Tag Archives: Shakespeare

Unschooling Plans – Science and History

Unschooling science and history

Here’s what we have planned for science and history this term. My children intend to keep me very busy!

See this post for our unschooling plans for maths and English.

Science

Physics

C(10) wants to “explore the laws of physics. Like, what makes vacuum cleaners work? How do aeroplanes and helicopters fly? What charges up batteries?”

I’ll be learning this alongside the kids here. I enjoyed physics it at school but didn’t study it for long. When I was 13 I missed a term of school because of a road accident and had to drop a subject (physics). The time has come to catch up on what I missed!

J(8) threw in, “And I want to learn about quantum physics.”

“Sure!” I replied brightly, wondering where on Earth I’d find resources to teach quantum physics to an 8-year-old (or a 43-year-old).

I needn’t have worried – the scientists have it covered. Just look at this Minecraft Mod, designed to teach kids about quantum physics. And YouTube has dozens of videos on the subject. (The kids may be teaching me some science this term.)

“Potions”

J(8), meanwhile, wants to “make more potions,” so we’ll do more activities like Midsummer Potions, Alien Soup and Fizzy Fountains.

unschooling science
“Potions class”

Science investigations that all students should do before high school

In our spare moments I’ll use Phyllis’s wonderful collections of science investigations that all students should do before high school and concoctions for play. We’ve done many of these already but I’m eagerly following Phyllis’s blog so we don’t miss any fun.

unschooling science and history
Diet coke geyser fun

History (with a bit of English and science overlap)

C(10) and I will continue with our chronological study of world history (we’re two-thirds through The Story of the World volume 2). We’re especially looking forward to learning about the Elizabethan period and Shakespeare.

Shakespeare

Shakespeare’s Globe in London is showing Much Ado About Nothing in April so we’re going to study the play and then see it performed. This week we laughed out loud at the Andrew Matthews and Tony Ross retelling.  Next we’re going to read the No Fear Shakespeare (Sparknotes) version, and watch the Kenneth Brannagh movie. And finally – the live performance!

Unschooling science and history

Explorers and navigation

We’ll visit the Royal Museums Greenwich to complement our SOTW study of the early explorers. The children are looking forward to standing astride the Prime Meridian, with one foot in the Earth’s Western Hemisphere and one in the Eastern Hemisphere.

World Wars

J(8) received an illustrated book on the World Wars for Christmas, which prompted him to ask to learn about the World Wars.

He’s more interested in machines and methods of warfare than people and motives so he loves these First World War Fact Cards I recently strewed.

unschooling science and history

There’s plenty of good quality historical fiction about World War I and II. Right now we’re enjoying The Silver Sword in the car, and Puddles in the Lane is our family read-aloud.

I’d like to use videos, too – does anyone know of any good videos about the world wars that are suitable for children?

Our local kids’ history club is running a workshop on the First World War this afternoon, which will get us off to a great start.

Do you have any suggestions for resources we might like? I’d love to hear from you!

Next time, in the last post in this unschooling plans series, I’ll share my children’s project plans for this term.

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A Midsummer Night's Dream watercolour crayon picture by C (8)

Shakespeare for Younger Children in 3 Easy Steps

A Midsummer Night's Dream watercolour crayon picture by C (8)
"A Midsummer Night's Dream" by C (8)

Shakespeare wrote brilliant plays. Younger children may not be ready to experience them in their original form, but they can certainly enjoy the stories. And if they become familiar with the stories early on, it’s a much shorter step to appreciating them later in the bard’s own beautiful words.

What was for me at senior school a relentless chore of trying to grasp plot among a load of archaic words,  can instead – for those already fans of the stories – be a fun decoding process which quickly gives way to an appreciation of the subtleties, humour and beauty of Shakespeare’s language.

Shakespeare in 3 Easy Steps

I’m doing Shakespeare with C(8) this year as part of our grade 2 English curriculum.  We’re following a very simple process for each play:

1. Read the story

Shakespeare StoriesWe’re using The Shakespeare Stories, a set of 16 plays which I got from Amazon for about £15.  Each tells its story in engaging language and contains, at the start, a sketch of the main characters. Most can be read aloud in less than thirty minutes. Not every scene is included, of course, but the main parts of the story are covered.

Monday is our Shakespeare day. We read aloud a story, either entirely in one session or over a couple of weeks, then we discuss it.  After Hamlet, our discussion focused on C gleefully adding up the number of characters murdered in it.

2. Watch the play

shakespeare the animated talesThe following week we watch a thirty minute film version of the play in the form of Shakespeare: The Animated Tales (available free on YouTube). I like these because they use mostly original language, and have subtitles.

3. Do a project

Next C (8) does a mini-project of her choice, to consolidate her understanding of the play. For example, when we did A Midsummer Night’s Dream she made a watercolour crayon picture (see above).

For Hamlet, she chose to make puppets of Hamlet and his father’s ghost, wrote a short script and acted it out while I recorded it on my iPhone.  All very spontaneous, easy and fun!

Hamlet Puppets
Hamlet Puppets

Optional Bonus Step

Copywork – I usually make a worksheet or two containing quotes from our current play to include in C’s weekly copywork.

Additional Resources

There are many re-tellings of Shakespeare available, so it should be easy to find one to suit your children and educational style.

  • Stories from ShakespeareC uses the beautiful illustrations in Geraldine McCaughrean’s Stories From Shakespeare as inspiration for her projects. One nice feature of this book is the sidebar quotations from the plays.  I anticipate using the stories themselves next time around.  We have read one story from this book and both C and J(6) enjoyed it, but for now we prefer the brevity and accessible style of The Shakespeare Stories.
  • Another book we’ll no doubt come back to is Mary Lamb’s Tales From Shakespeare, which contains concise re-tellings of twenty plays.
  • bravo mr shakespeareMr. William Shakespeare’s Plays tells the stories of seven plays in comic strip form.  I’m awaiting a copy of this one so I can’t comment in detail yet but I like that the plays are “performed” at the Globe Theatre of Shakespeare’s day.  The sequel, Bravo, Mr. William Shakespeare! presents a further seven plays.

For much more on studying Shakespeare in your homeschool (or anywhere!), including oodles of fabulous links to free resources, see Jimmie’s Shakespeare For Children Squidoo lens.

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