Some Cretian Castles

My third graders are on their year-long art history journey, and this year we got all the way to the island of Crete and learned some Greek and Roman architecture as well.  We talk about ancient Crete and the Minoan civilization, which was destroyed by volcano around 1450 BC.  Later when the Greek writer Homer wrote about Crete, it was believed to be fiction until an amateur German archaeologist uncovered the remains of the palace Knossos.  For our island of Crete project, we watched Eyewitness Volcano and learned what sort of destruction happens with volcano eruptions. Then we were ready to get to painting some volcanoes:

Sorry for the sideways shot, I can't get it to turn correctly.

We spent a day or two drawing and painting with tempera blocks (man, I do love those and feel like I use them everyday), then I gave each student a 6 x 18 sheet of paper, and had them draw their own long palaces.  We drew with pencil, traced in extra-fine point permanent marker, and then colored with metallic crayon and/or metallic colored pencil.  Finally, we hinged them onto our backgrounds with folded paper.  Here are some finished third grade works:

I love that they're all different, each student was successful and there was a bit of science thrown in with learning about volcanoes.  (can't ever go wrong with Eyewitness videos and books!)
Hang on, friends, the school year is closing fast!