Today at the library (one of our favorite places) we saw the 1933 and the 2005 versions of King Kong next to each other on the DVD shelves and we decided to rent them and watch them to compare the differences.  Tonight we watched the 1933 version, which was surprisingly violent and gory (not to mention quite racist in several parts), and though the special effects did get some laughs from me and PJ (who said the blood coming out of the T-Rex's mouth looked like jelly - which became a running joke)  the story of the giant monster whose heart is won by a delicate human woman still resonates on some levels today.  Tomorrow we watch the 2005 version with Jack Black and Naomi Watts.  Or maybe only the first half - it's a three hour film!  We're then going to compare and contrast the two movies afterwards. Should be interesting.

Some wild stuff has been going on in South Florida homeschooling circles. Two major homeschooling support groups have collapsed for various reasons. One was a group for which I was a founding member just two years ago - the victim of a whole lot of apathy and some nasty personalities.  The other is a very large and very old group that was trying to be both non-sectarian and religious; it worked for a while, but ultimately didn't.  It's been a period of transition for the Broward and Dade homeschooling communities, I think.  You can bet a lot of prayer has gone on, on my end.

We are so blessed to have our park group in Coral Gables. We love EVERYONE who goes there. I have sincerely not had an issue for two years with a single parent or child who attends; on the contrary, we have made so many friends. I don't think it's secular, per se, as there are several Christians who attend but it is very nonsectarian. We are all of different ethnicities, creeds, etc., but we all get along and we all just happen to share the same principles of valuing non-sectarian support among homeschooling. We mostly just meet weekly for the park dates - which we all enjoy - but we also sometimes organize activities either at the park or outside of the park.  Once a month we celebrate the birthdays of the children whose birthdays are in that month; we have maybe half a dozen seasonal celebrations too, and we have been moving toward organizing some fun educational events too.

For example, next week we are having Mock Greek Olympiads.  Basically a toga party :)  We are organizing some Greek Olympic style games like "javelin" throws and relay races, having authentic Greek food, and some Greek-themed arts and crafts.  In March we did a thing called Historically Speaking, which was something my old group came up with. Basically, the children each dress up as a historical figure and speak for about 5 minutes in the first person about who they were and what they did in their lives. PJ chose Christopher Columbus and his costume was very authentic :) It's a good exercise in drama, public speaking (we had a brief public speaking "workshop" the day before for the kids), creative writing, history and research. We are now discussing the possibility of having a Shakespeare day next year. I did a ton of Shakespearean acting in college and after college, and would love to do something like that with the kids.  We were thinking we could tie it in to the Renaissance Faire they have every year in February, which is largely Elizabethan themed.

That is actually one of my pet projects percolating in my head at the moment.  I am thinking of putting together a "Shakespeare for Homeschoolers" kind of web site or blog.  Part book review, part lesson plan repository, something like that. Many people think Shakespeare is too far above young children, but I don't think so at all. I mean, obviously one wants to start with something child-friendly like A Midsummer Night's Dream or A Comedy of Errors or Twelfth Night.  I have a great prose version of about a dozen Shakespearean plays that I got off the bargain bin at my local Borders.  It includes snippets of the real dialogue in between the straightforward prose and the beautiful illustrations.  We read through that first, and then we make paper cut outs of the characters and act out the real play, act by act.  I wasn't sure PJ would be into it, but he really has fun with it and actually does more or less understand what's going on. We're working on A Midsummer Night's Dream, which is very kid-friendly and very funny, so that helps.  The paper dolls we ordered arrived a few days ago and we've been having a ball with them. PJ wants to build a stage and everything. We read Aliki's William Shakespeare and the Globe as well, which helped to give the play a larger context.

Part of this has played into my interest-led emphasis that I've started taking in our homeschool. We would read through the stories no matter what. There is a baseline of content in our homeschool. But PJ's interest has been thoroughly sparked by the story of A Midsummer Night's Dream and he's chosen to find out a lot more about it and get really into it.  Had he found it boring, well, at least he would be familiar with the general gist of the stories of Shakespeare; at least when he gets a bit older, he won't find them quite so alien.

When I first decided to introduce Shakespeare this year, I thought there would be a scarcity of materials geared for K-5 grade, but there's actually a TON.  I had a hard time narrowing it down!  And yet people still act like I am doing this lofty, collossally ambitious thing, teaching Shakespeare to my 9yo. It's so not! But I think many PARENTS are afraid of reading Shakespeare, much less teaching it to their elementary school aged children, just because in school it was presented as something totally inaccessible, requiring translations and extremely tedious and relentless analysis and things like that.  Also, the only direct experience anyone has with live theater productions of Shakespeare are bad college and high school productions of the plays, which is like the blind leading the blind - as Baz Luhrrman's horrible film, Romeo + Juliet proved, actors who have no idea what they're saying don't exactly elevate the material, much less make it universally accessible. ;)

Per his own admission, Shakespeare's plays were intended to be viewed by the peasants and the noblmen alike. Iliterate peasants used to understand Shakespeare!  They deal in timeless themes and recognizable archetypes.  Once you get used to the unique rhythm of the language, it's really very accessible. Good audio recordings and BBC/film adaptations help, too... See? That's the kind of thing I'd want to talk about on the blog. I would love it if study of Shakespeare were more widespread in general, especially among homeschoolers.

I am also of the mind that we should start attending more concerts, more plays, more art festivals, etc.  South Florida is a bit acultural in that sense - there isn't a large theater or classical music community here, and what's here largely is very elitist, but there are still things to do if you look for them.  I am not too pleased with the art scene here; it's almost entirely post-modern and modern art and photography. When we lived in Boston, we had the MFA there which had amazing exhibits from the Egyptians through modern art; at the Miami Museum of art, it is literally 3 stories of black and white photography and one nook of "abstract" art.  I am on the lookout for better first-hand experiences with art. I do want to travel to Paris one day soon and visit the Louevre in person though. :)

Now that we are forming our own group with our own field trips, I think I'm going to go back to putting together a monthly list of Free Things To Do In Miami, which I used to do for my old group but gave up when no one came.  I am also in the process of starting up a nature journaling club for all of South Florida; we may tie it in to letterboxing, which is something a lot of our friends do and we'd like to get into, too. There are just not enough hours in the day! :)