As part of my day job, I have spent the past few months designing and curating a little museum exhibition all about the Ancient Greek underworld and afterlife – including paper puppets and giant orange walls covered in human-sized mythological figures! – so, all very normal and sensible. The exhibition runs from April to September 2024 and I’ll be doing lots of activities and workshops to go alongside it. I’m really looking forward to lots of messy Greek pottery-related experiments, and lots of spooky Underworld tales!
A large part of our exhibition is focused on Ancient Greek pottery and its use in the process of caring for the dead as well as the imagery that appears on it! Our first set of free resources for children at home or in the classroom looks at the pottery side of things more closely. How is it made? What was it used for? We also introduce key terms and some useful vocabulary – and of course, there’s plenty of activities!
These resources are written for a KS2 age but can be easily adapted for younger or lower groups if needed. There are also supplementary worksheets for activities in a museum setting or as part of an object-handling session. The resources support children to:
- Describe materials used by the ancient Greeks
- Describe the process for turning raw clay into a painted pot
- Use technical terms to identify pottery types
- Understand the functions of pottery inside and outside the house
Download your free learning pack here:
This learning pack has been created by project lead Steph to accompany the PSYCHE: Where does the soul go? exhibition at the Great North Museum: Hancock in Newcastle upon Tyne. If you have any questions or ideas, or you’ve found the resources useful, please do get in touch! We’d love to hear from you – and we love seeing completed worksheets or pottery-themed arts and crafts activities! Just fill in the contact form or drop us a note at project account hello@wheredoesthesoulgo.org
If you’re a home educating family based in the North East, you can join us for one of our Pots! workshops at the Great North Museum this summer. Information and registration details can be found here: https://greatnorthmuseum.org.uk/whats-on/home-educators-ancient-pots
You can also keep up to date with the wider project on our blog – www.wheredoesthesoulgo.org – but I’ll also be adding any fun kids stuff over here!
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