Ancient Greek workshop

We attended a good workshop with other home educating families at the Hancock museum this week called Greek Fighting Forces. There was a short interactive presentation about Greek soldiers, or hoplites as they were known, where the children were encouraged to share their ideas. We learned that you would only have been around 7 years old when you started training and would have had to buy all of your own equipment. We also looked at the armour and shields they would have used.


We then looked at some words, including brave, undisciplined, fit, poor and wealthy and had to decide if they would describe good or bad characteristics for being a hoplite.


We also looked at a picture taken from one of the Greek pots in the gallery, which shows a Greek soldier going off to battle. We discussed what the people depicted might be thinking and saying. Harry thought that the soldier might be scared and his friend might tell him to wear his armour.


After the workshop, we had a look in the Greek gallery, where we used the shield design screen and also looked for pictures of shields with images painted on them which would have been used to try to scare the opposing army. 

We also found the pot from which the picture we had looked at was taken.