Heathermomster Posted July 1, 2014 Share Posted July 1, 2014 Howdy All, I'm thinking about purchasing Song School Latin for my rising 1st grader, and I have a few questions and would appreciate any feedback. My questions follow: How many minutes and days per week should we commit to this program? Do you like the program and why? Should I purchase the entire program or piecemeal it? If you don't like the program, would you recommend another? I've never taught Latin before, so the subject is new to me. Thank-you, ~h Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
alisha Posted July 1, 2014 Share Posted July 1, 2014 We have just the workbook which includes the CD. It has 31 lessons in it, every 4th or 5th is a review. My son was in 1st grade last year, and it just didn't get done because he's a slow reader and writer and it seems the workbook is made for about 2nd or 3rd grade level. We did some of it orally, but mostly just listened to the songs (words/lyrics are included in the workbook) and practiced saying the words and what they mean. I do like it because it is gentle and fun, and involves music which my boys can learn anything if it's set to music. That doesn't answer all of your questions, but hope it helps a little bit. Alisha Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Eagle Posted July 1, 2014 Share Posted July 1, 2014 We really enjoyed it but didn't finish it in K as I didn't want to over-schedule our first year of school. For grade 1 we are scheduling 15-20 minutes 3 times per week. We purchased the student book/cd combo as well as the DVD. The DVD was very useful for us as ds loves the My Pet Monkey clips. I appreciated the derivative river part and expect it will be watched again when he is older. I expect we will finish the remainder of the first book in the beginning months of the school year, so I have already ordered book/cd/DVD 2. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SilverMoon Posted July 2, 2014 Share Posted July 2, 2014 I just bought the student text with the CD in the back of it. It took 10-15 minutes a day, not counting how long they'd play with the CD. Both of my DC who used it thoroughly enjoyed it, and I expect my next two (6yo and 3yo) will also use it at some point. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kesmom Posted July 2, 2014 Share Posted July 2, 2014 I used it last year with my 2nd grader. We did it twice a week for about 15-20 minutes. I just bought the student workbook with CD. I'm sure she would have enjoyed the additional items but I didn't want to spend much on a new program. Overall I like the program. We will continue this year with SSL 2. This time I also bought the teacher's manual for the additional worksheets etc.. The only problem I've had is that I found the CD rather painful to listen to, though I guess I got used to it lol. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Arboreal TJ Posted July 2, 2014 Share Posted July 2, 2014 We used it last year for first grade. My boys aren't great readers and hate to write. We just used the student book and skipped all the handwriting. I printed the coloring pages for them to color while they listened to the songs or I read from the student book. It worked well and my 3/4 yr old happily followed right along! We reviewed vocabulary everyday, it didn't take long and all 3 had great retention. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Crimson Wife Posted July 2, 2014 Share Posted July 2, 2014 I liked having the TM for the extra worksheets, but I used it with an older-for-grade (November birthday) student and started SSL 1 in the 2nd semester of 1st when he was almost 7 1/2. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SarahW Posted July 2, 2014 Share Posted July 2, 2014 Workbook w/CD only here. We did 1 lesson over two days. Song + first one or two activities, then review song and do the rest of the activities. It took about 15 mins a day. CP is/was in first grade, and towards the end of this year he grew resistant to the "trace the words" activity. He's growing up! If you do it for an older child you may want to skip that and just have them copy the words on their own paper. I don't know about the previous post about the amount of writing....there's no writing, other than the tracing. Oh, and sometimes you write down the English word for the Latin word. That's usually in the review chapters, so not often. You could just read those words and have your kid tell you what they mean, I guess. CP is looking forward to starting to SSL2. We're running through Headadventure lands extras for review, but he doesn't really need it. Retention has been excellent. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Eagle Posted July 2, 2014 Share Posted July 2, 2014 There is a sample chapter from the DVD here: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=AhX_ogsYNDo We originally only had the book/cd, but a month after we started I showed the sample video clip to ds and he asked if we could get the dvd. It has been worth it for us. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dentdiva5 Posted July 2, 2014 Share Posted July 2, 2014 Quick question- we are wanting to start SSL1 with my upcoming 1st grader and 3rd grader together- should I purchase an extra student book? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SarahW Posted July 3, 2014 Share Posted July 3, 2014 Quick question- we are wanting to start SSL1 with my upcoming 1st grader and 3rd grader together- should I purchase an extra student book? Yes, they are very consumable. So consumable that ours is falling apart and missing pages, and we're not hard on books. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Heathermomster Posted July 3, 2014 Author Share Posted July 3, 2014 Thank-you, Ladies... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
deanna1949 Posted July 23, 2014 Share Posted July 23, 2014 I'm seriously considering SSL, and I tend to want to get ALL the books, CDs, etc., with a new curriculum. However, the song sample makes me cringe! Can I get along without the songs? I guess I could make up my own tunes. Any thoughts? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AdventuresinHomeschooling Posted July 23, 2014 Share Posted July 23, 2014 We are using Song School Spanish this year, but the website or Teacher's guide (can't remember which) mentioned that you could do it as little as twice a week. they had a lesson plan written for 3x a week, but they stressed that short, continuous lessons are better than condensing it. I plan to to do the 3 lessons a week and review one other day for short lessons 4x a week. My K student will just sing and listen along, and my 3rd grader will do the workbook. Can't answer any of your other questions. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jaderbee Posted July 23, 2014 Share Posted July 23, 2014 Howdy All, I'm thinking about purchasing Song School Latin for my rising 1st grader, and I have a few questions and would appreciate any feedback. My questions follow: How many minutes and days per week should we commit to this program? Do you like the program and why? Should I purchase the entire program or piecemeal it? If you don't like the program, would you recommend another? I've never taught Latin before, so the subject is new to me. Thank-you, ~h We used the cd and workbook 5 days a week for only about 5-10 minutes each time. I never had the teachers's manual and didn't miss it. The songs were fine. My kids loved them and even my 2 year old was greeting others with vale or salve after awhile. :) I used it with a second grader and she became pretty independent with the program. She would queue up that week's song and any others she wanted to listen to, then sing and do a section in the book. I do wish we had purchased the monkey match for review this summer. We're using ssl2 in the fall. We're just using the CD and workbook again. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Heathermomster Posted July 23, 2014 Author Share Posted July 23, 2014 I bought the entire package and DD loves it. Thus far, we have used the CD, DVD, and the student manual orally. I expect we will use the cards for review. And when I say DD loves it, I mean that she LOVES it! Math and Latin are currently her favorite subjects. I only wish DS could have used something like this when he was younger. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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