Learning about Myths & Legends

A few days ago we had the first speaking and listening group of the new year. The theme for this one was Myths and Legends.

I’ll be honest that this theme didn’t really grab my children’s attention. But we persevered and produced a mini-project! Not the most in-depth, but it’s laid the groundwork for a year or two’s time when we re-visit the subject.

Introducing the theme

We haven’t really covered myths and legends before in any real way. The first thing I wanted the children to do was to think about what myths and legends were, and to think about some of the language used, and the types of characters in them. I found the resource from Teaching Packs really helpful for this.

We talked about what the differences were between them, and talked about some of the different myths and legends we might know. They had heard of some of them, but didn’t know the stories behind them.

Choosing the projects

The children struggled to choose their projects with this one. We looked through a few books that I had picked up as well as the information from teaching packs. Eventually, they settled on:

• Robin Hood (D Aged 7)
• Pegasus (E aged 5)
• Medusa (H age 3.5)

We talked about each of the stories and the children set about colouring in some pictures.

Robin Hood

For Robin Hood we used resources from Twinkl. The main ones we used were:

• Robin Hood Story (we printed the PDF version which was really helpful)
• Stick Puppets
• Writing Frames
• Robin Hood Hat

D read the story and wrote a brief overview of the origins of the story and some words about who Robin Hood was. He also did a second sheet detailing the main characters.

Using the stick puppets, he cut these out and placed them onto a large piece of card, then annotated each one to say who the character was and what their role was.

Finally, we made the hat – had I thought about this more we could have made one from felt and added a bit of sewing work in there too.

Pegasus

E chose the story of Pegasus for her project. We talked about Pegasus and the story, as well as his links to other key myths such as Medusa and Athena. She made some notes about the story on the writing frame from activity village. We then printed pictures of Medusa and Poseiden and she noted their relationship to Pegasus.

We then made some wings using tissue paper and PVA glue to symbolise the wings of Pegasus – this was much messier than I had anticipated and they took a while to dry! Definitely a task for warmer days!

Medusa

H likes getting involved in these projects so he chose Medusa. He learnt two key facts – that she had hair of snakes and that if you looked at her you would turn to stone.

He coloured in some pictures and we made a snake headband for him to wear to symbolise Medusa.

So, not our most successful project, but we managed to do something, and I am sure when we re-visit it again in a year or so it will be a little bit more successful!

Our previous Speaking & Listening Groups have included:

1. Endangered animals
2. RSPB badges
3. Spring Projects
4. Dinosaurs
5. People of Note
6. Artists
7. Inventors & Sports People (two separate ones but one blog post)
8. Cities & Buildings
9. Wonders of the World