Week 3, Day 3
Today is Greco Roman day at Mellie camp. Simeon requested that we go to the Parthenon, which resulted in multiple Greco Roman type activities. After we went to "the river" and, yet again, asked God to help us only be concerned that the other person gets what they need rather than being all wrapped up in self-interests, and that Mellie please have patience, and that we all act more like Jesus, the boys each read aloud a passage about a Greek goddess. Simmy read about Athena and Max read about Nike. They did beautifully. That these gods and goddesses were not real but were, instead, myths is a concept with which they have a bit of trouble.
After reading, we headed to the Parthenon, listening to Greek music on Pandora by Sokratis Sinopoulos, or possibly Azizie Syrtos because I don't which one is the name of the song and which is the name of the performer. Upon arriving at Centennial Park, I shared what little knowledge I have about the original Parthenon, the replica in Nashville, the Centennial Exposition, and my limited information about Greek gods and goddesses and Rome overthrowing Greece. Max was totally bummed when I told him that the big statue of Athena was not solid gold and said, "I just wish you hadn't told me that." They both were astounded to learn that the statue of Nike in Athena's hand is actually as tall as Fizzy. One of the most fun activities was looking at the remnants of the Elgin marbles and the model of the statues in the pediment and figuring out which ones the remnants were. There was much guffawing over the nakedness of the statues and they came close to having apoplexy when I informed them that competitors in the first Olympics participated totally naked....and, no, we will not be re-enacting that, no matter how many times they ask! Boys!!
I bribed them with a stop at the gift shop if they had excellent museum behavior, and they did. The exhibit in the art gallery was really neat, photos and paintings of local parks, and they saw pictures of Radnor that they recognized. As we perused the gift shop (longer than we spent in the museum), a lovely young woman came up to tell them what excellent museum manners they had. I was quite proud. They bought ridiculously expensive plastic toys of Greek gods and goddesses and have played on my bed with them using pillows as Mount Olympus. Of course, a fight ensued over the clean up...2 hours later, fighting again. It is really hard to play a game where the rules are made up as the game goes along and those participating tend to have different notions of what the rules should be.
Our craft was brown paper Grecian urns to decorate. Simmy wanted to turn his into a mask...whatever. Max wanted to just not decorate his because "I can't do it!" Not doing it is never an option. Everyone has to at least try. It just goes against the grain to "give up" and not try. He put his mind to it and came up with a fairly lovely urn by painting a camel on it. I was glad he told me it was a camel before I guessed the wrong thing. Frankly, looking at the pictures (on FB because...well, because blogger and I don't jive well with pictures), I must say that, truly, only one of us grasped the concept of the "assignment." But, that's okay as long as everybody tries.
The Disney movie, Hercules, rounded out our Greco Roman day. I desperately tried to talk them into a toga party, and even got out the sheets to make togas for them, but they were having none of it. I'm a little embarrassed to admit that I was terribly disappointed. We had a theme-appropriate (sort of) snack of hummus, pita chips, olive tapenade, grapes, and Greek yogurt (not really, but we called it that, probably it is French yogurt).
Three more days. That's all that is left. Max said this morning he wished we could go back to day one and start all over again. Me, too, little guy, me too.
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