Shakespeare and Snow ~ We kicked the week off with snow and by attending the Shakespeare play, "The Tempest". You can't get much better than that! I know lots of people around the United States are really sick of snow, but we haven't gotten much yet. We were doing the happy dance over the inch we got.
We studied "The Tempest" using three different sources. We watched a Lego stop motion version of it on YouTube, read the version from Tales of Shakespeare by Charles and Mary Lamb, and read the play from Brick Shakespeare The Comedies. We then attended the performance at our local theater, which was very well done.
Our End of Unit Presentation ~ I decided to change it up this time and invite friends to join us. The kids had their favorite twins over to share in our end of five week celebration. We started the evening out with a meal influenced by Brazil and African food. My family had studied Brazil and Madagascar this unit, and our friends had studied the whole continent of Africa this unit.
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| Butternut squash soup, Brazilian burritos, fruit kabobs, and fruited soda Fixings for the burritos included black beans, salsa, guacamole, hamburger, rice, cheese, and tortillas Our dessert was a Roy Lichtenstein cake. We used button candy as our Ben-Day dots. The kids had fun decorating the cake. 
The kids performed their presentations. The whole event went much better this unit. The kids new their information and read their papers clearly to the audience. They showed off their poems (acrostic and haiku) and their new knowledge of Sigma Notation. The twins then presented a lovely talk about Albert Schweitzer. We finished off the evening with a dramatic reading (just an excerpt) from "The Tempest" using our Shakespeare Globe theater book.
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Quotes from my children I want to remember ~ Tom Sawyer said to his sister when he found out that he was in a special needs group at our family special needs support group meeting, "Yes, I have FASD and cerebral palsy, but they really don't affect me much. I have lots of potential". Thank goodness he has that attitude.
It was a wonderful week.
Blessings, Dawn
I like your approach to Shakespeare. The Lego version might be inspiring around here. We'll have to take a look on YouTube.
ReplyDeleteWhat a GREAT study! You combined so many experiences with just a single literary work! I'm always tempted by those that do these things to veer away from our "book work", but. Perhaps at the end of the year we can try something out and see how it goes!
ReplyDeleteWhat a lovely celebration!
ReplyDeleteThat's more snow than we got. Lucky! Have a great break week. We were due for one soon, but taking an extended Christmas/ Birthday break and slower days in January threw the entire schedule off. We are scheduled to use the same Tales of Shakespeare book this semester, but I'm not sure we will get to it after all :(
ReplyDeleteWhat a wonderful week! I love you celebration meal (especially the snowman plates!!) and well done children for their presentations. And Shakespeare. What more could you want?!
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