In The Tempest, the magician Prospero, the exiled Duke of Milan, has been shipwrecked on an island with his daughter, Miranda. Their only other companions are the spirit Ariel and the monster Caliban, until Prospero’s political enemies are delivered by a tempest he claims to have caused. As he uses his magical powers against the others, we see how complex (or not) each character is.Shakespeare’s short, final play seems sweet and simple — but of course there’s much more here than meets the eye. The Tempest also contains some of his most famous lines, many of them spoken by Miranda and Caliban. It’s a great introduction to The Bard!
There are many ideas in this Hands-on Fun section—don't feel you have to do them all! Go with whatever works best for you and your kids. If you want to focus on a particular teaching point, our Takeaway Topics section can help you narrow down the activity options. And you can enhance discussions during any activity with audiovisual aids from Learning Links or story objects from Prop Ideas.
You might find our narrative arc worksheet and discussion guide helpful for sequencing your activities, teaching the important concept of the arc, and helping kids learn how Shakespeare put The Tempest in order.
The setting and characters in this play are rife with dualisms such as those between earth and sky, land and water, rustic and refined, "savage" and "civilized"—all represented, in essence, by Ariel and Caliban. Yet those two are also an (arguably) inhuman pair contrasting with Prospero and Miranda. With that and more in mind, we had kids create a collage that conveys some of those contrasting pairs, then top it off with a relevant quote from the play.
Collage is always one of our favorite projects, because the search for images automatically gets kids thinking symbolically — and opens them to serendipitous finds. They’ll rarely find what they were looking for, but they always find “the perfect thing” anyway!
Have the kids select a favorite printed quote from the play, then close their eyes and ponder it. Ask them what things, places, feelings, songs, smells, or sounds it reminds them of. Then tell them to open their eyes — they have fifteen minutes to choose pictures and start gluing!
pocket folders (if you’re using them – we use them to store worksheets)
quotes, printed on parchment and pre-separated
A Two-Faced Mask
A LitWits activity from the Exposition & Conflict
The Tempest is all about duality and duplicity, both in its plot and its form--plays require actors, and you have to be two-faced to act. In fact, acting is where the word hypocrite came from. To soak up this idea of two-facedness on several levels, we made half-Caliban, half-Ariel masks.
This project helps kids get into the play as its characters and costume designers. It also lets them get their hands on a critical theme, which we talked about as they worked.
Caliban: various mosses and lichens, tiny shells, twigs, twine
DIRECTIONS
If possible, watch some video clips of different performances to see how Ariel and Caliban are portrayed by various companies/productions. This helps kids see that there’s no one “right” way to intrerpret a character (or person!), which frees them--the actors and your kids--to do whatever they want.
Have the kids embellish a plain white mask with colors and materials that represent Ariel (the ethereal and refined) or Caliban (the rustic and natural) – or half-and-half, depending on who the kids identified with. Most kids will see themselves as “a little of both” — because we all are.
FOR DISCUSSION
While the kids work, you might want to talk about dualities in this play. Ask the kids to define some “opposites” in the story. What are some examples of real/unreal, ugly/beautiful, good/bad, civilization/nature, controlling/controlled? Just how much difference is in the middle of each?
Above the main entrance to The Globe Theatre, a crest is inscribed with motto “Totus mundus agit histrionem” – Latin for “The whole world is a playhouse.” In that spirit, and to celebrate the incomparable talents of William Shakespeare, we gave volunteers a chance to get on stage.
This activity gets kids doing something a character and the playwright did. We were surprised at the number of “shy” volunteers who were eager to get theatrical!
Have your actors don an item that represents one of the characters, and act out a fabulous line and/or sing Ariel’s song. A single prop is all it takes to transport them to The Globe! Our “character items” included a woman’s wig of “tempestuous waves,” a jester hat, a crown, wings, a wizard hat, a crested tunic, and a piece of burlap with a hole in the middle.
Tell them he contributed at least 1700 words to the English language! Ask them if they recognized any familiar phrases while reading (or watching, or listening to) The Tempest. This would be a great time to have them do our idioms worksheet.
Another way of “looking at” Shakespeare’s words is to hear their pattern. Tell the kids to listen to the beat as you read a few lines. How do you sound it out with your foot on the floor? You might want to have them do the creative writing worksheeton iambic pentameter.
Tell them The Tempest was Shakespeare’s last play. Do they see any reason to agree with the scholars who think Shakespeare is Prospero? (The setting worksheetwill give kids another idea.)
Show them this fun video of Shakespeare singing his own praises, by Horrible Histories:
Caliban’s “noisy isle” speech is a favorite of all readers, no matter their age. We had too many volunteers wanting to read it aloud, so we offered a fun role to all the non-readers: Be the noisy isle itself.
As “Caliban” spoke, we conducted our kids in a symphony of impromptu sounds, sweet airs, twangling instruments, and humming. It made an oddly ethereal backdrop for the beautiful speech, and the crowd had just as much fun as the speaker did.
Be not afeard; the isle is full of noises, Sounds and sweet airs, that give delight and hurt not. Sometimes a thousand twangling instruments Will hum about mine ears, and sometime voices That, if I then had waked after long sleep, Will make me sleep again: and then, in dreaming, The clouds methought would open and show riches Ready to drop upon me that, when I waked, I cried to dream again. III.ii.130-38
This activity led to our creative writing worksheet on a translation of this speech. After the kids had figured out how to rewrite it, we gave them each a chance to dress up and read their own speech out loud. Some rewrites were funny, others thoughtful, others strikingly beautiful. Kids do so well when they “only have to copy” a master!!
BookBites is the part of our literary experience when we get to “taste the story.” We choose a food right out of the text, and it has to meet at least one criterion:
it’s important to a plot point
it has thematic significance
it’s unfamiliar for reasons of culture, era, or location
INSPIRATION
For our gastronomic experience of this story, we dined on the finest of rustic fare, as offered by Caliban to his would-be new masters, Stephano and Trinculo:
I’ll show thee the best springs; I’ll pluck thee berries; I’ll fish for thee and get thee wood enough. [ . . . ] I prithee, let me bring thee where crabs grow; And I with my long nails will dig thee pignuts; Show thee a jay’s nest and instruct thee how To snare the nimble marmoset; I’ll bring thee To clustering filberts and sometimes I’ll get thee Young scamels from the rock. II.ii.
We plucked thee berries, brought thee filberts, and dug thee baby turnips (the next-best-thing to pignuts that we could get our long nails on) — the kids weren’t too disappointed that we skipped the marmoset and scamels.
Since Stephano and Trinculo are gleefully taking advantage of Caliban in this scene (with the help of the bottle), we talked about what it means to take advantage of a person or a situation, and how power is misused in this play. Then we followed up with our creative writing worksheet, which asks kids to imagine ruling their own realm.
FOR DISCUSSION
1. Prospero had a lot of power as a duke. How did he lose his job? (He was overthrown and kicked out of town.)
Whereon, A treacherous army levied, one midnight Fated to th’ purpose did Antonio open The gates of Milan, and, i’ th’ dead of darkness, The ministers for th’ purpose hurried thence Me and thy crying self. I.ii.127-132
2. Why did that happen? (In modern English, Prospero spent too much time studying, and not enough doing his job. He isolated himself from his people, choosing learning over governing. Prospero wasn’t paying attention, and Antonio took advantage of that. He didn’t just fill in for Prospero; he stole the whole role.)
[Liberal arts] being all my study, The government I cast upon my brother And to my state grew stranger, being transported And rapt in secret studies. I.ii.73-77
I, thus neglecting worldly ends, all dedicated To closeness and the bettering of my mind [. . . ] in my false brother Awaked an evil nature. [. . . ] [. . .] he did believe He was indeed the duke. I.ii.89-103
3. What's Prospero's problem now, as far as he's concerned? (He's stuck on an island.)
4. What kind of power does he have on the island? (He controls Ariel and Caliban, and manipulates almost everyone else.)
5. How do Trinculo and Stephano take advantage of Caliban, and why? (They give him alcohol, because they want him for their guide.)
6. Who else gains something in this story by taking advantage of someone else's circumstances and why? (Miranda takes advantage of Ferdinand’s imprisonment because she wants love and companionship; Ferdinand taking advantage of Miranda’s love because he wants Prospero to release him.)
7. Who’s the most powerful being on the island, really — and why hasn’t that character escaped? (Ariel!)
A LitWits Kit is a bag or box of supplies you pack up and give to each child right before you begin your "field trip" through the story. You might be doing one-off projects as you read through the story together, or you might do everything in this guide from top to bottom after the play has been read. However you explore this play in LitWitty ways, kids love the anticipation of opening their kit.
If you'd like to build LitWits Kits for your kids, you could easily arrange the items in a bag, basket, or story-relevant container. Honestly, it's just as much fun to create a kit as it is to open one!
To make it all the more fun, our printables for many books include special "story packaging" for certain activity supplies, including BookBites. Click the button below for a specific list of contents for this play.
Grandma took me (Jenny) to see Hamlet when I was ten, and I realized, from the audience's reactions and Grandma's whispered explanations, that Shakespeare was pretty much required if I wanted to be in on humanity. I've written about that experience here, but suffice it to say that the lifelong impact of that transitional moment made it easy to choose one of his plays for one of our experiential workshops. The Tempest, though, is less tragic than Hamlet--depending on how deeply you explore our three takeaway topics, which which we're sharing below.
In our workshops, we did our best to make these teaching points tangible, meaningful, and memorable in the kids' hands. It's amazing how much kids can learn while they're "just" having fun!
Happy teaching! Becky and Jenny
Takeaway 1
The Misuse of Power
One big theme of this play is POWER--political,social, physical, electrical, and magical! And in just about every case, someone's using their power, or wanting the power, to take advantage of someone else. Prospero is stuck on the island because he was taken advantage of by Antonio. From the moment Prospero was shipwrecked, he took advantage of Caliban’s intellectual inferiority to acquire resources and a knowledgeable guide. Trinculo and Stephano also take advantage of Caliban. Miranda possibly takes advantage of Ferdinand’s imprisonment because she wants love and companionship; Ferdinand possibly takes advantage of Miranda’s love because he wants Prospero to release him. And so on.
There's lots to talk about here, from what it means to "take advantage" to whether doing so can ever be justified. For instance, is it ever right to take advantage of someone's inattention or weakness? Is it ever right to take advantage of hard times for personal gain? Under what circumstances and why? These are questions that will always be relevant in our world.
Hands-on connections in this guide: “A Two-Faced Mask” project, "Isle be Noisy" activity, BookBites snack, props that connote power over others (bottle, educative books), creative writing worksheets
This play shows us constant contrasts, and lays out many questions about which extremes are right and wrong. Ariel and Caliban seem very different – but are they? What are some ways they’re the same? It seems Milan is the real world and the island is imaginary, but then again – is it the natural world that’s REALLY real, and civilization that’s just pretend?
Your sensory display can be a tangible way to get these ambiguities across. One half of the table can represent not-so-real civilization: a royal-magical robe, intellectual books, an hourglass, magnifying glass, liquor bottle, and a theater mask, set on a rich brocade cloth. The other half can represent the not-so-imaginary nature: a firewood log, pine cones and branches, a nest, and rustic food on a burlap or grasscloth runner. We asked the kids which half seemed more real to them, and what the chess game we'd placed between the two “worlds” might represent – an imaginary world, or a real one? Our kids gave us some thoughtful, unexpected responses that led to an hour of conversation about what's really real.
Hands-on connections in this guide:“A Two-Faced Mask” project, “Two Worlds” project, props that connote refined living (candlestick, statue, books, hourglass, ship) and rustic living (wild foods, log, fishing net, sand, shells, nest), BookBites snack, characterization worksheet (complexities of Caliban)
The odds are that every child will at least have heard of William Shakespeare. But even though this poet, playwright, and actor contributed so much to the English language and our libraries, we know very little about the man himself. His fame rests almost entirely on his well-known words. Shakespeare used his extraordinary talent to question and reveal human nature, whether he was writing about hatred or love, pride or humility, royalty or commoners, locals or foreigners — no aspect of any topic went untouched. His poems and plays will be meaningful and beautiful forever.
That's a pretty awesome legacy, and our kids were intrigued by the sheer number of phrases and words that Shakespeare coined--over 1700! But more importantly, they wanted to get in on the magic--to understand what makes his writing so special. And that's the first step toward reading more Shakespeare, and THAT's a big leap toward good writing--and a better understanding of one's self and humanity, too.
Hands-on connections in this guide:“A Two-Faced Mask” project, “The Shakespearience” activity, “Two Worlds” project, “Isle Be Noisy” activity, props that connote writing and acting (books, quill pen), all worksheets
The Tempest is chock-full of other subjects to explore, too—from pignut foraging to Milanese dukes. Scroll down to see our curated Learning Links for more tangential teaching opportunities, and to see how we brought this play and its ideas to life.
Learning Links
Explore these links to supplement your reading experience, research points of interest, and prompt tangential learning opportunities.
When choosing props for our live workshops, we always try to focus on two important categories: props that are unique to the setting, because they help kids understand “what that was like,” and props that are symbolic of themes, because they make big ideas visual and tangible. Both kinds of props generate those wide-eyed, “aha!” moments.
Below is an overview of the display we put together for our live workshop, and under that we've given more details. You could easily have your kids contribute items to a table over time, as the play is being read. Sometimes we create a printable prop; click the button to check the list for this play.
I'll show thee the best springs; I'll pluck thee berries - Caliban
our ship [...] Is tight and yare and bravely rigg'd as when We first put out to sea. - Boatwswain
[Gonzalo] did give us, with Rich garments, linens, stuffs and necessaries, Which since have steaded much - Prospero to Miranda
I'll fish for thee and get thee wood enough - Caliban
No matter, since They have left their viands behind; for we have stomachs. Will't please you taste of what is here? - Sebastian, of the banquet
What is the time o' the day? [...] The time 'twixt six and dnow Must by us both be spent most preciously. - Prospero to Ariel
I must remove Some thousands of these logs and pile them up, Upon a sore injunction: {...} and for your sake Am I this patient log--man. - Ferdinand to Miranda
Show thee a jay's nest and instruct thee how To snare the nimble marmoset - Caliban to Trinculo
Knowing I loved my books, he furnish'd me From mine own library with volumes that I prize above my dukedom. - Prospero to Miranda
Remember First to possess his books; for without them He's but a sot, as I am, nor hath not One spirit to command - Caliban
I'll swear upon that bottle to be thy true subject; for the liquor is not earthly. - Caliban to Stephano
Here PROSPERO discovers FERDINAND and MIRANDA playing at chess
Sweet lord, you play me false. - Miranda to Ferdinand
LitWitty Shareables
Great Quotes
. . . my library / Was dukedom large enough (Prospero)
Knowing I loved my books, he furnish’d me From mine own library with volumes that I prize above my dukedom. (Prospero)
Full fathom five thy father lies; Of his bones are coral made ; Those are pearls that were his eyes: Nothing of him that doth fade But doth suffer a sea-change Into something rich and strange. (Ferdinand)
. . . this swift business I must uneasy make, lest too light winning Make the prize light. (Prospero)
There’s nothing ill can dwell in such a temple: If the ill spirit have so fair a house, Good things will strive to dwell with’t. (Miranda)
Alas, the storm is come again! my best way is to creep under his gaberdine; there is no other shelter hereabouts: misery acquaints a man with strange bed-fellows. (Trinculo)
Be not afeard; the isle is full of noises, Sounds and sweet airs, that give delight and hurt not. Sometimes a thousand twangling instruments Will hum about mine ears, and sometime voices That, if I then had waked after long sleep, Will make me sleep again: and then, in dreaming, The clouds methought would open and show riches Ready to drop upon me that, when I waked, I cried to dream again. (Caliban)
Our revels now are ended. These our actors, As I foretold you, were all spirits and Are melted into air, into thin air: And, like the baseless fabric of this vision, The cloud-capp’d towers, the gorgeous palaces, The solemn temples, the great globe itself, Ye all which it inherit, shall dissolve And, like this insubstantial pageant faded, Leave not a rack behind. We are such stuff As dreams are made on, and our little life Is rounded with a sleep. (Prospero)
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Happy teaching, Becky and Jenny Sisters, best friends, and partners
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Now get ready for a bunch of wide-eyed kids having “aha!” moments . . . and you, grinning ear to ear because your kids are happily engaged with a great work of literature..
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LitWits teaching ideas and materials for The Tempest by William Shakespeare Copyright 2014 by LitWits Workshops, LLC. All Rights Reserved.
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