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Activities

Mythology for Middle School

We hosted a mythology program on Monday night for our middle school students! And with 36 kids in attendance, it went really well!  I created six different activities for the kids to rotate through. I have found stations lead to minimal boredom and problems within the groups. And I always try to allow kids to at least pair up with a friend before creating groups. This allows kids to feel comfortable and overall the groups worked really well.

Lesson Plan

  1. Thor’s Hammer Toss (Norse)
    I created Thor’s Hammer using a tissue box, paper towel tube, and lots of duct tape.  The kids had a goal of trying to throw it into a hula hoop.  I stressed the importance of accuracy over strength and one hammer lasted through multiple tosses by all the kids.
  2. Anansi the Spider’s Obstacle Course (Ashanti of Ghana)
    Loosely based off of the Anansi tale by Gerald McDermott, the obstacle course required, balancing along a rope, leaping across “lily pads” sit-upons from storytime, leaping over some caution tape stretched between two chairs, throwing a bean bag into a bucket and crawling through a play tunnel.
  3. Greek Mythology Trivia
    We’ve done a number of programs for Percy Jackson and I adapted the trivia to be multiple choice questions the kids could answer.  We went over all the answers during our snack time.
  4. Chinese Magic Square
    The Chinese Magic Square is a 3×3 square where using the numbers 1-9 only once, each horizontal, vertical, and diagonal will equal 15.  A few kids solved it, but many tried a number of times to figure out the answer. The Chinese culture has a rich history of dragons and other mythical beasts. But without having a lot of time to do research, I thought it best to focus on something that was more historical in nature.
  5. Roman Mythology Research
    We used the 10 iPads we have and allowed the kids to research well-known and lesser-known Roman gods, goddesses, and more. We used the Mythology – Roman app (99¢).  The kids did a great job of not straying from this app which was my biggest concern. And they seemed really excited to learn about the different gods.
  6. Native American Word Search
    Finally, I created a word search using a generator online of common Native American words often found in folk tales.  An easy, and fun thing for the kids to work on.

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