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Shakespeare for elementary
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Hi everyone!
I just found a used copy of Lamb’s Tales from Shakespeare, and have read through a couple of the plays – it’s perfect for my grade 2 son!
My question is this: SCM recommends studying one play per year, but after I read through A Midsummer Night’s Dream in about 20 minutes, I’m left wondering how I’m supposed to stretch it out over a whole school year? Even only reading from it once a week, it will barely last one term. Should we read through it more than once? Or just do it once, and replace that time with something else once we are done?
Thanks!
CM read 3 whole plays a year.
When you get to about Year 4, start studying one play per term. When you do that, start by re-reading the Lamb’s story. Then listen to the Archangel version while following along in print. You break this into the short lessons…one scene or act per lesson. Finally, watch the play in person if possible. If not, find an appropriate version that includes the original language if possible.
For now:
Don’t try to stretch the Lamb’s out. Just read one story a week. Enjoy them. Learn the characters. Get familiar with story lines. Narrate them – act them out, draw them, watch children’s versions on you-tube. The more familiar the stories are when you study each play later, the more you’ll enjoy it. =)
In our Enrichment Studies lesson plans, we schedule one Shakespeare play each year over one 12 week term. Depending on what age you start Shakespeare with your child, one play each year would mean your child could study up to 12 Shakespeare plays by the time he graduates.
Many moms find our Shakespeare in Three Steps series makes studying Shakespeare easier. In each book you get either Lamb’s or Nesbit’s retelling of the play, the play broken down into bite-size segments, reviews of video recordings of the play, and the full script. It is your choice if you want to choose parts and read the play or listen to an audio dramatization. We recommend the Arkangel Shakespeare audio dramatizations.
I too have been using Lamb’s Tales from Shakespeare for reading 1 play a week to my son. We’ll go through that this for the year & maybe Beautiful Stories then we might go more in depth with the Shakespeare in Three Steps starting next year (my guy is in 1st grade). I’m not a huge fan of Shakespeare & reading it was boring my son AND me so I found them both on Librivox – so we can build quietly with blocks or something else while it’s playing. Tales from Shakespeare Librivox also has Beautiful Stories From Shakespeare. I know it’s not best to use audio recordings but I make the exception here because it works best for us.
I think that there are definitely times and places for audio books – and multiple reasons for using them. Shakespeare is one of those. Have any of you looked at the Shakespeare coloring books on Amazon? Those are also fun to color while listening…plus you then have a visual for the time and place of the story.
As far as audio goes, Librivox does have recordings of the plays as well. But in my experience, since they are not done by professionals, that actually can take away from the wonderful Shakespearean experience. (Not all of them, but several of them…) So when you are doing the actual plays, try to get the Archangel versions. Those are fabulous!
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