Learning Classics is a bit like putting on a magic pair of 3-D glasses. Once you start delving into the language and the culture, you'll start to see it all around you. This blog is a record of the club's journey through the worlds and language of ancient Rome and Greece... and through modern times, too, searching for the influence of classics all around us. You'll also be able to find vocab, home tasks, links and generally enlightening info here, too.

20 September 2014

Lesson 2 - Myths (and CGI) ancient and modern

Session 2 was full of puzzles, monsters and our first taste of verb endings...


Lesson 1 recap
Latin-to-English brain workout
Max brings Portuguese into the mix
Loud and clear, it's all about word endings in Latin. Great recall from the class of the homework vocab in the slightly challenging Latin/English, English/Latin word searches. Plus 30 points earned by Max, Anna and Kacper for finding words in English and other modern languages that come from last week's vocab.

Creatures of mythology video quiz
We watched videos (of varying CGI quality!) of how films have brought mythical monsters to life. We noted how ancient monsters have found their way into modern stories, too. We watched an evil Centaur battling Sinbad, Harry Potter versus Cerberus and a terrifying Medusa attack, as well as the perils of relying on a Cyclops for hospitality.

 And why do myths arise? Eight volunteers brought mythological stories (ancient and modern) to life, and we sorted them into these four aetiological* (i.e. 'reasons why') categories:

 1. Explaining natural phenomena
2. Teaching a moral lesson
3. Controlling people
4. Confronting fears

 (But are UFOs real or mythological? The debate rages on!...)

Present tense verb endings
gallinae rident
Jabba ridet
Now we know the importance of verb endings, we can start learning the codes to help us crack them. Present tense verbs tell us what is happening NOW, and in Latin words in the present tense end in 't' when one person or thing (singular) is doing something, and they end in 'nt' when it's more than one person or thing (plural) is doing it. The class tackled an ambitious worksheet, selecting the right verb to match the subject of a sentence, and then translating from Latin to English.
Top translations from Benedict


Home tasks
Vocab is on the link to the right as usual, and for extra points, everyone's got a blank Greek Myth Top Trumps card to research and fill in: draw a picture and give scores out of 100 for each of the four categories. You can find out about your monster here.
(* pronouned ee-tee-oh-loj-i-kal. From 'aitia' + 'logos', ancient Greek for 'reason/cause' and 'study of' - stun someone this week by using 'aetiology' or 'aetiological' in a conversation...)