When we arrived at Higher Achievement last week, we met with our group of 16 fifth graders, split evenly with boys and girls. We started off the meeting with a fun name game and then proceeded to ask them what they knew about Shakespeare. In terms of behavior, they were a little eager and we often had to ask them to stop talking or sit back down in their seats. However, I did appreciate their enthusiasm for the play when we started discussing characters. They were so eager and many were exclaiming that they wanted to have leading roles. After explaining the basic plot summary to all of them, we then read off a list of the characters and asked for volunteers who would want to play each one. Every character had a volunteer and since we had extra kids, we doubled up on parts and we are considering adding more characters from other acts of the play into our act. Overall, I think our first meeting with the kids went really well. This group may be hard to keep focused and on task, but with the three of us I think we will be able to manage it and I think once we get started with lines and props, their enthusiasm to perform will help the kids remain on task.