deep dive into some of the major Gods featured in Percy Jackson. We started this week with Zeus and Poseidon. We read through their original origin stories from Greek Mythology and then compared them to Rick Riordan’s version of them. We used the Percy Jackson and the Olympians- The Ultimate Guidebook to help us with Riordan’s versions. The show gave us some visuals to work with as well. We compared both versions of Zeus and Poseidon and discussed why we think Riordan made these changes. There were some interesting comments about keeping the story relevant in the modern world and changing the characters, so we see them as a hero or a villain depending on how Riordan wants them to fit into the story.
We ended the day talking about which Gods they most wanted to learn more about in our next couple of classes. Be sure to ask about their thoughts on the changes from the classic myths. There will be more comparisons, analyses, and TV show clip viewings next week!
Looking forward to an incredible couple of weeks this spring!