I am fairly new to SCM. Just joined the forums today. I have a ds who will be 7 in Nov and a dd who will be 3 in Apr. I will be doing SCM History Module 3 next year for 1st grade. My dd will start 1st grade when ds is in 5th grade. I have been plugging subjects into a longterm plan to see how things will line up between the two kids. This is why I am so excited about SCM – we can do so much as a family. I had been looking at and even planning to use AO, before I found SCM, but I didn’t like how every child was doing their own thing. I am still going to follow alot of their literature suggestions, but anyways I digress… The area I am struggling with is Shakespeare. I much prefer SCM’s idea of doing fewer and doing them more as a family but how do you make it work with multiple ages. Are the age suggestions for reading the original play only vs reading a story version, or for both? I would love some guidance on how to make this work.
The age suggestions are mainly based on content and plot and what I thought was appropriate at what age. For example, I tried to do more comedies when younger children are involved and tried to avoid plots that involved racism, bawdy story lines, too much romance, or murder. So if you select one that is considered appropriate for the youngest participant’s age, you should be fine for both.
Thanks Sonya for your response. It has been a long time since I have read any Shakespeare (don’t tell my Dad who immigrated from England and loves Shakespeare ) I understand where you are coming from and I definitely agree. I am going to get Stories from Shakespeare to read myself as a refresher. I don’t really want to wait until my ds is in 6th grade to introduce Shakespeare though (when dd is in 2nd). Would there be one more for each 2nd and 4th grades that you or anyone else on the boards could recommend that I could do with ds before dd is ready? (I know I could repeat them if I had to…but…)
I am looking forward to meeting you at the NICHE conference in June.
Sorry for the delay in responding. I wanted to refresh my memory, and sometimes that takes longer than expected.
A couple other possibilities for ages 7 and up (besides A Midsummer Night’s Dream and The Comedy of Errors) might be
As You Like It: A humorous play about two girls, one posing as a shepherd boy, who find a banished father and loving husbands in the forest.
Twelfth Night: Humorous play about a girl, posing as page to a duke, who finds her identical twin brother and wins her true love amid a series of confusing events.
Hope this helps. Maybe others have some more suggestions.
By the way, we’re expanding to two traveling teams this year, so you will get to meet Doug and Karen at NICHE. John and I will be doing some other conferences in other states. I believe Doug will be doing a workshop at NICHE, so be sure to encourage him!
We did Julius Caesar this year in our co-op with 4th grade and up. I don’t know how you feel about some violence, but it is based on the true History of Caesar. My son is in 4th and all the children enjoyed it. At first they were hesitant about pronouncing the Old English, but caught on quickly. I bought 2 copies of As you Like It to read next year. I will have him read some characters and i will read the others.
I have the Lamb’s version and the E. Nesbit version, Beautiful Stories From Shakespeare; The Nesbit version is easier on the younger, whereas the Lamb’s is more for ages 9/10 or so. My children enjoy the Nesbit version (one 8 and one 9) that I read once a week. Their favorite is Midsummer Night’s Dream; they recently enjoyed The Tempest, too.