Posts Tagged ‘Renaissance unit study’

Romeo and Juliet Poem for Kids

Tuesday, October 23rd, 2012

romeo-and-juliet-poem-for-kids

I assigned my children to write a summary of Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet. My 12-year-old son Bryan asked if he could write it as a poem. I said, “Sure.” The result was a beautiful Romeo and Juliet poem for kids:

I will tell you a tragic love story;
Two families were in a fight.
The Montagues and the Capulets
Couldn’t stand each other’s sight.

Romeo of the Montagues
Arrived at a Capulet ball.
He fell in love with Juliet,
And later he climbed her wall.

To Juliet’s window he loudly proclaimed,
“What light through yonder window breaks?
Let us go to Friar Lawrence’s cell
To be married for both of our sakes!”

The next day they secretly married.
Tybalt killed an innocent man.
Romeo revenged him by killing Tybalt
And was banished, so off he ran.

Juliet’s father told her, “Marry Paris.”
But sadly, she was already wed.
She ran to Friar Lawrence who said,
“Drink this potion and go to bed.”

Presuming that Juliet was dead,
Her family buried her with sorrow deep.
Romeo never got the message
That Juliet was only asleep.

So he entered Juliet’s tomb,
And his life he brought to an end.
Juliet woke up and killed herself,
And their families did finally amend.

Related product: Romeo and Juliet Unit Study

RomeoAndJulietUnitStudyPromo450

Renaissance Unit Study

Monday, September 10th, 2012

renaissance-unit-study

This is what we will be doing for our Renaissance Unit Study:

  • Renaissance notebook
  • Attend a Shakespeare-in-the-Park play
  • Read and discuss several famous Shakespeare plays
  • Fun and interesting Shakespeare books for younger kids
  • Diagram of a ship with labeled parts for explorers
  • Design ships and sail them
  • Make a Renaissance cap
  • Put together a model of the Globe Theater
  • Performances of paper dolls with Shakespeare characters
  • Reformation videos with Reformation Day performance
  • Leonardo da Vinci’s inventions
  • Make your own inventions
  • Draw proportions of human body

 

Join the Unit Study Treasure Vault to watch us doing each of the activities mentioned in the video.

My Sons’ Goofy Comments About Shakespeare

Thursday, August 30th, 2012

goofy-comments-shakespeare

Here are some goofy comments about Shakespeare my sons made to me recently:

“Mom?! How come you’re going so slowly? I can’t stand it! How on earth am I supposed to follow the action in the story if you take so long explaining one scene?” cried out my 10-year-old son Stephen.

“Sweetheart,” I answered, “you’ve already heard the plot of the story, and you’ve seen the play. Now we are going to read the actual Sharespearean language. I want you to understand the poetry of it, to savor the language. We are going to settle in and study one or two scenes per day. It will take a month for us to study this play. By the end of the year, after studying many plays, you will be able to understand any Shakespeare play that you’ve never read before just by reading the real thing.”

My 12-year-old son Bryan stated another observation about Shakespeare. “Mom, how come there are so many words in each scene? It seems like the characters could have said their lines in a much more simple and understandable way. Even in the play we saw, the action didn’t move forward very fast.”

“That’s because the language is poetic. It’s beautiful language, and your future wife is going to thank me for teaching you how to understand poetic language.”

My son Nathaniel asked, “Is that how Dad got you to marry him?”

“No,” I said, and we all laughed.

Related product: Romeo and Juliet Unit Study

Shakespeare in the Park

Wednesday, August 29th, 2012

Shakespeare-in-the-park

Last weekend we took our kids to see Shakespeare in the Park. This is an ideal way to introduce Shakespeare to children, because it is a casual environment that doesn’t require complete silence. Besides, kids can wiggle around on a blanket on the grass, changing positions, so even if your child has lots of energy, the child does not have to sit still. Shakespeare in the Park is usually free, so if you need to leave, you are not wasting any money.

On the way to the park, I told my children the plot of the story “Twelfth Night,” which was being performed that night. Twins are shipwrecked, and the girl thinks her twin brother has died. So she goes to work for the local duke. She dresses up as a boy in order to work for the duke, but she ends up falling in love with the duke. Meanwhile, the duke is in love with Olivia, who is in love with the duke’s page (who happens to be the girl dressed up as a boy). Suddenly the twin brother shows up and is mistaken for the sister who is dressed up as a boy. In the end, everyone is paired off and gets married. Yes, I told my kids that in Shakespeare’s comedies, there is always at least one love story, and couples always get married at the end. This is opposed to the tragedies, where lots of people are dead at the end. Yep. Comedy or tragedy. Married or dead. My kids laughed.

My kids seemed to follow their first Shakespeare play just fine. I told them they might not understand all the language, and just to pay attention to the plot. Also, I said that the language was similar to the King James version of the Bible. My 12-year-old son had no problem understanding the language, my two middle boys understood most of it, and my 7-year-old daughter said she couldn’t understand the words, but she enjoyed seeing the play. What a great kick-off to a full year of teaching Shakespeare to my children!

Related product: Romeo and Juliet Unit Study

Linked to Introducing Your Children to Shakespeare