Date: 15 Jun 2026
Topic: Mythology
Codebreakers are a fun way to build numeracy skills.
The Titan Cronus tried to eat all of his children after a prophecy foretold that one of them would overthrow him as leader of the Titans.
Cronus was the son of Uranus, god of the sky, and Gaia, goddess of the earth. As the most powerful of the original twelve Titans, he married his sister Rhea, who bore his children.
In an attempt to swindle fate and hinder the realization of the prophecy, Cronus swallowed his first five children as soon as they were born. When her sixth and last child, Zeus, was born, Rhea decided to trick Cronus. She swaddled a baby-sized rock and fed it to him instead, sending Zeus into hiding to be raised by a foster mother.
Zeus eventually learned of his heritage and devised a plan to fool Cronus into drinking an emetic potion, causing him to regurgitate the other five children. These newly freed gods united against the Titans—with the support of a few secondary Titans—and ultimately overthrew them to become the supreme rulers of Mount Olympus.
While Cronus and his allies were defeated, their punishments varied. Cronus and his fiercest supporters were imprisoned in the Pit of Tartarus—a deep, tormenting abyss beneath the earth used as a secure dungeon for deposed gods. Meanwhile, the Titan Atlas was condemned to hold up the sky on his shoulders for eternity.