Classical Education

The Ancient Greeks

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The Peloponnesian Wars

The Peloponnesian Wars (431-404 BC)

The ancient Greeks were a little bit like you and your brother and sister (or your best friend). They didn’t always get along. One time the Greeks in Athens and the Greeks in Sparta got mad at each other about something that seemed very important at the time. So they went to war. And they didn’t fight just one war. They fought two of them! Can you guess how long these wars lasted? 27 years!

These wars were called the Peloponnesian Wars because they were fought in the part of Greece called the Peloponnesus. It is easier to say if you break it up into two words: Pelopon Nesus.

The Spartans were better at fighting on land, and the Athenians were better at fighting on the sea, because Athens governed many islands which paid “tribute” or taxes, to Athens. But Sparta had to keep stopping to check on their slaves, and Athens had an outbreak of the plague which killed thousands of people, including Pericles, who had been the most important leader of Athens during its Golden Age.

Then a man named Lysander became the new Spartan general. Lysander figured out a way to defeat the Athenian navy and actually won a naval victory against the Athenians. Over 150 Athenian ships were destroyed in this battle, causing Athens to surrender to Sparta.

A man named Thucydides (Thoo-sid-i-dees), who was a general in the Athenian army, wrote a book about the Peloponnesian Wars called The History of the Peloponnesian War. His book is the main reason we know what happened. After Sparta defeated Athens, Greece was never the same. As a result, a man named Alexander was able to conquer Greece. We will talk about him later.

Lysander outside the walls of Athens; 19th century lithograph

I plan to add a story of the week below, suitable for all ages, so that we can learn the history of the world together, something which is essential for a classical education.

How to Teach Reading

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Whether or not you are drawn to classical education, your child needs to know how to read. My daughter told me the other day that she thought that two of her children were not good readers because they had not received intensive phonics instruction at their school, but her third child, who did receive intensive phonics instruction, was an excellent reader. It is unnecessary for children to be handicapped with poor reading instruction, because the process of teaching reading is a simple one. Whether you homeschool your child or whether your child attends school, you can teach your child to read yourself in just a few minutes a day, thereby ensuring that your child does not fall through the cracks. To your child, it will be like a game. Many years ago, the book Why Johnny Can’t Read was released, in which the author encouraged parents to teach their child to read themselves before their child went to school, because one never knows what method of reading is being taught. (I also think that one never knows whether your child is going to be daydreaming through the reading lesson that day!)

So I decided to make a video which gives my simple method of teaching reading. Watch it below, and then take all the time you need to teach your child how to read. Turn it into a game!

See the link for the first set of Bob Books mentioned in the video. I loved them, my children, loved them, and my students loved them!

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