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SCM cures Shakespeare-phobia!!
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During my 19 years of CM homeschooling I have had a serious malady I thought was incurable. I was terrified of Shakespeare. I’ve known its benefits, thrilled to the beautiful language. But to teach it?!? Hardly! Shakespeare has been my last hold-out. But no more!! Simply Charlotte Mason has cured me!
Yesterday I received in the mail the miraculous solution to Shakespeare-phobia. It is called Shakespeare in Three Easy Steps. Each volume contains everything you need to teach one Shakespeare play: a retelling from either Nesbit or Lamb, the complete script of the play broken down into a doable plan, script highlights, advisories for possible inappropriate material and suggestions for video recordings of the play. In addition you can purchase the wonderfully-done Arkangel audio CDs of the play. Each book is available in print or PDF, but SCM has thought of everything. Purchasers of the print version also receive the PDF version to make it easy to print off the script for each child to follow along!
I’ve always been quite the independent homeschool mom, not needing hand holding. But I so appreciate the efforts of SCM in making Shakespeare accessible to me and my children. They really do make Charlotte Mason simple.
(This is NOT a paid endorsement. Just one thrilled momma! 🙂 )
P.S. Today (2/28) is the last day to purchase this excellent resource at the introductory discount.)
Woohoo! Mission accomplished! This momma is thrilled that you’re no longer Shakespeare-phobic, Robin!
Thank you so much for posting this! I have to admit that I have not gotten the Shakespeare thing yet. The only time I was exposed to it was in high school and frankly, I hated it. Now, I have tried to understand, but it has greatly intimidated me. My oldest is only 4th grade now, so I look forward to checking out this resource.
Looking forward to checking the new resources out in a few weeks in Nashville! 🙂
I just ordered Taming of the Shrew. I also, am not a fan but am willing to try cause everyone here at SCM hasn’t made anything I haven’t liked yet!
Sonya – could you give an idea of a time frame. If you were doing this would once a week for approx. how many weeks? If you were going to spend about 10-15 minutes a week? Would this be a couple week thing, a semester, quarter, or could you make one last a year adding parts and such to it? Thanks for any insight you might have.
This tempts me to try, but I’ve just never been able to get into Shakespeare. And, The Taming of the Shrew…is it really like the Elizabeth Taylor movie?
If you do Shakespeare once a week, it should take approximately 12 weeks to complete one play in the Shakespeare in Three Steps series. Most of the lessons are designed to take 20 minutes or less. You could finish a play more quickly than 12 weeks by doing Shakespeare more than once a week, or take a slower pace to make it last longer than 12 weeks if desired.
Be sure to check the Play Summaries tab on that page for our recommended minimum age levels for each play.
Hi Everyone:
I have never been a fan of Shakepeare…..but now that I’m a CM’er, I’m willing to give it a try. We have 5 school aged children 9th on down.
1) What age range would you thing might be participating in the listening?
2) What would be an easier play to start with?
I am planning on buying the bundle from SCM. 🙂
Thanks for listening,
Kelly Wright
Kelly, I think your girls would enjoy Midsummer. The storyline is hilarious. What helped my youngest (my adopted 11yo at the time who would get upset because he couldn’t follow it) was to read the retelling first, then the summary of each Act and narrate it (that was important.) Then we would listen while we followed along in the script. He loved it! He laughed at the right moments, shook his head in exasperation when Puck would come to create havoc. It was wonderful! We did it once or twice a week, mostly an Act at a time. Did we get all of it? Of course not, but we followed most if it and the experience was wonderful.
If done this way I think even your youngest can get quite a bit of it. I hope there are more of these guides in the works because they’re a huge hit at my house and probably the only way we will accomplish Shakespeare.
We did Midsummer following the SCM plans laid out in Enrichment Studies 1 and found it very doable. The whole thing was accomplished in the third term, a little at a time. We plan to see a free production at a park in August so that was good timing. I have a degree in English Lit but actually enjoyed it more going through it with my kids at the SCM pace than when it was a part of a lot of other reading/work I had to do in college. Of course, I am finding that true with many of the things I am relearning through homeschooling.
One tip I’d offer is to have the kids make a character list on sturdy paper to pull out with each lesson. It can be hard to keep straight who is in love with who. I also used a whiteboard to write/draw a basic overview of the setting and characters right before we started a new scene.
I really like the CM approach of reading things without putting a lot of pressure on everyone to analyze it all and just enjoy it. Much better than skipping Shakespeare entirely!
Thank you for your responses. @RobinP I will start w/ Midsummer Night, as you suggested. And @Melissa, I love the idea of writing down a list of characters. 🙂
I have a question of the product…..I went to put it in my cart and it appears to be just the audio CD’s. Is there something else we will need? Something I will need to print? Just wondering what other products go along w/ it? Or is everything I will need in the SCM product?
You’ll also want the book to give you the story version, the script, and to walk you through the scenes. If you use this page, you can order both the book and the audio CD that goes with it.
I forgot to answer your question about what age range. The kids I did Midsummer with were ages 14, 11 and 9. This year I might include my 7yo but very lightly~if she wants to listen in, great, but there will be plenty of other opportunities to take part in the future so I’m not going to make her sit through it if it’s too much.
Sonya, or other moms, if I were to order the ebook version (which is my plan), do I also have to order the audio CD separately? I thought it came with an mp3 file? Or am I mixing that up with the Hymns book?
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