On Monday 7th March, Year 3 and 4 had a special day which relates to their current ‘big question’, What can we learn from the Ancient Greeks?
Some of the children have written about their experience:
When we went to the hall we were greeted by the most amazing sight: a Spartan!(pretend) He said the 3 things a spartan should be is respectful, brave and strong. Apparently the spear he had was quite heavy.
Girl Spartans started training at 9-10 years old! Boys start training at 7 years old! At 16 years old a Spartan would go out and hunt only armed with a small knife and a blood cloak (that is a blood red cloak that hides blood).
I think that the worst thing about wearing a sword is that when you put it away you might stab yourself with it!
A Spartan soldier would have to carry a spear and a shield. They would have a choice if they wanted to carry a knife and a sword. It is always better to have three and need one then have one and need three! The life of a Spartan sounds very complicated!
By Maddie in Year 3
Year 3 and 4 had a lovely day on Monday 7th of March. We learned how to be a Spartan. In the morning we went to the hall and there was a Spartan in armour. He had a spear, sword, knife and a shield. My friend Claudia, was brave and put the armor on and the sword touched her nose! After that we went back to our classroom and made bracelets. It was grand fun and Amber got a prize for the best bracelet! We went back to the hall and we were sorted into teams (I was in the yellow team) then we fought each other and learned about the Spartans. We found out about the life of a Spartan and how boys and girls are treated in Sparta. We were told about a Spartan story and we acted it out! We asked questions (again Claudia hand shot up all the time) and our Spartan answered them. In a while we found out that the Spartan was a man named Peter and not actually a Spartan otherwise he would have been dead for 2000 or more years! We had a grand day battling, crafting and asking questions. By the way a spartan is an Ancient Greek Soldier-a very brave one.
By Liya, Year 4
When Peter came (the name of the man) he taught us about Spartans,how they were trained,how they fought and how they died. From the age of 7, spartan boys were taken from their families and started their agoge (their training which took 11 years to complete!) The leader of the Spartan army was a mighty king called Leonardis. The formation the Spartans used is called a phalanx.
Their main weapon is a spear. When they are fighting they will fight with a spear until it is lost or broken then will draw their swords and fight with it until it is lost or broken and finally they will whip out their daggers and fight with it until they are dead.
The spartans were wiped out in the battle of Thermopylae and this is how…
When a traitor led half of the Persian army around the mountains and behind the Spartans so the Spartans were surrounded and slowly exterminated from existence except from two. One was so wounded that they thought he was dead. The other was told by Leonardis to escape and save himself.