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So, I’m very easily influenced. I know this and try to protect my naive self, but sometimes influences sneak in thru unlikely sources, say facebook. Say a video on facebook that I thought was only there to make me laugh, but it also made me think. (Yes, it did hurt, thank.you.very.much.)
Anyway, we got a few good laughs along the way too.
Wait, that’s not the point.
The point is, the dude on the silly video on fb DARED me to turn off the idiot box and read Shakespeare. Yea, not only to read the bard’s works, but to read them aloud to my children. (That’s what I heard, but there may have been a boat-load of guilty driving my interpretation thereof.)
Hold on, lemme think, wasn’t I gonna do that anyway? Isn’t that why I bought my copy of Tales from Shakespeare nearly 20 years ago? Wasn’t that part of the plan of yore. I used to do this. Seriously. 
But now? We read a chapter of Farmer Boy (nuthin’ wrong with Little House on the Prairie, just happens to be what we are doing right now) and then we pop in a DVD. Again, nuthin’ wrong with watching an occasional DVD, especially if it’s a well made, classic tale.
Right.
Explosions, hostage negotiations, Marvel comic heroes, futuristic robot take-overs. That’s what usually plays around here.
*Extreme homeschool guilt happening in my head right now.*
So, to counteract the painful, nauseating guilt I got out my copy of Tales from Shakespeare and read the first chapter to Caleb and Rachel.
Painful.
I could cry.
Seriously.
It hurt my head to read the hard stuff. And I had to explain so much, so many phrases. (Glad I still could, bein’ as my mind is mush.) Troopers that they are, the kids patiently listened and tried to keep track of who was the brother, who was the king, and what the good guy’s name was. Then, when it was ended, they voluntarily went to clean their rooms.
Seriously.
Totally.
Shut up.
(That last was aimed at the inside of my vacuous vacuum I call my brain.)
So, because I know you’d like to share in my guilt and misery, here’s the video that snapped me back to my senses.
By the way, you can get Tales from Shakespeare for free for your Kindle (or Kindle for PC) here and lots of regular Shakespeare for the Kindle (most of it free) here. Regular Shakespeare, <snort>, I mean sonnets and plays and so forth.
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Sorry for the bummer. Your right, all five of mine are girls, and the sad, sad fact is that they aren’t genetically programmed to clean. Oh, if that were only the case. If you use mine an your test group, you have about a 20% chance that she’ll naturally be a cleaner, though I will add that they do tend to get better at it once they get older.
Becky, your comment kinda bummed me out. Here’s why. I know you have mostly (if not totally) girls and I had it in my head that SOME girls, and maybe that would include Rachel, like a tidy room. I really thought that if I help her un-clutter and tidy it up with her that maybe, just maybe, now that she’s almost nine, maybe she could keep it tidy.
I’m such a dreamer.
Nice to hear from you, by the way.
I would disagree with your self incrimination. <– see? vocabulary. If you have made a conscious decision to NOT include Shakespeare in your education program then you have likely made allowances for that and have included different resources for that others of us might never have thought of. <– I truly do not know how to avoid that dangling participle sometimes. Anyhow, my shock and disgust (at myself) is due to the fact that I intended to teach my kids certain things, and have allowed Hollywood to have too much of a say in things. And, honestly Cyndi, I don’t have enough experience with The Bard to know if I’m really and truly a fan or if I just kow-tow to the torrential current of peer pressure. I kind of enjoyed the story I read the kids yesterday, but I found it odd in some parts. I’m chalking that up to the enormous cultural differences. Hmm, I wonder if there is any evidence that Shakespeare was any kind of a Christian or if I’m seriously barking up the wrong tree. Maybe this is all in vain. But it does seem to be a hefty dose of vocabulary, so maybe it’s worth the effort.
Really???
You found a way to make kids voluntarily clean their rooms??
At some point before they are grown????
That’s it!! I’m breaking out the Shakespeare on the younger ones way before I did it with the older two. Because I know it doesn’t have that affect on, say your average 16-18 year old.
I knew classic lit would come in handy.
I can’t do Shakespeare. Don’t like it. Didn’t like it in Highschool. Don’t like it now. I know this makes me a bad homeschooling mom but it is what it is. I’d much rather read farmer boy!