One day just Mum and I went to the British Museum. This time we decided to try out one of their activity back-packs. There were lots of interesting options. "Let's try something new and exciting!" said Mum.
But I couldn't resist choosing Ancient Greece - again. You can read about our family adventures in the Ancient Greece section of the British Museum last year here:
The backpack contained 6 different activities to do as you went through the Ancient Greek section of the Museum.
Activity 1 - Dress Up Time (no thanks)
Activity 2 - Put together the Parthenon
I got a bunch of magnets shaped like the different parts of the temple and a white board and I had to arrange them to match the Parthenon in front of me. I learnt the names of the different parts of the ancient building.
Activity 3 - Olympics!
For this activity I had to find different clay jars that depicted different sports that are still part of the Olympics today. I had to match them to photos of athletes doing those activities today.
Runners
Long Jump
A really interesting thing that they used to do in Ancient Greece was that the athletes competing in Long Jump would jump with weights in each hand.
These are some of the weights.
On this clay pot you can see a man carrying two jumping weights.
Discus
Here are two examples of an Ancient Greek Discus.
This is the clay pot that has the discus thrower.
Javelin
These clay pots depict the javelin event.
Boxing
This was considered the most violent sport of the Olympics. Boxers used thin strips of leather wrapped round their hands to protect them instead of gloves. Contestants fought until one of them gave in. There were no separate rounds.
These pots and this sculpture depict the fighters - you can see in the first pot that one of the men's noses is bleeding.
Activity 4 - Fun and Games
The fourth activity was finding some of the games that children used to play in Ancient Greece.
For this activity I was given some knucklebones and instructions on how to play. It was played in slightly different way than today. You had to throw the knucklebones from the palm to the back of your hand. Then while balancing the ones you had caught on the back of your hand you had to pick up any that had fallen. After trying for quite a while I finally managed to catch them all. (More fun than Pokemon Go! 😜)
These are various dice for playing games. Some are shaped like dice today with many sides, but with Roman Numerals. The others were shaped like squatting babies.
Here's a pot with two soldiers playing checkers.
Activity 5 - What's that Smell?
For the next activity I had to guess the contents of various containers by smelling them. There was olive oil, wine and some kind of cosmetics.
Then I had 3 silhouette cut-outs and I had to match them to Pots in the cases and work out which of the smells belonged where.
Activity 6 - The Labours of Herakles
In this activity I had to match little cut outs of pictures, to pictures on Pots depicting the 12 labours of Herakles (Hercules).
I thought the backpacks were really fun. (Apart from dressing up!) I had a great time and learnt lots of cool stuff!
