At the end of our first component Giselle told me she thought Shakespeare was boring. I was calm on the outside, but on the inside I was thinking, "Yikes!" Then I calmed down and decided to do something about this. My daughter couldn't leave this school year hating Shakespeare. That would not happen!
First I evaluated the situation. The first two plays we studied were Julius Caesar and Antony and Cleopatra. These were both fascinating to me. But two tragedies probably weren't the best thing to start with, especially for a young girl.
We were on to the Italian plays next. I cut back my expectations for getting through everything. For the rest of the year our family focused more on The Merchant of Venice to represent the Italian plays, and Macbeth and Henry V to represent Great Britain.
I spent many, many hours after Christmas searching for some really exciting field trips. I was determined that the last several months would be even more engaging.
ALL ROADS LEAD TO ROME: Italian Plays
The Merchant of Venice
Othello
Romeo and Juliet
Taming of the Shrew
Our first field trip of the year was a visit to a bank. The bank manager took us into a board room and taught some valuable lessons on interest and finance management. We were also allowed inside the vault. This was perfect for our study of The Merchant of Venice.
After the bank we all went to Suzanne's home for an Italian lunch and students research project presentations.
Chase took rapier lessons for two months from this fellow that we met during a family trip to Oak Glen. Chase and a friend from park day took classes together. It was a good experience.
Autumn directed our family in a scene from Much Ado About Nothing,which takes place in Messina.
Giselle put together a farce combining bits of Shakespeare's plays, mostly Romeo and Juliet.
She used this pop-up Globe Theatre...
and these characters that come with it ...
to act out her play on the stage
She wrote the play, moved the paper characters, and spoke their parts while I filmed it. She called it A Comedy of Errors. This was another fun day!
Our field trip to the Old Globe Theater in San Diego was called, "Follow the Bard" tour.
Our tour guide taught us about the theater, acting, directing, and Shakespeare. He also showed us various props from Shakespeare plays.
The students loved the tour.
Afterwards we ate lunch in Balboa Park, and stopped at Shakespeare's Corner Shoppe and Afternoon Tea in San Diego.
Two days later would be Valentine's day, so at the last minute I decided to do something fun for the day, since Shakespeare is the poet of love. I planned this for my kids, and then called Suzanne and asked if she wanted to come. Bringing in even one other student to our home adds a more important air to our learning. Suzanne brought the treat for the next day, February 14th. This was one of my favorite days of the school year!
The day began with a treasure hunt on pink strips of paper--
I found lines from Shakespeare's love sonnets and turned them into a treasure hunt.
The treasure was the Valentine chocolates that Suzanne brought.
Each bag of candy had this attached, "Sweet to the sweet" from Hamlet.
After the treasure hunt I set up a whiteboard in the living room to help us learn about Shakespeare's sonnets and iambic pentameter. It was so fun! You can see Juliet there too.
To teach iambic pentameter I shared Dracula's declaration contains 3 iambs. "I vant to suck your blood!' Short long, short long, short long, or one unstressed and one stressed syllable. We clapped it out. It's very musical. Much of Shakespeare's plays are written in Iambic pentameter, and the sonnets have 14 lines of a certain rhyme pattern of iambic pentameter.
I told the kids that we were going to write a love sonnet, but I didn't tell them I wasn't sure if we could really do. We started writing from a girl's perspective, and Chase went to another room to write his. This is the girls' sonnet to their future "Knight in shining armor"
Chase's sonnet was so beautiful. I loved them both!
This took much a shorter time than I imagined it would. Poetry is hard work to me, so I was overly impressed with their process and results. When we finished, the girls shared their sonnet with Chase, then Chase shared his with us. It was such a fun, creative day together!
I gave each a tiny booklet of some of Shakespeare's love sonnets.
I don't remember why I gave everyone this. But it was another favor for them,
with a sweet sonnet line. We used this later for our open house.
Our final outing for All Roads Lead to Rome.
During my hours searching for some great field trips, I found this gondola ride near Long Beach, and it was memorable!
A gondolier taught us about the history and structure of a gondola
These girls are excited!
Autumn and Giselle and the other teen girls went for ride in their own gondola. When we heard this gondolier belt out a song from Phantom of the Opera, we knew these girls were in heaven!Autumn waves!
It was a fabulous end to our study of Italy and the Italian plays.
No comments:
Post a Comment