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associated with each letter by following the mystery of the stolen urn in the Greek Alphabet Code Cracker workbook by Christopher Perrin . The class also learns about the gods and goddesses through the stories of D ’ Aulaire ’ s Book of Greek Myths . After a unit on Greek theater , in which students learned the parts of an ancient theater , the fifth grade will perform the play , Pandora ’ s Box , written for them by older students , at their Portfolio Night in May .
CLASS FAVORITES When asked about their favorite Greek letter , there were many votes for alpha because it is first . Other favorites included : lambda because it looks like an upsidedown English letter , psi because it looks like a trident , xi because it is fun to draw and zeta because it is fun to say .
SAMPLE LESSON ARACHNE ' S WEB
After we read the myth of Athena and Arachne , the class worked on an activity combining their understanding of the myth and their knowledge of the order of the letters in the Greek alphabet .
M A T E R I A L S & P R E P
Take a paper plate and cut out the center . Around the edge of the plate , write the letters of the Greek alphabet in a mixed-up order . For this activity , I used the lower-case letters .
WEAVING A WEB
Punch a hole above each letter . Give each student a small ball of yarn . The student should tie the yarn at the alpha circle and then thread it through the beta circle , and so on , going in order until she finishes at omega . By doing this , the student will create “ spider web .”
ARACHNE ' S WEBS Nicole Wellington ' s students weave beautiful webs after reading about Arachne .
Each student then colored in a clipart version of Arachne and put her in the web .
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