The contrast between the ancient Romans and the majority of their neighbours is impressive to say the least.  The people the Romans called «barbarians» included the Celts, Germanic tribes, the Viking tribes, the Gauls and others, and most lived in more or less the same way: mainly in small settlements of absolute filth and squalor.  They did have agriculture and they raised animals, and they did have religions and trade and a form of government after a fashion; but the Romans had armies and paved roads and baths and books and nice clothes and written laws.  The Romans had, in a word, a civilization.  That’s not to say they were any more charming than their heathen counterparts: they still had slavery, gruesome executions, used women as chattel, child labor and engaged in human rights violations of every kind.  What the Romans and barbarians really had in common was war: every man believed in fighting for honor and glory to the death.  The difference was in the techniques and strategies used to wage it: the Romans had legions of standing armies marching in thrilling formation and executing maneuvers with terrifying precision.  The barbarians did not, and tribe by tribe they were either slaughtered, pushed away or assimilated into the great Roman Empire as far north as the British Isles. 

Why is it worth teaching kids about the Roman Empire?  For older kids, it’s worth having them note that if the Greeks gave us democracy, at least as an ideal if not a model, the Romans gave us the idea of laws and justice, though again, not justice by our current standards (depending on what country you live in).  For younger children, it is interesting to continue the story of Ancient Greece, for they believed in the same pantheon of gods albeit with different names, and the story of Ancient Egypt, linked in many ways but most notably through Cleopatra’s relationships with Julius Caesar and Mark Antony.

Activities

Math:

Roman numerals are a useful math lesson in addition for younger children.  One fun way to practice is to turn the living room into a Roman marketplace by draping «togas» (sheets or scarves) around.  You can add fruit stands or jars of honey as well.  Place a price tag on each item in Roman numerals, give each person some play money and go shopping.  Notice that if you include the idea of bargaining, older children can practice the idea of dividing down the middle: for example, if the «seller» demands XXXX ($40) for a scarf and the «buyer» only wants to pay XXX (30) then a fair price is XXXV (35).  Younger children might need to be helped to count down and count up until they reach the agreement mark.

STEM:

We used rocks to build a road from Rome to England (from the tree to the fence).  Another challenge was to attempt to build an aqueduct to get water from the sink to the bathtub in the bathroom.  We used cut open plastic bottles, funnels, and everything else we could think of.  We had to prop the aqueduct up on blocks and stools. 

Science:

Most of the planets are named for the different Roman gods, so this was a good occasion to review the solar system.  We tried to guess why the planets have the names they do: for example, Mars is red because the God of war would have drawn blood; from a distance, Venus is the brightest and most beautiful as befits the goddess of love, though looking up close we realized we certainly wouldn’t want to live there.  We had to look up whatever we didn’t know about the planets, their moons and their names.

The Romans also worked on correcting the calendar: the Julian calendar was an improvement on the Alexandrian calendar and was later refined by the Gregorian calendar which we now use. Younger children can practice remembering the months by filling in a blank calendar and drawing pictures of important days in each month.  If they are able, they can also apply the «thirty days hath September» rhyme and try to fill in each month with the correct number of days.  This can lead to discussions of how to define a day, a month, and a day according to the motions of the sun, the earth and the moon, and why a precise calendar is so important.  Child was interested to know that the traditional Hebrew calendar starts in approximately September or October rather than January. She also wanted to know why we consider that a day starts at midnight rather than when the sun rises.

Interestingly for children, days and years on other planets are of different lengths.

Food:

Tomatoes, bread, cheese, herbs and olive oil, in essence true Italian-style pizzas were enjoyed by all.  Incidentally, pizzas provide excellent practice in early division in two ways: first the toppings must be evenly spread and then the pizza must be cut in equal pieces.  Watching the time as it cooks is also good for understanding how long 10 minutes really is.

Discussion

I don’t really remember studying much about the Roman Empire at school, and so, as an adult, I didn’t really consider its importance.  Child, however, really enjoyed the day.  That day, a friend of mine came, a fellow educator as it happens, which allowed Child to have fun with both of us.  She very much enjoyed the «shopping» game and draping scarves about herself, toga-style.  She even traced her feet on paper to make sandals and we used flowers and branches to make the type of laurels the emperor would have worn on his head. 

The aqueduct was a colossal failure, though a hugely entertaining one, because everything kept falling and we got wet. 

We built the «road» out of stones, but we only put them down in single file and they were hard to balance on.  We did enjoy «conquering the barbarians» (we informed our dogs they were henceforth under the command of Centurion Child and Centurion Mummy; they seemed happy enough, but otherwise unimpressed).

Learning the calendar was frustrating and so I reminded Child that «Rome wasn’t built in a day»; she eventually remembered the months after a few weeks of practice.

Naturally, Child enjoyed both the preparation and the eating of the pizzas, as did the rest of the family.

Ancient Greece didn’t actually exist in the way that we would define a country today.  It was a collection of city states including Sparta, Athens, Corinth, Crete, Macedonia and Thebes though the boundaries and number of city states was subject to much change over the time period.  Ancient Greece is important to know about because of the enormous contributions it continues to make even to the present day.  Greek mythology, which later gave rise to the Roman pantheon is a constant source of cultural reference, from the planets in our solar system which are named for the Roman gods, to Nike, the popular sportswear brand named for the Greek Goddess of Victory.  In fact, in Ecuador there used to be a domestic airline with what I thought was a rather unfortunate name: Icaro, possibly named by a not-quite-literate-enough owner (Icarus was the overly-ambitious demi-god with wings of wax who flew too close to the sun.) I refused to fly it.

The Greeks were also famous for their prodigious forays into science (Aristotle), math (Pythagoras, Euclid), philosophy (Plato, Socrates), medicine (Hippocrates), and literature (homer).  Each of these obviously constitutes  a massive field of study in itself, but the basic concepts as well as the biographies of these great men  can certainly be discussed with a child.

Activities:

Language arts and art

Reading stories about Ancient Greek mythology is always fun.  You can easily find coloring pages illustrating them if you’re into coloring on a rainy afternoon by the fireplace.  You can also act them out or even cut out pictures for a puppet show.  You can also look at famous paintings depicting scenes from the great stories.

Math and language arts

Game: Decide on a problem you might have, such as hosting a dinner party, or planting a garden or hunting a monster.  Take a hundred board and place the names of some of the gods and other mythical figures on different numbers.  Draw two numbers from a hat, ex 8 and 2.  See if there is a name on 28 or one on 82.  Decide if this god  can help you solve your problem.  If you think he or she can, you will have to perform a service for the god first such as

Drawing hearts for Aphrodite, goddess of love

Scoring a soccer goal for Nike, goddess of victory

Lifting something heavy for Hercules

Singing a song for Apollo, God of music

Throwing something at a target for Diana, goddess of the hunt

Drawing flowers for Gaia, goddess of nature

Telling the time for chronos, God of time

…or another character-related challenge.  Then you can write the god a letter telling him or her what you want them to do and burn them up in the fireplace as an offering.  How you continue the game is up to your imagination.

Math

Euclidean geometry is the study of planes and lines in two and three dimensional space.  There are many websites with explanations, games and practice tasks, and most children will eventually learn all of the key ideas at school. However, for Sunday afternoon play with younger children, games with blocks or flat puzzles such as tangrams are a good way to discuss geometry. 

One game we played was quite simple but fun.  I made a number of solid geometrical shapes from templates, along with cards with the name of the shape and the 2D picture.  The shapes go on the table with different coins inside.  The cards are shuffled and each player draws one, finds the matching 3D shape and takes the coin inside.  The winner is the one with the most money at the end.  Or, you could just pool the money for a treat.

Food

Greek cuisine often pairs something warm and flavourful such as lamb with something light and refreshing such as the yogurt and cucumber dip known as tzatziki. Greek sweets are often honey and nut based: Try baklava.

Discussion

We had a lot of interesting discussions about  values and morality in discussing the Greek myths. Though she enjoyed the stories, it often seemed to Child that the punishments were hugely disproportionate to the crimes or insults.  The story of King Midas, for example was almost shocking in its petty cruelty: he wishes for wealth and is granted the power to turn all he touches to gold. Then, horrifyingly, his young daughter comes running to him and she turns to gold the minute her picks her up.

Child loved the game where she had to perform services for the different gods because the tasks were physically active and challenging. 

The geometry game was harder than it looked because we had to work out from a flat drawing what the three dimensional shape would be. The names of the shapes were also hard to pronounce.  However, spending the winnings on the Greek sweets was a delicious way to end the game.