At the end of the school year, I gave my class a survey to find out what activities they liked or did not like when they studied ancient civilizations. Most of the students seemed to like an activity that introduced them to the geography of Greece.
Prior to the beginning of the period, I rearranged the desks into "mountain ranges" and taped off the carpet to designate the "oceans" around mainland Greece. When the students entered the classroom, they knew something fun was going to take place that day!
The students had 30 seconds to use pieces of paper to "claim" land on the mainland. At the end of the 30 seconds, those who had claimed the most land were called farmers. Those who did not claim enough land were the settlers who needed to start a colony elsewhere.
While the farmers pretended to raise crops and animals and sang "I've Been Working on the Farm", the settlers designated one person to start a new colony across the ocean in Africa, Asia, or Europe. It was then necessary for a child to "sail" across the ocean by scooting on the floor while singing "Row, Row, Row Your Boat" to trade for goods that were needed from the distant colonies to bring back to the mainland.
The students really enjoyed this activity and understood how the geography of ancient Greece influenced where the people settled.
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