Today is another beautiful day here in the south. God has blessed the weather and spring is coming alive. I can hear birds chirping all during the day and squirrels are in our yard. I am running behind schedule. I'd better get my humming bird feeders going. Oh, and I am excited to get the leaves raked up so I can put out my two new bird baths that my hubby bought me. The weather is so nice, I think my children and I will school outside next week if the weather stays like it is.
We may just have to plan us a picnic and go to our nature area that is only about 2 miles from our house. My children will love that. We have not been there this year so it will be a treat for them. Especially for my daughter. She has gotten her a new video camera that I'm sure she would just love to get out in nature with, if she can keep her brother quiet enough for her to capture some wild life on video. She will definitely have her job cut out for her accomplishing that. My son is all boy, rambunctious.
Today we worked on our Shakespeare from E. Nesbith's book, Beautiful Stories From Shakespeare. We are on the story As You Like It. We aren't doing any thing special or deep when it comes to Shakespeare this year, just reading the story from her book, discussing it a bit, and then watching the animated video that goes with our story from Youtube. More or less, I am only trying to introduce them to Shakespeare. I'm not real sure what all they are receiving from what we are doing, but I feel like we are laying a great foundation for further indepth studies.
Are any of you working on Shakespeare with your children, Or have you done it in the past? I would love to know how you did it, are doing it, or planning to do it with your children. I was not a huge Literature fan when I was in school so I don't really feel confident teaching my children, but we are all learning together. It's amazing how much I enjoy all of my children's school work, things that I couldn't stand when I was in school. I guess the old saying, "The older you get, the wiser you get," is kicking in in my life. Oh my, does that mean I am getting old?
Well, suppose I'd better go for now. I have company coming over in about an hour so I'd better get ready for her. Bless all of you out in homeschool land. Happy homeschooling, Traci
2 comments:
My son asked me this morning if we could take a walk together. I said, "Not today." Why? Because I'm getting ready for company, like you are. But I KNOW a morning walk would do us all good and I made a mistake by saying, "no" to a morning walk. Well, I can fix that mistake, and your blog post inspires me to do that. Thanks.
Regarding Shakespeare, I use the Lambs' Tales version in the early years. I break up each story into about 10 sessions. When first beginning Shakespeare, I had the kids make paper dolls and props to act out the stories, but we've gotten away from that....though I think they would still like doing it. Hmmm, maybe I should suggest it again. I also have the Nesbit book but haven't used it (yet).
My 12yo DD is able to read Shakespeare on her own. After reading one play in depth, it seems that reading other plays is much, much easier for her. Struggling through that first play has really paid off.
The transition from Lambs' to the real version was made easier because she took a class taught by a homeschooling mom. My DD learned a lot, but I also learned by seeing what the teacher did and then duplicating that in our home. I'm learning along with my DD, as usual.
Okay, this is a long comment! I could talk about this stuff all day, but I have company coming and a short walk to take! :)
We read from Lamb's Tales. This is our 2nd year. We take 2 or 3 sessions to read through a story. Our method of keeping all the characters straight is drawing stick figures on paper with lots of lines showing all the tangled webs of relationships. My son has noticed that the tangles happen often in Shakespeare. He's also noticed that girls often have to disguise as young men to stay safe. Here's a short video of James explaining the first part of Cymbeline. http://www.kaypelham.com/2011/02/25/james-explains-shakespeares-cymbeline/
We just finished Macbeth. What a great story of the consequences of greed and a guilty conscience.
Post a Comment