Preparing for Shakespeare

We are reading our first Shakespeare play this year. I would like to share with you some of the ideas and books I have been gathering to prepare for our study.

We have read a few of Shakespeare's plays retold by Charles and Mary Lamb in Tales from Shakespeare.

But this year, I wanted to read through an original play with my two oldest daughters. They are now 10 and 11 and are both strong in their English and reading aloud skills, so I thought we'd give it a go.

The next question was which play to study. In The Well Trained Mind, Susan Wise Bauer recommends starting with a history play, as the storyline would be more straight forward and understandable. Since we had recently studied King Henry V in our History studies, I decided that would be the play to start with, as we had a good overview of the storyline. Another factor in this decision was that Susan Wise Bauer and others recommend the movie by Kenneth Branagh as suitable for older children to view. I found a copy at one of our local stores and previewed it for suitability. I will show the girls most of the film, just leaving out some of the gory battle scenes.

My next mission was to find the books to read aloud. I wanted to have three copies, so that we could each have one to read aloud from. The local library would have some, right? Wrong! I was quite disappointed. Granted, we live in a small town, but considering the size of the library I was disappointed to find only one copy of the complete works of Shakespeare in the classics section - which only consisted of about 20 or 30 books! So I had to resort to buying some copies. Susan Wise Bauer also recommended the Oxford Shakespeare editions as they have the original text accompanied by notes and explanations of the many old expressions and words used. They also include other historical background information and pictures from various performances and movies. These I found via my trusty Fishpond, a kind of Amazon based in New Zealand. They happened to have emailed me a voucher for $10 off my next purchase that very day, so I ordered two copies.

I planned to read from the huge complete works that I had borrowed from the library, until I found a Wordsworth Classics edition on Trademe. It contains five of Shakespeare's history plays, and is much easier to hold and read aloud from than the mammoth book from the library.

There are several homeschooling mums whose blogs/websites have been invaluable in finding material on Shakespeare. Jimmie has a great Squidoo Lens on Shakespeare for Children. I have visited many of the sites Jimmie recommended. It is a wonderful guide to beginning the study of Shakespeare with your children and includes links to printable pictures, notebooking pages and much more.

LindaFay has a very helpful post on Shakespeare movies.

This book, Bard of Avon: The Story of William Shakespeare is a lovely introduction to Shakespeare's life, and the illustrations are beautiful.

We are now several scenes into our reading of Henry V, and have thoroughly enjoyed the rich language and the many "bardisms", insults and expressions and are looking forward to reading more.

Stained Glass Window Art

We finally got around to finishing our "stained glass windows". We did this craft to go along with a medieval history lesson, but it also tied in with some of our art studies. Thanks to Dana's and Barb's wonderful posts we found some great patterns at Chantal's Stained Glass website to use for our "windows."

We printed out the patterns onto regular printer paper, then traced them onto tracing paper. The pad of tracing paper was much cheaper to buy than acetate pages, which probably would have been better.

Next we drew over the patterns with black PVA glue. This was trickier than it looks. The glue tended to come out of the tube in an irregular fashion, but I think it added a bit of originality to our designs. We laid them out to dry. We didn't get around to finishing them until this week, because I needed to purchase some white glue to stain with watercolours, so that we could colour in the designs. Spot the Mondrian on the bottom!

Well, it turned into one of those things that sat around unfinished, until I found some cheap coloured glue sticks at the local Warehouse store.

The girls got them out earlier this week and finished them off. Needless to say it was a messy job, but they look beautiful hanging up on the window. Here are some of the girls' designs. One day I might get around to finishing my Mondrian style design.

Poet of the Week - Christina Rossetti

We are looking at the poems of Christina Rossetti this week.

Christina was born in England to an Italian father and and English-Italian mother. She was also the brother of the great artist, Dante Rossetti, who often used her as his model. Christina never married, turning down proposals from two men because of her faith. She was a devoted Anglican and loved nature and many of her poems reflect those two loves.

This is one of our favourites so far:

A linnet in a gilded cage,-

A linnet on a bough,-

In frosty winter one might doubt

Which bird is luckier now.

But let the trees burst out in leaf,

And nests be on the bough,

Which linnet is the luckier bird,

Oh who could doubt it now?

Male Linnet
From the Royal Society for Protection of Birds

Art Workshop!

Last month, we again had the pleasure of participating in a wonderful art workshop by Graham Braddock.

We were guided through drawing pictures in 3D, and focussing on perspective and vanishing points.

We drew a 3D picture of "Butch's Kennel", and Huntly Landscape and a Kenworth truck.

Here are our pictures:

Ainsley was old enough to join us this year, and I think she did a great job!

Top left: Ainsley (7 yrs), Top right: Emily (10 yrs), Bottom left: Bethany (11 yrs) and Bottom right: Mine.

The Habit of Reading Aloud

One of the things my husband and I believe has made a huge difference to our family life and to our children's vocabulary has been reading aloud. We are grateful that when we first were considering homeschooling we discovered both Charlotte Mason's ideas and Classical methods. Both of these stress the benefits of reading aloud good literature (CM would call them "Living books") as often as possible. Since then (about 5 years ago) Eeuwe has attempted to read aloud to the girls every night that it is possible. It doesn't happen on night when he has to go out to church meetings or other things. It always takes place after dinner each night, and after family devotions. Occassionally he'll make up a chapter on a Sunday afternoon if we don't have visitors. So on average he probably gets to read to the girls about three, maybe four nights a week. It is amazing now to look back at all the books he has managed to get through in this time. I am often asked for ideas for read alouds and usually pass on my favourite lists. I thought today I would brainstorm and try and remember all the books that have been read aloud in the past five years!

The Complete Adventures of Winnie the Pooh ~ A.A.Milne

The Chronicles of Narnia (second reading at the moment!) ~ C.S.Lewis

Several Paddington Bear books ~ Michael Bond

Stuart Little, Charlotte's Web, The Trumpet of the Swan ~ E.B.White

Pinnocchio ~ Carlo Collodi

Many of the Beatrix Potter tales

Treasury for Children (several stories) ~ James Herriot

Most of the Little House on the Prairie series ~ Laura Ingalls Wilder

Caddie Woodlawn ~ Carol Ryrie Brink

The Treasure Seekers, Five Children & It ~ Edith Nesbit

The Incredible Journey ~ Sheila Burnford

The Secret Garden, A Little Princess ~ Frances Hodgson Burnett

The Courage of Sarah Noble ~ Alice Dalgleish

Shadrach ~ Meindert de Jong

Just So Stories ~ Rudyard Kipling

The Cricket in Times Square ~ George Selden

Heidi ~ Johanna Spyri

Odd and several other titles by Amy Le Feuvre

Many "Twins" books by Lucy Fitch Perkins

Swiss Family Robinson ~ Johann Wyss

The Hobbit ~ J.R.R.Tolkien (and The Lord of the Rings are sure to come when the girls are a bit older!)

The Little Pilgrims Progress ~ John Bunyan, abridged

Mary Poppins ~ P.L.Travers

Pollyanna ~ Eleaner Porter

The Tanglewood's Secrets ~ Patricia St.John

The Sheep-Pig (Babe, the book), Ace, Daggy Dogfoot ~ Dick King Smith

Lassie Come Home ~ Eric Knight

Alice's Adventure's in Wonderland, Through the Looking Glass ~ Lewis Carroll

The Borrowers, The Borrowers Afloat ~ Mary Norton

Anne of Green Gables ~ Lucy Maud Montgomery

The Veveteen Rabbit ~ Margery Williams

Five Little Peppers and How They Grew ~ Margaret Sidney

King of The Wind ~ Marguerite Henry

The Silver Brumby ~ Elyne Mitchell

There are probably a few more, but this gives you and idea of how many books a committed Dad can read to his children over five years, just a few nights a week! Many of these have enriched our lives deeply, we can refer back to favourite characters, funny sayings, and the girls are often acting out the latest book. I asked each of the girls which book was their favourite, and they each named one of the Chronicles of Narnia. Bethany's & Ainsley's favourite is The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, Emily's favourite is The Horse & His Boy. I'll have to ask Eeuwe which is his favourite! Well, surprise, surprise, Eeuwe's favourites to read aloud are the Chronicles of Narnia (he especially likes C.S.Lewis's sense of humour) and The Hobbit.

Happy reading!

Poet of the Week - Walter de la Mare

I have had the best of intentions to study one poet at a time. Today we chose Walter de la Mare, for no other reason than that he happened to be the first poet listed in our Anthology of Poetry for Children. We also have one of his anothologies, Peacock Pie, which the children have often used for copywork.

Here's a silly poem we read today:

Alas, Alack!

Ann, Ann!

Come! quick as you can!

There's a fish that talks

In the frying-pan.

Out of the fat,

As clear as glass,

He put up his mouth

And moaned, "Alas!"

Oh, most mournful,

"Alas, alack!"

Then turned to his sizzling,

And sank him back.

~~~~~

1066

Here's a quick question for all you history buffs out there:

What happened in England in 1066?

That's right - the Battle of Hastings, when William the Conqueror from Normandy successfully invaded England and defeated King Harold.

The Bayeux Tapestry was a huge embroidery made depicting the events surrounding and including the Battle of Hastings. It is an amazing work of art.

Well, here in little old New Zealand, a keen historian has re-created the Bayeux Tapestry - but it is not a tapestry, it is an amazingly intricate mosaic made up of the most unlikely material.

Michael Linton and his daughter, Rachael, completed their mosaic copy of the Bayeux Tapestry using tiny pieces of spring steel - the offcuts from patterning disks used on a very large industrial knitting machine. The pieces are approximately 7mm square. The mosaic took Michael & Rachael 25 years to complete and is almost 34 metres long. It is currently displayed in Michael and Gillian's shop, "The Giant Jersey", in Geraldine, in the South Island of New Zealand.

Well, my parents have just been on a holiday in the South Island and brought back a set of amazing CD-roms with a wealth of information about the Bayeux Tapestry and the surrounding events. There are high resolution scans of the mosaic, scene by scene descriptions, a comprehensive study of the history of the tapestry, activities and games for the kids, as well as a large library of related books - including hundreds of Aesop's fables, Our Island Story and many more! There are also images of beautiful illuminated manuscripts, medieval hymns along with their music as well as poems about the events and much more. It is going to provide us history nuts with hours of fun & enjoyment!

Check out Michael's website for more information and pictures of the mosaic - oh, and the "Giant Jersey"!

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UPDATE APRIL 2012!  Please visit Dana's blog to see an animated version of the tapestry, it's great!