Sculpting Greece

We have been doing a lot of Ancient Greek stuff lately.

My mum has done a lot of activities when we sculpt or build something from Greece.

 

This is a picture of my lego creation of the Greek myth, 'The Golden Apple'. The Golden Apple is about a girl who from the great Caledonian boar hunt (see Artemis). When she goes home, her father, the king wants her to get married. But she doesn't want to get married so she tells her dad that if somebody beats her in a running race he will have her hand. But if he doesn't win he will die. Her dad thought this a sensible idea but it definitely wasn't because his daughter is the champion runner. Her daughter also thought this a reasonable idea because nobody would sign up to something like that. But unexpectedly lots of people did! And each and every one of them lost, until one day a young man saw her running. He was also a champion runner but no where near as fast. Sd catch up easily.
o he prayed to the goddess Aphrodite and she appeared to him and gave him three golden apples that every girl couldn't resist. So he took the golden apple and prepared for the race.


In the first round it was a dead heat. In the second round she was definitely winning and he thought it was a good time to use the golden apples. The first one didn't do much good except made her run to the golden apple, run back, and catch up easily. So did the second one. When he threw the third one the goddess Aphrodite used her powers to make it roll right off the track. She just couldn't bear not having it, so she quickly darted off the track toward it and picked it up. She ran straight back, but it was too late. He had already crossed the finish line. Unfortunately, everything wasn't as good as it seemed. They were so happy that they forgot to thank the goddess Aphrodite, and she became very angry - so angry that she made them kiss each other in the temple of Rhea. This was illegal, so Rhea turned them into lions.

This is a picture of a Greek tablet I made with my name on it, in Greek. It is made of plasticine.

This is a sea monster I made with plasticine. It is very deadly, and its only weakness is that it doesn't have venom, but it can breathe fire. The only way to kill it is to take the purple scale from on its nose. Of course, this is practically impossible, because the head is the most well-guarded part of it, with horns at the back and a fire-breathing mouth with super-sharp teeth at the front. This makes it the hardest monster in the world to kill. I did it because sea monsters are very popular in Greek myths.

Artemis

Aremis is the goddess of the moon, plants and animals, giving birth and the hunt.

She is often using her bow and arrow. Her dad is Zeus and her mum is Isleto. She also has a twin brother called Apollo.

She was given the name Diana by the Romans.

She has six deers with golden horns to pull her chariot. Artemis is in quite a few myths. In one myth he Greek people had an excellent harvest. They thanked all the gods except one. Artemis was very angry. She was so angry that she created a fire-breathing boar and told it to destroy the crop. Eventuly some people killed him, including a girl.

She went back to her dad, who wanted her to marry. But that's another story...

Artemis with a hind, better known as "Diana of Versailles". Marble, Roman artwork, Imperial Era (1st-2nd centuries CE). Found in Italy. From Wikipedia Commons.

Robert Burns

As you may know today is Burns day. I have been invited to a "Burns night"where we eat traditional Scottish food and recite some poems Robert Burns made up.

Robert Burns lived on a farm when he was boy and that's why they call him the 'ploughman's poet'. Later, he went to Edinburgh after his poems were published and was greeted by the most rich people in the city. He also met Miss Agnes McLehose, who he wrote 'As fond kiss' for. He died on 17 July 1796 due to a bad heart. He was just 37.

My favourite poem by Burns is "My heart is in the highlands". It goes like this:

My Heart's In The Highlands
My heart's in the Highlands, my heart is not here,
My heart's in the Highlands, a-chasing the deer;
Chasing the wild-deer, and following the roe,
My heart's in the Highlands, wherever I go.

Farewell to the Highlands, farewell to the North,
The birth-place of Valour, the country of Worth ;
Wherever I wander, wherever I rove,
The hills of the Highlands for ever I love.

Farewell to the mountains, high-cover'd with snow,
Farewell to the straths and green vallies below;
Farewell to the forests and wild-hanging woods,
Farewell to the torrents and loud-pouring floods.

My heart's in the Highlands, my heart is not here,
My heart's in the Highlands, a-chasing the deer;
Chasing the wild-deer, and following the roe,
My heart's in the Highlands, wherever I go.

I like it because it is the only poem that is really adventurous because it is talking about chasing deer and running around. It's also a nice picture of Scotland.

museum

Today we started homeschool. We also had our first excursion. We went to the Fitzwilliam Museum in Camridge. Being a lover of  Egypt I went straight to the Egyptian section. It was great. It had mummified crocodiles, a statue of an ibis and Egyptian jewellery. It convinced me that Egyptians are the best painters and scupltors of the ancient world. The thing that I liked best were two tiny hippo faces. They were extremely detailed which shows how careful the Egyptians were about sculpting.

After we had finished looking at the Egyptian section, we looked at some Victorian ornaments. They were very pretty and reminded me of a shop. Speaking of shops, I bought a beautiful scarab bead which was very lucky because I always wanted a scarab ornament.

When I got home, I studied a bit more about Egypt and realised that Egyptians were not just careful about art, they were careful about practically everything. Pyramids, mummifying, you name it!

I'm lucky I don't live in those times because I'd be really busy!

walking

Today mum decided to take us for a walk. It was the best walk ever.

This is why it was good.

On the way there my brother and my mum saw a squirrel. I didn't see it, but I don't mind because Jacob told me all about it. Then we saw a juvenile robin. After that, we came across the best park ever. It had a swing, a roundabout, another swing, except this one was giant and a pretend horse with about five seats.

Next we came to a river. It had so many ducks, I thought it was a meeting place for them. My favourite one was a white one. Jacob said it probably ran away from its owner.

Then, we went over the bridge and back again. While we were going back again, I did some ground skating which means you skate on some ice on the ground.

And that is why it was the best walk ever.

Robins

Out of all the birds of england, the robin is my favourite. Here are a few facts
about them.
Appearance:grownups are very colourful. They are brown and red. Children are not
so colourful . They're just brown.
Habitat:Robins live in woods, hedges, parks and gardens.
Lifespan:3 or 4 years.Oldest known one lived 13 years
Diet:bugs, worms, seeds and fruit.
Territory:Robins love their territory.Sometimes they die fighting for it. Dads mark their territory by singing loudly.
We saw a robin today. It was a kid.

differences

Even though we have the same queen, England is very different from us. Here are a few changes I spotted:
 
1.The chocolates here are different. There are some I have never seen before like Whispa and Whispa gold.

2. Here we have pints of milk, which are tiny. They are even smaller then a litre!

3. Its really, really, really, cold. Sometimes it even snows in may!