Courses · Greek · Grades 3 to 8
Greek
The language of Homer and Herodotus, of the New Testament and the early church, taught the old way: stories first, then chanting out loud, then making things with your hands. The young grades master the alphabet of Alpha and Omega through real treasures, a prize jug from Athens, the owl on the silver coin, the oldest song in the world, and the older grades climb the endings until they are reading real Greek: a fable of Aesop, the 23rd Psalm of the Septuagint, the first line of the Iliad, and at last John 1 itself, read aloud to the family.
Choose a grade
Ages 8–9
Grade 3
The alphabet treasure: all 24 letters from alpha to omega, learned through the Phoenician gift, a Greek schoolboy’s wax tablet, the Rosetta Stone, the secret sign of the fish and the owl coin of Athens, ending with a family Greek letter feast.
Ages 9–10
Grade 4
Reading Greek: capitals cut in stone, Archimedes’ eureka and the diphthongs, the breathing marks of Hagia Sophia, letters that count, the oldest song in the world, dinosaur names, and Kyrie eleison read from the page.
Ages 10–11
Grade 5
Subjects and objects: the article as the noun’s badge, one and many, the present tense whose ending carries its own pronoun, the runner’s one-word victory message, I AM, Paul on Mars Hill and the opening words of John.
Ages 11–12
Grade 6
Endings carry meaning: the whole map of the noun through Marathon and the hoplite’s shield, the case jobs, adjectives that agree, the wooden wall of Salamis, Herodotus’ storytelling tense and the future, and a whole fable read in Greek.
Ages 12–13
Grade 7
Reading real Greek: Homer and the singers, the third declension, Socrates’ questions, I and you, the Ten Thousand’s shout of “The sea! The sea!”, the snapshot tense, a real Aesop fable and Psalm 23 in the Greek of the Septuagint.
Ages 13–14
Grade 8
Bridge to real texts: one world, one Greek, Genesis 1:1 in the Septuagint, love is a verb, the wrath of Achilles, Erasmus and the printed Greek, the oldest pages of the New Testament, and John 1:1–5 read aloud at the capstone evening.
How every lesson works
Each course is a short course: 5 units of 2 lessons, one lesson a week, about one quarter of the school year. Each week has three sessions (20–30 minutes in grade 3, 30–40 minutes above): one to learn, one to make, one to practice and recite. Grades 3 and 4 are letters-and-reading years; grammar begins in grade 5 and spirals upward the way the old books did it, each year repeating the chants and adding one or two new structures, until grade 8 reads Genesis 1:1, the first line of the Iliad and John 1:1–5 from the real texts.
- Warm-up. A few minutes of chanting: the alphabet, the article grid, the noun charts, the verb columns, with a puzzle to think about.
- Watch. A hand-picked YouTube video from a trusted channel, Alpha with Angela, TED-Ed, Learn Bright, Smarthistory, Daily Dose of Greek and the seminary teachers, with a note on when to watch it.
- Learn. The story, how Greek works, and say it out loud, in short sections a parent can read aloud. Classroom (Erasmian) pronunciation throughout, honestly flagged where channels differ.
- Picture study. A public-domain painting, mosaic, carving or artifact, the Dipylon jug, the owl coin, Raphael’s Paul in Athens, the Seikilos song-stone, a papyrus of John, to look at closely and talk about.
- Activity. The student makes something every week: letter cards, a wax tablet, a hoplite shield, a labeled vase, a Greek scroll, a printed page like Erasmus’s.
- Greek notebook and flashcards. A notebook of dated charts and translations, and a flashcard deck that grows every lesson and is drilled every session.
- Worked examples and practice. Reading and translation drills with answers that teach, easy through challenge; two-way translation from grade 5 up.
Each unit ends with a short review and a unit challenge, such as an alphabet scroll, a noun-map poster or a hand-lettered Genesis scroll, and the quarter ends with a family celebration: a Greek letter feast, a games day, a Greek evening, and in grade 8 the capstone evening where the student reads John 1:1–5 aloud.
Nothing needs to be bought. Activities use index cards, paper, pencil, crayons and things from around the house. Each unit also lists optional books and free resources, from the free Famous Men of Greece to the Daily Dose of Greek videos, and our sister site the Classics Library keeps the great books close at hand.
Videos open on YouTube. Each one was checked for the lesson and for the content, but YouTube shows its own recommendations and ads around them, so parents should stay nearby. The Greek myths, where they appear, are taught as the stories the Greeks told, not as truth, with Paul in Athens as the model.