we came home from vacation today and I discovered that one of my posts made it into the Carnival of Homeschooling. The current CoH is up too!
Enjoy!
Here’s an article I wrote for the parents of our homeschool co-op’s musical theater students, a class I’m teaching next school year:
Introducing Shakespeare
(Almost) Painlessly
Just the thought of introducing Shakespeare into your homeschool can be intimidating at best, and downright frightening to some. The language is difficult, some of the themes make you blush, and all the talk of witches and fairies and death can be hard to explain to youngsters. But there is a way to introduce the Bard to your children, and explore these plays that have had such a powerful impact on our world, our language, and our art, in a fun and easy manner.
Step 1. Pick your play
Starting with Macbeth or Hamlet or King Lear is not a good idea. Comedies are easier to understand for newbies, especially kids who are sensitive to scary elements in stories. A Midsummer Night’s Dream is an excellent place to start, followed by something like The Taming of the Shrew or Twelfth Night.
Step 2. Children’s version of Shakespeare’s plays
I recommend either Charles Lamb’s version (Tales From Shakespeare which can be found online here: http://shakespeare.palomar.edu/lambtales/LAMBTALE.HTM) or Edith Nesbit’s Beautiful Stories From Shakespeare (which can be found at the Baldwin Project online: www.mainlesson.com ). Read the children’s version of the play out loud. Then, if you can find it, get it on tape or CD. Jim Weiss reads some great ones, including A Midsummer Night’s Dream. Listen to it in the car and talk about it. Children’s versions are generally edited for content, and kids get the plot line fixed in their heads this way.
Step 3. Video adaptations
My family likes to rent movies, so naturally we gravitate toward the Shakespeare movies by Kenneth Branagh or whatever we can find on Netflix or at the library in the video section. Often these films have current TV and film actors in them. We turn on the closed-captioning so we don’t miss anything, and follow along. Sometimes we still miss things, but knowing what is happening from reading the children’s versions keeps the kids focused and in the loop. Many times the kids will pause the movie to ask me about what’s going on, or I’ll pause it to discuss something, and occasionally I have to fast forward through an inappropriate romance scene or something. I’ve found the kids will understand the meaning of unfamiliar words simply from the context, but often we’ll pause to look things up in the ever-present dictionary.
Step 4. At last! We’re ready for a live performance!
Knowing what is going on is key to keeping the kids engaged in the action of a live stage performance of Shakespeare. We can’t pause, rewind, or turn up the volume. We can’t turn on the captions. If someone can’t follow along with the story they will lose interest very quickly. Don’t attempt a live show without going through the preceding steps! Especially if the kids are young, it has great potential to end up being a disastrous waste of time. On the other hand, if done right, this is one of the things your kids will look forward to year after year. My kids love “Shakespeare Summers,” and we literally devote our summer months to this process of learning to appreciate the Bard.
Jodi O’Dell
A peek into my 11 year-old daughter’s journal, written out exactly as she has written it (but I’ll edit the spelling – there are one or two glaring errors).
Homeschooled for the Homeless
First off, the word homeless could also mean food-less. Meaning no food. My plan is to help those who need a home and food to eat.I am not going to be able to give them a home but I will be able to get them to shelter where they will get daily meals. And if they do not accept the offer of a little shelter then we will not force them and we will not leave them there unfoodful and cold. So, we will have bags with the following inside: Crackers, juice box, blanket, rain coat, candy, crayons, paper, scarf, mittens, hat.
And some places to go to get these things for cheap: the Dollar Store, Liquidation World.
The point of Homeschooled for the Homeless is to bring people closer to Christ and maybe, someday, you might see one of the people you helped at the store or driving on the freeway, or at church or something. We may even be able to put some sort of small Bible into each of the bags, or a Jesus fish or some sort of thing that has to do with Christ. My plan is to bring thousands of homeless people to a home and a family and Christ. Also it would be great to bring other people, even people with homes to Christ and we can, but we want to touch the lives of the homeless so they won’t see a Christian as a bad person but an amazing one. And that is what brings people closer to God, they see a person walking down the street just like a normal person and then they see that someone homeless is lying down and they’re holding a coffee can and saying, "Help me, I need food and water." And the person gives him 2 dollars. Now, the person watching this probably said to himself, "Wow, that is a Christian, I want to be like her." Well, then he grows up to be a pastor of the world’s greatest church all because of a girl that helped a poor old man. Most people think that if you give money to a homeless person they’re going to buy drugs with it. Well, sure, some do. Most don’t, most REALLY do need food and water. So imagine there’s a homeless guy on the side of the road saying he is hungry. What are you gonna drive by and stick your tongue out at him? NO! Give him a couple bucks, for heaven’s sake, I mean think WWJD. Okay? So next time you’re driving and you see a homeless person don’t just drive past – pull over and give him any bit of change you have in your pockets. If they are thankful it will help, Lots!
Well, our family has been on an adventure, of sorts.
We recently left our church – the church where, in 1999, Michael and I seperately gave our lives to Christ and together picked up the pieces of our marriage and gave them to Him, to do with what He would; the church where we were baptized; the church where our children accepted Christ and were baptized; the church where our youngest was dedicated, and grew up knowing as her "home away from home;" the place where a tremendous work was begun in our family; the place we learned our spiritual gfts and began to make use of them; the place where I sang in public for the first time in over a decade; the church where we learned that service and sacrifice are where true freedom lies; the place where we grew in wisdom and knowledge of the Lord. Changes came two years ago and a whole new era began in that place, and God made it clear to us that it was no longer our place, but we are sentimental human beings and we fought against the change. Finally though, it was made crystal clear that it was time for us to move on, and leaving has lightened our hearts beyond what we ever expected because we are finally, once again, in God’s will.
Now, I am a seriously ministry-oriented person, and I know that within a short time of settling down in a new congregation, I will be once again up to my ears in commitments of one sort or another, no matter how diligently I try to keep my schedule light. So we decided that we would seize this opportunity – this time of looseness, of no ties to any place, of not needing to be present at a church service because I am in the band or running the sound or lighting or computer systems like I have always done in the past – we would go and visit all the wonderful churches we could possibly bring ourselves to visit. I developed a list (ever the homeschooling mom, I am!) of churches to visit, and another one of churches to visit again. We haven’t been to the same church twice in many weeks, and even <GASP> played hooky once or twice just because we could! 
The kids have had a great time critiquing the different children’s programs (although, sadly, none will ever compare to the program at the church where all their beloved friends are, at the only church they have ever really known their whole lives), and Michael and I enjoy the teaching and talk about our checklist of qualities we are looking for in a church. This list includes strong Biblical teaching – none of that happy-poppy garbage that sounds like Dr. Phil with a Scripture thrown in to make it sound "church-y" which is invading churches so pervasively these days – a pastor of outstanding character; a very strong missions program; true care for the community and actual outreach programs. As homeschoolers, most of the kids’ Bible study and discipleship happens at home, and what they get at church is usually like going from beef to broth as far as substance, so we tend to not put too much emphasis on the children’s ministries except to make sure the kids aren’t being taught outright falsehoods or being sacrificed to Molech or something while they’re in there. They have fun and make friends, and that’s ok.
Today, we attended a great church in the country. We had originally intended to attend with our country cousins, but they got lost (!!) on the way and ended up in a different church, but they’ll go back with us next week. First off, the subject matter! Woo hoo! When I saw the topic, I knew that the way this pastor handled it was going to be huge – 1 Corinthians 11:2-16 on head coverings, and the headship of husbands and submission of wives. And I have to say, it was impressive the way this man shook off the world’s sensibilities and preached the Word of God as it was written, with no apologies, no whitewashing or sugar-coating, just straight on, dead-on Biblical truth. And we were amazed. And so blessed!
The girls came away from the children’s ministry euphoric – they had prayer journals and were determined to fill them up before going back the next week. "We are coming back, aren’t we momma? We really want to come back!" Jordan sat in the adult service – "I really like this guy, mom! He’s a good preacher!" Michael said, "Wow – he didn’t even flinch!"
When we left following the service, all 5 of us had come to the conclusion at some point during the morning that this was where God wanted us to be, that we had found a new church home. Before we absolutely commit, we want to visit a few more times and maybe go to our neighbor’s church at least once because we said we would, but at this point, I can say WE’VE FOUND IT! Our NEW CHURCH HOME! 
Praise Jesus!
I am pretty sure that the future of our nation depends on homeschoolers.
There are several reasons why I feel this way.
First, our public schools are simply not preparing our nation’s young people to lead productive lives – they can’t even think intelligently too much of the time. I was listening to talk radio this afternoon, and the big news story was a high-school walkout, in protest of military recruiters on campuses. A girl was interviewed for her reasons for protesting, and her answer was something along the lines of Miss South Carolina: (I can’t give an exact quote, but it went something like this) Like, the US military is like forcing poor, helpless kids to, you know, like fight in illegal wars, just like they do in like other, you know, countries, like Africa or something, you know? The fact that the US’s Army is made up of volunteers was apparently unknown to her. It seems like the poor girl had never given the Iraq war a second thought, and only went to protest because it got her and her friends out of third period – where they were probably having a test – and obviously hasn’t been taught in the school system that we have the freedoms we enjoy precisely because our brave volunteer army has fought to preserve them.
When you combine this terrifying lack of knowledge, insight and critical thinking ability with the fact that a huge percentage of kids can’t read, find Iraq on a map and/or can’t do simple arithmetic by the time they graduate (or just don’t graduate at all), it brings into focus the very real fact that by the time our young homeschooled kids are grown, they will be the most intelligent people around and they will probably rule the nation. At least, I fervently hope so.
Second, families are extremely valuable to those who homeschool. I would argue that to us, families are more important than they are to the average American. We have made significant, life-changing adjustments in our lives to have the kids home with us and intentionally take the time, money and make the effort it takes to educate them and instill values into them, including the value of family. The average American family is spending the majority of their time apart; so much so, that the Ad Council has been reminding us to eat dinner together at least once a week for many years. Can you imagine such an ad in an earlier era? Between school, sports, work, Scouts and recitals, and screen time (throwing TV, internet and video games into a single category), the average family hardly ever sees each other. But homeschooling families are together every day, taking meals together, learning together, playing, fighting, cleaning, working and doing everything that families do – together.
Homeschooling families also seem more likely than the average American family to have a BIG family. In 1960, the average number of children per family was 2.33; today, it’s 1.87. But it is common to hear of homeschooling families who have 6 or more children. If this is a trend, and it continues, then maybe someday we’ll have more homeschooled people than public-schooled people, and our values will prevail. (And yes, I know that it’s unlikely, but it’s interesting to think about.) I got this idea after hearing a Mexican woman tell a reporter (during the protests by illegal immigrants last year) that We [Mexico] will get America back because white people don’t have babies and we have many children, more all the time. {{This isn’t an exact quote, just my memory of the news show – it really made an impression on me!}} This also made quite an impression on me.
The other thing is that according to Dr. Brian Ray’s research, homeschoolers are more involved in their communities, on average, than their public schooled counterparts. That leads to politics in some cases, but definitely to leadership in communities, making our neighborhoods strong, safe and values-oriented. It could even lead to changes in the public school system.
My kids had it right one day when we were talking about the upcoming Presidential elections – "Momma, someday it will be a homeschooled person who will be President and they can make everything right."
Momma Jo