The Lady of Shalott: The active version

I have three boys, and sometimes with homeschooling, the testosterone levels can climb fairly rapidly around here. So we try to incorporate physical activity whenever we can, burning off some of the excess fuel.

Last week, we began practicing "The Lady of Shalott" in a couple of ways.
1) Stair-jumping. They start at the top or bottom, and attempt to jump one step with each accented syllable*: A bow-shot from her bower-eaves/he rode between the barley sheaves...

Bonus: This also teaches rhythm and basic syllables.


*This poem is in iambic tetrameter, for all your poetry junkies out there; most names are iambic, meaning the accent is on the first syllable: Pe-ter. Jim-my. Ra-chel. Mine is not, a rarity: Ja-nel. What about your childrens' names?

Tetra=four, and meter=measure, so there are four measures--poetic feet--in each line. Did they know that poetry have feet?! Shakespeare wrote in a lot of iambic pentameter, meaning there were five feet in each line.

Another version of the jumping game is great for reading and spelling.

2. Illustration. We used the poem for handwriting practice, then illustrated it so that we could form an illustrated book of the poem this semester. This link offers some paintings based on the poem. It's up to you as to whether you feel they'd enhance your child's imagination or take away from it!