Shakespeare

This week we have Shakespeare in our lesson plan. Yes, Shakespeare in 2nd grade. We actually started in the 1st grade and Nature Girl loves it. Now it isn't the complete works or anything like that. It is a book edited by E. Nesbitt Beautiful Stories from Shakespeare for Children. There are over a dozen stories including A Midsummer Night's Dream, Two Gentlemen of Verona and Romeo and Juliet. We bought some paper dolls and book full of beautiful cutout costumes for each story. We don't read a story every week maybe every month. Nature Girl asked me yesterday when we were going to be doing Shakespeare again. And she was pleased that we would be reading a story this week! I remember Shakespeare when I was a senior in high school. It was part of my Brit Lit class. I remember the teacher well. It was one of those classes that I barely passed. It is a shame that I barely passed. A whole semester dedicated to some of the greatest literature ever written. I believe, now, that part of the problem was I had never been exposed to any of that before. Not only did I have to "learn a new language" but the stories were complicated. I believe our children have such a great potential to learn from the best literature out there. Shakespeare happens to be on the top of that list. Maybe by the time Nature Girl (or any of the others) have to actually study Shakespeare they may not get it as well as I would hope but at least they will know how the names are pronounced and the general gist of the stories. Hopefully it will give them just a little advantage. If nothing else, I know they have been exposed to the best of the best. It has to count for something . . . .