History : Greek Paper Dolls

When I was planning our History lesson on Greek Wars, I didn't think much of the making of paper dolls activity suggested in the Story of the World Activity book. I made photocopies of the doll anyway, ... just in case.

Lo and behold, they were snatched and worked on even before the paper had a chance to cool off after rolling out of my printer! What's more, I haven't even read aloud the chapter on Greek Wars! Haha... That is the problem I face; I do not have the privacy that school teachers have to prepare lessons.

My boys conscientiously cut, coloured and assemble the dolls while I was busy preparing dinner.

They were more interested in the warriors obviously. I had to persuade them to complete the lady dolls as well. They did those quite unwillingly at first but found them useful afterwards when they were role-playing because at least now Odysseus and Hector has a Helen to fight over ;-)


They took quite a lot of pains in choosing names for their dolls; reread some portions of their history books and other story books with Greek themes to find the bravest Greek warrior. It was quite hilarious initially because they insisted on calling one Robin Hood. To that, my respond was, "No, no. Wrong era!"

I managed to sneak in some Mathematics as they were constructing their dolls. They needed to prop the dolls up with triangular bases. I had a chance to introduce such terms as right-angle triangles, isosceles triangles and equilateral triangles.

That night, they made me promise to read the chapter on Greek Wars the next day.

All in all, this turned out to be a rather fruitful session.


Visit Rumphius History Webpage to learn more about how we approach History in our homeschool.