Those Goofy Greeks

A new homeschooling friend of ours hosts a Multicultural Lunch once a year. This was our first year. The general idea is that you pick a certain culture you like, or some country you've always wanted to visit, or even the historical period you're studying, and do a mini display about it. Then bring it to the lunch, along with some food from that period/country to share.

We'd just finished up with our Greek Unit That Refused To Die, so our food contribution was a little on the Spartan side. (oooh, Sheila, you don't really think that was funny, do you?) We made some hearty peasant bread, some hummus (as opposed to roasting chickens or goats and in lieu of fresh figs), and ground some dates and walnuts together with cardamon powder, and rolled them into little balls.

And then we had to get our presentation board together. We had the standard map, the usual art work (clay pots, mosaics, hand made coins, coloured drawings from pottery), and some written work about things the kids favoured most, but we were lacking something to tie it all together.



Until I glanced down at the picture of FDPG in her Halloween costume.

She was dressed as the Greek goddess Athena. In a white chiton.

"Max!" I said, "Quick, get this on (I handed him FDPG's white chiton), then stand over there and pretend to be pointing at something. Look mischevious."

So he did. I took a few photographs of him.

"Dominic," I said, "Do what he did."

And he did, too, although Dominic's 'mischevious' extended only to pointing and staring at me with a dead-pan expression. I took some photographs of him too.

Then I printed them out. Then we carefully cut them all out, ignoring Max's "I look like a geek. Don't use this one. Argh, do I really look like that?" remarks.

We put this picture next to an explanation of How The Greeks Ate.
The boys started laughing. They rearranged pictures so they were introducing things. FDPG started jumping up and down wit excitement. So far so good.

Max copied his favourite joke from Terry Deary's Horrible Histories: Groovy Greeks. I pasted a picture of him pointing gleefully at it. If your eyes are as bad as mine, then you might need me adding that his word bubble says "Now that's funny!"
FDPG did what she does best and acted like her charming, bossy self. Only this time she's bossing Zeus around. I had a restful reprieve.
This is my particular favourite. Dominic, aka Young Greek Boy, is saying "Isn't he a little overdressed for dinner?" while our cartoon hoplight's rebuttal is "Aren't you a little underdressed for the Peloponnesian War?"
It was a fun day, getting this ready. It was a fun lunch too. Nothing like a little light humour to go with your lunch.