How To Teach Your Children Shakespeare

Outlines an engaging way to instill an understanding and appreciation of Shakespeare's classic works in children, outlining a family-friendly method that incorporates the history of Shakespearean theater and society.

A foolproof, enormously fun method of teaching your children the classic works of William Shakespeare, by a Tony Award–winning playwright—now featuring two new chapters “You and your children will be transformed by the magic and mystery of Shakespeare and his stories in an instant.”—Sir Derek Jacobi, CBE Winner of the Falstaff Award for Best Shakespeare Book To know some Shakespeare provides a head start in life. His plays are among the great bedrocks of Western civilization and contain the finest writing of the past 450 years. Many of the best novels, plays, poems, and films in the English language produced since Shakespeare’s death in 1616—from Pride and Prejudice to The Godfather—are heavily influenced by Shakespeare’s stories, characters, language, and themes. In How to Teach Your Children Shakespeare, acclaimed playwright Ken Ludwig provides the tools you need to inspire an understanding, and a love, of Shakespeare’s works in your children, and to have fun together along the way. Ken Ludwig devised his friendly, easy-to-master methods while teaching his own children. Beginning with memorizing short passages from the plays, his technique then instills children with cultural references they will utilize for years to come. Ludwig’s approach includes understanding of the time period and implications of Shakespeare’s diction as well as the invaluable lessons behind his words and stories. Colorfully incorporating the history of Shakespearean theater and society, How to Teach Your Children Shakespeare guides readers on an informed and adventurous journey through the world in which the Bard wrote. This book’s simple process allows anyone to impart to children the wisdom of plays like A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Twelfth Night, Macbeth, and Romeo and Juliet. And there’s fun to be had throughout. Shakespeare novices and experts and readers of all ages will each find something delightfully irresistible in How to Teach Your Children Shakespeare.

Presents the life and works of Shakespeare. Includes activities to introduce Elizabethan times, including making costumes, making and using a quill pen, and binding a book by hand.

An improved, larger-format edition of the Cambridge School Shakespeare plays, extensively rewritten, expanded and produced in an attractive new design.

William Shakespeare comes alive for students with these engaging activities. Immersing students in his life and times and characters, this book introduces elementary students to four plays: A Midsummer Night's Dream, Macbeth, Hamlet, and Romeo and Juliet. A complete historical background, an introduction to the characters, a retelling of the story, a variety of integrated activities, verses for memorization, a complete script for class performance, and a list of resources accompany each play. Activities extend learning to history, geography, science, art, music, movement, math, and language arts. Grades K-5 (adaptable to higher levels).

"This book offers a short, spirited defense of rhetoric and the liberal arts as catalysts for precision, invention, and empathy in today's world. The author, a professor of Shakespeare studies at a liberal arts college and a parent of school-age children, argues that high-stakes testing and a culture of assessment have altered how and what students are taught, as courses across the arts, humanities, and sciences increasingly are set aside to make room for joyless, mechanical reading and math instruction. Students have been robbed of a complete education, their imaginations stunted by this myopic focus on bare literacy and numeracy. Education is about thinking, Newstok argues, rather than the mastery of a set of rigidly defined skills, and the seemingly rigid pedagogy of the English Renaissance produced some of the most compelling and influential examples of liberated thinking. Each of the fourteen chapters explores an essential element of Shakespeare's world and work, aligns it with the ideas of other thinkers and writers in modern times, and suggests opportunities for further reading. Chapters on craft, technology, attention, freedom, and related topics combine past and present ideas about education to build a case for the value of the past, the pleasure of thinking, and the limitations of modern educational practices and prejudices"--

Dedicated to astronaut Neil Armstrong, A Kite for Moon is the perfect children’s book to help celebrate the 50th anniversary of the first United States moon landing. Written by New York Times bestselling author of How Do Dinosaurs Say Goodnight? Jane Yolen and her daughter, Heidi Stemple, this book is a heartfelt story about a young boy’s fascination and unlikely friendship with the moon. What would it be like if the moon was your friend? Find out as you walk alongside a little boy who journeys through life to achieve his dream of becoming an astronaut. And then blast off with your little one as you zoom to the moon together! The story begins when a little boy, who is flying his kite, notices a sad Moon. He sends up kites to her, writing notes promising he will come see her someday. This promise propels him through years of studying, learning, and training to become an astronaut. Until … he finally goes up, up, up in a big rocket ship with a fiery tail. A Kite for Moon: Features over 20 gorgeous illustrations by award-winning artist Matt Phelan Is the perfect storybook for children ages 4 to 8 Celebrates every child’s fascination with space

In the book of Philippians we are told to be anxious over nothing, and yet we are anxious over everything. We worry that our students will be "behind," that they won't score well on the SAT, get into a good college, or read enough of the Great Books. Our souls are restless, anxiously wondering if something else out there might be just a little bit better -- if maybe there is another way or another curriculum that might prove to be superior to what we are doing now. God doesn't call us to this work and then turn away to tend to other, more important matters. He promises to stay with us. He assures us that if we rely on Him alone, then He will provide all that we need. What that means on a practical level is that we have to stop fretting over every little detail. We need to stop comparing. We've got to drop the self-inflated view that we are the be-all-end-all of whether the education we are offering our students is going to be as successful as we hope it is. After all, our job is not to be successful -- success itself is entirely beside the point. It's faithfulness that He wants.