UK National Shakespeare Week
By Karen Burns
This week marks the UK’s National Shakespeare Week (12-18 March) – a week “giving primary
school aged children opportunities for enriching and enjoyable encounters with Shakespeare”.
Here at EYES, we’ve been thinking about how Shakespeare might be introduced into the early
years.
SHAKESPEARE AS STORYTELLER
While some Shakespearean plots are too convoluted for younger minds, storytelling has
always been a useful tool to introduce complex ideas to children in a way that feels safe
for exploration and discussion. For example, Disney’s The Lion King – a perennial
childhood favourite – is based closely on Hamlet! Whilst being born a prince, enduring
visits from your father’s ghost and having to confront a fratricidal uncle may not be
issues many young minds will have to face, some of the more universal themes –
support from community, confronting ‘growing up’ and the balancing of independent
ideas with expectation are all explored in a safe and nurturing way within the film.
SHAKESPEARE AS LINGUIST
Shakespeare’s language may now seem very archaic and difficult to understand.
Nonetheless, he was at the cutting edge of contemporary speech for the Elizabethan
period and we owe much of our vocabulary to his invention – or at least recording.
“Swagger”, “scuffle”, “rant”, “gnarled” and “wild goose chase” are among the hundreds of
words and phrases which have their earliest record in Shakespeare. This can be a great
way to introduce new vocabulary in an exciting way by explaining that when
Shakespeare didn’t have a word for something he ‘made up or invented’ a new one!
Give the children in your class the opportunity to invent new words like Shakespeare
did, have a variety of unusual percussion instruments, let the children hear the sounds
and then play around with inventing a word to describe that sound. Or what about
the sound of paper ripping or cellophane being crumpled? Have fun with words -
Shakespeare did!