This is the second part of my evil plan to force my kids to be interested in Shakespeare. Mwahaha!
Ingredients
All the excellent Tony Ross Shakespeare Books
Manga Shakespeare – Julius Caesar
The most gorgeous felt pens and crayons ever. I love these so much and the kids love them more!
Marcia Williams’ Bravo Mr Shakespeare, which I left lying open, cunningly, on the desk
What happened
The first shock was that Amazing Maths Boy had already read all the Tony Ross books I’d just bought. He’d read them at school.
This was the second surprise –
What I was expecting
Amazing Maths Boy: Urgh! Stop trying to make us learn.
What happened
Amazing Maths Boy cackles with glee, snatches Tony Ross Shakespeare books and hides them on his shelf so no one else can have them.
He told me that his friend had brought The Coolest Thing Ever in to school: Manga Shakespeare. I had one of these already – Julius Caesar – which I’d been saving till I teach it again. Manga Shakespeare uses only the original Shakespearean language, so I’d assumed it would be too hard for him, and boring.
The conversation between my sons went like this.
Amazing Space Boy: Has it really got motorbikes in it?
Amazing Maths Boy: And ninjas.
Amazing Space Boy: I want to see – where is it?
Amazing Maths Boy: You can’t have it, it’s mine.
Me: Actually it’s mine, now hand it over.
Then we made Shakespeare bookmarks. The ones with quotations, and Julius Caesar spelled correctly are mine. It’s my dream, one day, to get them to skim and scan for quotations. This is the biggest jump between KS2 and KS3, but for us, it hasn’t happened yet. We keep coming back to Shakespeare, gently, which is working so far.
Amazing Hula Hoop Girl looked through the Marcia Williams book and drew pictures of Shakespearean heroines. What a perfect day.
