Update on Shakespeare

It has been my goal to do some Shakespeare with my boys.  We started out by watching Julius Caesar (a tragedy) and we just finished Comedy of Errors and The Taming of the Shrew, which the boys really enjoyed.  At this point I have just had the boys watch the BBC videos.  I do want to have Zach read a few of them, but for the time being we are just enjoying how they were meant to be enjoyed by watching them. We have been discussing vocabulary, the meaning of certain conversations, the characteristics of tragedies and comedies.  We even discussed the similarities between Caesar and Lincoln. (See the teacher guide on Julius Caesar). We have read Bard of Avon to get some background on the writer.

My plan is to continue alternating between a tragedy and a comedy for the rest of the summer.  I really want us to do MacBeth, Hamlet, and Romeo and Juliet.  I am less familiar with the comedies.  I am previewing every video we have watched because I have been warned that some of the comedies can be racey.  So if you decide to watch Shakespeare with your kids make sure you preview!

Here is my original post about Shakespeare with some awesome (cheap and free) resources to do a Shakespeare unit.


Any suggestions for good comedies that we should do???? I am just not familiar with the comedies as much.