Viewing 5 posts - 1 through 5 (of 5 total)
  • Author
    Posts
  • HollyS
    Participant

    I just bought How To Teach Your Children Shakespeare and have read a couple chapters as well as some reviews.  It seems most people recommend his method, but not necessarily the scenes he chooses to focus on.  Is there a list somewhere of which scenes would be most appropriate for kids?  I’m only somewhat familiar with the four we read in high school and none are on SCM’s list for younger children.

    Also, would it be better to choose one play to focus on or go through the book (or some combination of the two)?  I’ve been wanting to study A Midsummer Night’s Dream, but I wonder if it wouldn’t be best to go through the book first and get them used to the language before attempting a play.

    nebby
    Participant

    We use this book and I haven’t thought any of the passages inappropriate. We read the narrative of a play from Lamb or Nesbit and go through the relevant portion of his book along with it. There is also a new pbs series on Shakespeare but that you do have to be careful with.

    Nebby

    Wings2fly
    Participant

    I bought that book, but will use it as a teacher resource each time we do a play and study what is relevant to only that play then.  We spend a few months on one play every one to two years based on what is available locally to see a live performance.  And we really enjoyed the Arkangel audio production this last time, before we saw the performance.  Afterwards, my children wanted to perform their own play at home – their own idea!

    As far as a list, I would stick with the plays for the ages/grades recommended at SCM, and go one play at a time.

    https://simplycharlottemason.com/planning/curriculum-guide/shakespeare/

    We will likely rotate through these first four plays again before going on to the more mature themes, adding to these The Taming of the Shrew and Much Ado about Nothing.

    AFthfulJrney
    Participant

    I’ve been curious about this book for quite sometime. I hear a lot of buzz about it, but am unsure how useful it would be to me. My children are 8 & 6. My current shakespeare resources are as follows:

    Poetry for Young People: William Shakespeare

    William Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream as retold by Bruce Coville

    Tales from Shakespeare by Charles and Mary Lamb

    and

    Shakespeare Stories for Young Readers by E. Nesbit

    I was also thinking of purchasing the book Who Was William Shakespeare? but haven’t done so yet. Would How to Teach Your Children Shakespeare be a great resource for me to use along side these other texts?

    nebby
    Participant

    How to Teach Your Kids… Is mainly about memorization but he throws in a lot of details about blank verse, how Shakespeare uses language etc.  I find it quite helpful. He tells the plots too but I prefer Lamb or Nesbit for that. An 8yo could definitely learn from this book. I think a 6yo could too.

    Nebby

Viewing 5 posts - 1 through 5 (of 5 total)
  • The topic ‘Shakespeare’ is closed to new replies.