Percy Jackson & Greek Mythology

The Beginning
From the empty nothingness came the embodiment of night and darkness, Nyx and Erebus. They had offspring called Hemera and Aether, who represented day and the air to balance the parents. Then Gaia, Ouranos, and Tartarus came to be the earth, the sky, and the abyss. Gaia and Ouranos had children known as the titans. They also had two other sets of children- a race of giants called the three elder cyclops and the three hekatonkheires. The cyclops had only one eye, and the hekatonkheires had a hundred hands. 

Ouranos was so frightened by how hideous his children looked that he threw them into the abyss of Tartarus. Gaia was furious and she hatched a plan with her sons to banish him to the sky. She gave her youngest son, Kronos, a scythe and told him to chop up Ouranos with it while his brothers held him down. The oldest brother, Oceanus, wanted no part in the murder so he was banished to the ocean by his younger brother. Ouranos's physical form was destroyed, and Kronos became king.

The Titans
The Titans were the first, or elder, deities. There were twelve main titans, including the parents of Zeus, Kronos, and Rhea. They ruled during what was called the Golden Age. They were overthrown by their children...led by Zeus. This was called the titanomachy.

The Chimera 
The fire-breathing Chimera was a terrifying beast with a serpent for a tail, a goat's body and a lion's head! King Sisyphus has commanded the warrior, Bellerophon, to destroy it. Soaring above the monster on Pegasus, he shoots arrows at it. Bellerophon then attaches lead to his spear and thrusts it into the vicious beast. The hero’s actions kills the fiery Chimera.

Scylla & Charybdis
On both sides of a narrow stretch of sea, monsters lie in wait. On one side, Scylla thrashes around her six snakelike heads, ready to crunch on passing sailors. On the other, Charybdis creates a deadly whirlpool. No person has ever faced these beasts and escaped unharmed. Now the king, Odysseus, and his crew must pass them to get home. They edge around Charybdis' spiraling sea, saving the ship from being swallowed whole. Scylla swoops down and gobbles up six men, and Odysseus shouts, leading the rest of the crew past Scylla and out of the deadly channel. Having survived the dreaded beasts, Odysseus and his men continue their journey.

The Minotaur
Half-man, half-bull, the Minotaur lurks in an underground maze of king Minos waiting for his next meal - children sent to him as a tribute. Lost in the labyrinth, the kids will be devoured, but brave prince Theseus has had enough of his land living in fear of the Minotaur. He accompanies the group, and is prepared to fight. Hearing the Minotaur breathing nearby, he springs toward it. Dodging the monster's deadly horns, he thrusts his sword into the beast. The Minotaur is dead, and Theseus unspools a string given to him by the kings daughter Ariadne that he wound as he walked through the maze...he leads the remaining children out to safety.

Hydra
In a swamp, creeps a deadly nine-headed serpent called the Hydra. Heracles, son of Zeus, must kill it as punishment. After Shooting arrows into its eyes , the Hydra attacks, so Heracles hits its heads with a club, knocking them off, but more grow in their place! Heracles' friend, Iolus, then leaps to his aid with a flaming torch. After an epic battle, the men finally destroy the Hydra!

Medusa
This hideous Medusa has snakes for hair, terrifying tusks, and a face that turns anyone that looks at it into stone! To please his king whom his mother is hiding from, Perseus agrees to slay the beast. Wearing a Hades helmet of invisibility and carrying the adamantine sword given to him by Zeus (not adamantuim!),and a polished shield given to him by Athena, he sneaks up on Medusa. She's asleep, but one gaze at her face and Perseus would be a statue! He looks at her harmless reflection in his shiny shield and beheads her. Victorious, Perseus flies off on winged sandals.

Read

• Percy Jackson
• An adventure-quest with a hip edge. At first glance, Perseus Jackson seems like a loser (readers meet him at a boarding school for troubled youth), but he's really the son of Poseidon and a mortal woman. As he discovers his heritage, he also loses that mother and falls into mortal danger. The gods (still very active in the 21st-century world) are about to go to war over a lost thunderbolt, so Percy and sidekicks Grover (a young satyr) and Annabeth (daughter of Athena) set out to retrieve it. Percy is an ADHD, wise-cracking, first-person narrator. Naturally, his real quest is for his own identity. Along the way, such topics as family, trust, war, the environment, dreams, and perceptions are raised. 

Make / Do

• Lego Ancient Greece activity pack
• Make Greek Hoplite armor
• Make a Greek vase ; decorate it with mythological creatures

Watch

• Percy Jackson double feature DVD set

Define / Identify

• Zeus
• Hera 
• Poseidon 
• Hades
• Dionysus 
• Apollo
• Artemis
• Ares
• Athena 
• Hermes 
• Aphrodite
• Hephaestus 
• Demeter 

Think

• Why were the Greek myths important to the development of ancient Greece as a civilization?
• What is your opinion of the religion of ancient Greece?
• What role does pride play in Greek mythology?

Access all of the mythology units in the World Mythology Unit Studies Bundle!

Includes sixteen unit studies covering world mythologies. Each unit addresses a new topic, spanning ancient through modern history.

• Each unit has introductory text, which will give the student basic background information about the topic at hand.
• There are photographs and illustrations, and we have also included primary documents when available.
• After this text, there are featured videos, which augment the background information and help make the topic more accessible for more visual students.
• You will also find a short list of reading books, including a featured novel that the unit builds upon.
• There are vocabulary words, places, and people to identify.
• Reading comprehension, critical thinking questions, and writing assignments are included.
• We add fun with hands-on activities and extra videos to watch that will bring the era to life.

Product sample:  Percy Jackson & Greek Mythology

Units include:

• Kane Chronicles + Egyptian Mythology
• Percy Jackson + Greek Mythology
• Heroes of Olympus + Roman Mythology
• Magnus Chase + Norse Mythology
• Midsummer Night’s Dream + Celtic Mythology
• The Golden Bull + Mesopotamian Mythology
• Call It Courage + Polynesian Mythology
• Mansa Musa + African Mythology
• Tristan Strong + African-American Mythology
• Charlie Hernandez + Hispanic Mythology
• Aru Shah + Hindu Mythology
• The Storm Runner + Mayan Mythology
• Where the Mountain Meets the Moon + Chinese Mythology
• The Dragon Pearl + Korean Mythology
• Coyote’s Daughter + Native American Mythology
• Race to the Sun + Navajo Mythology

Using the Good & the Beautiful with Upper Grades - Middle & High School

If you’ve been on any homeschooling chat groups lately, you’ve probably heard of The Good & the Beautiful…..but most of what’s out there is aimed at younger children.  Our kids are in middle and high school, and we wondered how the program would work for older kids.  After two years of using it, I can honestly say that it works WONDERS!

*We did not receive anything for writing this.  We love the curriculum and have found that a lot of folks have questions about the upper grades, so wanted to share our experiences.*

Updated 10/4:  Common Questions about Homeschooling High School with The Good & the Beautiful Curriculum  (follow-up post)

See how we used TG&TB in elementary grades.

A Little Background

In case you’re unfamiliar, The Good & the Beautiful is a relaxed approach to homeschooling.  I have to jump in here and say that, the first time I saw it, I really didn’t think it would be enough for a school year.  My fear was that it would require a lot of supplementation, but it doesn’t.  In fact, in only six months of using this curriculum, my struggling middle school learner jumped FOUR AND A HALF grade levels in reading!

The price is very affordable for families, there are morals included in every lesson, and it’s designed for the busy mom with its open-and-go format.  While it is Christian-based, it offers up a neutral world-view, allowing parents to tailor it toward their family’s beliefs.  The print quality is amazing, and the vintage reading material is a delightful change from what our children were gravitating toward before we switched to this curriculum.

Access extras that moms have pulled together, including videos.

What’s Not Included

When looking at this curriculum for upper grades, bear in mind that you’ll need to go outside it to choose a math program, as they are still writing the early elementary levels.  Personally, we use Saxon and have been very happy with it.  

You can use their science program for early middle grades, if it helps you to teach younger kids at the same time, but it’s not really rigorous enough for a standard middle school curriculum, and definitely not enough for high school.  We typically switch to Apologia around 5^th grade, using their Exploring Creation with… series as a transitional tool into their upper grades courses.

You can choose to order printed or downloadable curriculum.  Our family has selected primarily print format because it's such high quality at an affordable price.  We do, however, print some....and large families might find it more cost-effective to purchase curriculum once and just pay to have it printed.  We recommend the Homeschool Printing Company.  Here's a video of our experience, as well as a coupon code to use there!

SchoolhouseTeachers has many excellent options for science, foreign languages, maths, and electives, which are currently not offered for upper grades students by TGTB.  We have used their website for several years and love it!  They also have courses for parents, a print magazine, and extra goodies and giveaways just for their subscribers.  You can try them out for only $5 - with complete access to everything on the site - to see if it's a good fit for your family.  Two good places to start are High School Courses and High School Help.

So what exactly DO we use?  

History, handwriting, and language arts – which covers a lot more than just reading and writing!  The Good & the Beautiful’s language arts is one of my favorite program components, as it covers reading, spelling, writing, dictation, literature, grammar, vocabulary, geography, and art.  By including geography and art, it takes a bit of a unit study approach.  For example, in High School-1, unit five covers the Arctic areas.  They read a book about the Arctic, and the geography, art, vocabulary, and writing assignments tie in with that region.  You can cover quite a bit with just the one class!

Language Art & Handwriting

At the middle grade levels, my students are working more independently, but still need instruction, particularly on the grammar concepts and sentence diagramming.  We also do spelling and dictation aloud together.  This is a time when they are learning to work alone, but not quite ready for the whole enchilada.  It is at this level that we also use the handwriting – particularly levels 5 and 6, which focus on cursive.  The handwriting curriculum not only teaches letter formation, but grammar, states and capitals, and presidents.  There is also quite a bit of student drawing involved, which my kids love!

Peek inside Levels 5-7.

Once they hit high school, however, the curriculum is set up to reinforce those skills of time management and responsibility.   Divided into ten separate units, the student is able to take a unit and work on it for two to three weeks before turning it in for grading.  If more instruction is needed, he can come and ask (and I do check in occasionally), but it’s his responsibility to progress at a pace that finishes the unit on time.  

Peek inside the High School Language Arts curriculum.
See inside Language Arts Level 2 curriculum.

History
Our family has always loved to read aloud books together….from the Little Golden Books to entire series (such as A to Z Mysteries and Magic Treehouse) and now we’re reading big chapter books together.  The history curriculum has a minimum of four read-alouds each year, so if you don’t like reading together, it might not be a good fit for your family.  However, for us, it’s given the kids the perfect excuse to still curl up with mom in their teen years.

One of the things I like about history is that it takes the classical education approach – of four different eras of history – and teaches from all four of those each school year.  Rather than doing an entire year of ancient history, we’re doing one quarter on ancient history each school year (with each year focusing on a different region, such as Egypt or Greece).  It’s easy to get burnt out on a particular era when you’re knee-deep in it for an entire year, so we like that things get mixed up!

Here are some of our favorite read-alouds!

The history includes read alouds, audio recordings, and accompanying worksheets.  At the middle school level, these worksheets include timelines, coloring, extra readings, and short research assignments.  At the high school level, all of these are included as well as projects.  Each quarter (each historical era), the high school student has a short list of projects to complete before we move on to the next era.  This goes back to student responsibility and time management.  He can do them little by little throughout the quarter, or save them for an all-nighter on the last day of the quarter (which, I hope he learns from!!), but it’s his responsibility to do a good job within the time constraint.

Peek inside the history curriculum.

What is Sparks Academy?

 Sparks Academy provides live / blended classes for high school students, using The Good & the Beautiful for language arts, Apologia / Berean Builders for science, and Notgrass for history.  These classes meet weekly, allowing students the opportunity to discuss the literature, get additional instruction on concepts covered, and show off their art projects and recitations.  Students alsoto receive a grade for these courses from a source outside of the home.

Sparks Academy is not affiliated with The Good & the Beautiful, but is run by parents who use and love their curriculum.  They are providing support, accountability, and community for upper grades families who use this curriculum by creating an online homeschool co-op for high school students.  Currently, students can register for High School Levels 1-3 in language arts.  There are also writing consultation packages for Level 6, Level 7, and High School (for those who only want essay feedback).

Visit Sparks Academy to Learn More!

Looking Ahead

The number of upper grades families using The Good & the Beautiful is sure to grow in the future, as the current elementary-age families progress.  If you’re ahead of the curve, have no doubt…this is still an amazing curriculum for middle and high school students!   This video shows the materials more in-depth.

An integral part of any well-rounded high school curriculum is literature!  Though not part of the TGTB curriculum, this free book list is designed for 8th – 12th grade college-bound students, and includes many classic pieces of literature as well as more modern day stories. The books represent a range of historic eras, and include elements from both American and World Literature courses. Parents should read the book description ahead of time and choose books based on their personal standards. It is not expected that every child will read every book on this list, but should be used as a guide for what colleges will expect to see on a well-rounded reading list.

You might also like Beautiful Book Studies!

Each unit addresses a new topic, including science, history, and geography.  Each unit has introductory text, which will give the student basic background information about the topic at hand.

• You will also find a short list of reading books, including a featured novel that the unit builds upon.
• There are vocabulary words, places, and people to identify.
• Reading comprehension, critical thinking questions, and writing assignments are included.
• We add fun with hands-on activities and extra videos to watch that will bring the topic to life.

Table of Contents

• The King’s Fifth
• Red Falcons of Tremoine
• Golden Hawks of Genghis Khan
• Red Hugh of Ireland
• Calico Captive
• The Story of Eli Whitney
• Island of the Blue Dolphins
• The Lost Kingdom
• The Secret Garden
• Heidi
• Girl of the Limberlost
• The Winged Watchman
• When the Dikes Broke
• Using the Good & the Beautiful in High School

Product Sample:  Red Hugh of Ireland & the English Civil Wars 

The books selected for these unit studies can be found in the upper grades areas of The Good and the Beautiful Book List.  However, Homeschool On the Range and Sparks Academy are not employed by or affiliated with, nor do they receive any compensation from, The Good and the Beautiful.  It has simply been their curriculum of choice for many years.  These unit studies are not endorsed by The Good and the Beautiful or Jenny Phillips.

Bake for Good : Where Home Ec Meets Character!

Recently, our home school group was selected to take part in the King Arthur Flour Bake for Good program - and we had a fabulous time!!!!! For over twenty years, the Bake for Good Kids Program has been helping kids learn to bake and then share their homework with those in need. In some cases, the company travels to a location to host an event, but we were provided all of the supplies and hosted the event through the home school group.

Imagine my husband's surprise when sixty pounds of flour and several other boxes of supplies arrived on the doorstep one afternoon! The company provided ingredients, packaging, course booklets for the kids, and tote bags!

The program is designed to teach kids in grades 4-7 how science, math, and reading all come together in a real-world activity. The culmination of the project is a lesson in philanthropy, when they donate their efforts to a local charity.

The day before the BIG DAY, another home school neighbor and I got together and baked up a batch of practice bread. We wanted to know exactly what we'd gotten ourselves into....how long would it take? Were there any extra supplies we needed? What snags were we going to run into? All the little things that you want to be apprised of before entering a room with lots of kids and open sacks of flour! We practiced with our boys, to see how well the kids would do with the project.

We walked through the four hour process, from mixing the yeast, to letting it rise, to the baking process. (During rise times, we proceeded with the usual co-op classes.)

The following morning, we bagged up the bread and drove it up to Straight Street Ministries, a food charity in the next town over. They were very happy to see us, and many loaves of bread were delivered to locals in need within a matter of hours. Overall, it was a win-win event!

Want to learn the basics of bread making?  It's easy!

Ingredients :

• King Arthur Whole Wheat Flour - 2 cups
• King Arthur White Flour - 2 cups
• Yeast - 1 packet
• Water - 2 cups warm
• Oil - 1/4 cup
• Sugar - 1/4 cup
• Salt - 1 tbsp

Directions :

1. A lot of the families at the event had only ever used a bread-maker.  While they are a great kitchen tool and very handy, they are not suitable for this particular recipe.
2. In a large bowl, combine sugar, yeast, whole wheat flour, and warm water.  Cover with towel and let rest until bubbly.
3. Stir in cooking oil and salt.
4. Stir in 3 cups white flour, one cup at a time.  Measure out one more cup of flour and sprinkle half of that onto the sticky dough.  Work into dough.
5. Flour hands and turn dough onto floured surface.  Knead well.  While it is resting, wipe oil onto inside of bowl.
6. Knead a little bit more, then put the dough back into the bowl and cover.  Let rise in a warm place for an hour and a half.
7. Punch down down.  Divide into half and form into loaves.
8. Place loaves on a greased cookie sheet, and cover with a towel.  Let rise again for 30 minutes.
9. Preheat oven to 375.
10. Remove covering, slash tops of loaves, and bake 30 minutes.  Let cool, and enjoy!

This wasn't the first time our co-op had participated in the Bake for Good program....over the past five years, we have baked bread for the local ministry three times.  Many thanks to the King Arthur Flour Company for supporting this amazing program!!!

Winter : A Season for Rejuvenation

Rejuvenation....it was our word for the year back in 2017...and today's post is all about how winter is a season of rejuvenation.  It's a time for rest, relaxation, and family togetherness.  (Our word for 2019 is Grace.)

Outside, autumn's hard work helps to keep us warm through winter.  Inside, our old-fashioned clothes dryer helps keep the humidity tolerable.

A family tradition....we took advantage of the icy cold to mix up a batch of hard candy.  Make your own with this recipe!

We found some math beauty...in the brick patterns and the contrast of a bright, warm inside to the cold, brisk outside/

It's a time for rejuvenation.  The whole world seems to sleep peacefully...

  

The chickens huddle in their toasty coop and the gardens rest under a blanket of snow; everything rests in preparation for spring.

Winter is a time for cleansing....clearing off the brush from last year's storms and letting the land get ready for spring.

This is how we sled....and how we fall!

Unlike our friends up north, the pond still isn't solid enough to skate on.

Even with her broken foot, the boys found a way to help mom sled...

...because, most of all, it's a time for joy!