Looking Back: Ancient Greece – Minoans

In this post about the Ancient Greece Minoans, we read some fun books, create our own frescos, do notepages and dress some Minoan paper dolls. I love teaching about the Minoans.  They seemed to have been such a colourful people, who were essentially a race of their own. 

I’ve since done another lesson on the Ancient Minoans with some extra activities. Do head on over and take a look!

Ancient Greece Minoans: Book List

 Where are the Minoans on the Map?

We found Greece on the world map and then found Crete (where the Minoans lived). We coloured that in on an Ancient Greek map:

After, we looked at the whole of Greece in the Ancient world and where Crete was situated. Next, we looked at a list of important dates in the history of the Ancient Greeks:

Minoan Notepages

I had the children read through the books and write a short paragraph on the Minoans:

The children make note pages for everything they learnt. This included the Minoans and farming, language, writing, dress and trading with the rest of the world:

Minoan Clothing

We cut out some Minoan dolls to show how they dressed:

And made a note page by decorating an envelope and sticking it on a sheet of paper, thus keeping our dolls safe!

Minoans: Palace of Knossos

I photocopied a map of the Palace of Knossos. We did some work about Arthur Evans, the man who excavated it:

Trade and the Minoans

I also researched some photos of frescos of boats from the palace and decorated jars from Knossos. These had been found in surrounding countries. I asked the children what this primary evidence told them about the sea-faring abilities and trading prowess of the Minoans.  They made up a note page to show their answers:

Minoan Art Activities

Minoan Bull Leaping Fresco

We did lots of art study.  First up was a fresco of bull leaping:

I used a meat tray to make up plaster slabs and had the children try to replicate the bull leaping:

Minoan Dolphin Fresco

We also looked at the beautiful dolphin fresco, one of my most favourite pieces of art ever:

As the children had already done the frescos of the bull leaping, I had the children try to copy the dolphin fresco using a new to them medium of watercolour pencils.  They drew and coloured in their copy of the dolphins. Then ran a wet paint brush over the coloured pencil marks.  This turns then into paints.  I thought the results were just lovely!  I pasted a picture of the original fresco in the right hand corner for reference:

We had a lovely time!  Mycenaeans next!

I have a homeschool YouTube channel which has some videos showing how I have carried out some of our homeschool activities: ANGELICSCALLIWAGS HOMESCHOOL VIDEOS