What a hoot! I only noticed the February date and NOT the year. I was thinking I was only a couple weeks late to the conversation :-}. Told ya I was rusty. grin!

Hi Jackie :-) Gosh, I'm feeling very rusty in my WTM board skills. It's been a looooong time... I'm actually back on board researching Great Books options for next year. My eldest son is currently taking Escondido Tutorials GB1 and CW Chreia/Poetry online. We'll be signing back up for CW (Herodotus) next year, but I'm not yet sure what we'll be doing for GB. What I'd really like is for my son to magically fall in love with his GB class between now and the end of the year, so I can sign him up for GB2 AND the free Greek class. ;-) But I'm pretty sure that's not going to happen. sigh. What would you like to know about the class? For the sake of full-disclosure: my son does not like this class. *I* think it's a fine GB course (albeit not a perfect fit for ds). And since I really want my son to have a GB experience that he enjoys and is engaged by, I'm looking around for some more options. (not necessarily ruling out Escondido).

Thank you, All. Your feedback is very helpful. It sounds as if we're good to go for a combo of Henle 2 and LB2 (he completed LBO a couple years ago and then we jumped into Latin Prep 2.) I think we might also continue with some Lingua Latina for good measure. Latinteach - ds is fairly comfortable with the readings, only occasionally checking the glossary for unfamiliar vocabulary (LP1-3 doesn't totally cover all the vocabulary assumed known for SYR3). I will check out both those links you provided. Thank you. It's a shame Latin Lit AP test is being discontinued. I would certainly think 3 high school years of Latin is worthy of AP testing. :glare:

My oldest son will soon be completing So You Really Want to Learn Latin 3. Which is great. And which is not so great, as it creates a small problem: Where to go, what to use now? I know Galore Park claims that the LP thru SYRWTLL3 progression prepares a student for going on to read real Latin works. [at the risk of sounding like a total nincompoop...] What does this translate to in terms of curriculum? I do have some texts on hand: Henle 1, 2, and 3 oop texts: Latin Book Two & Using Latin 3 Lingua Latina Familia Romana Over the next couple months I'll start looking thru these texts to try to get a feel for them and where my son might be able to jump in. But before I do that ... can anyone who's already been there done that or is familiar with "reading real works Latin" chime in with wisdom regarding the choices available, possible paths, etc. I'm feeling a wee bit broad-sided, as I was sure SYRWTLL would take the rest of the year to complete, and it most definitely will not. Thanks!

Stephanie- We're watching the BBC version (Warren Mitchell, Gemma Jones in lead roles). It definitely has more the feel of a play (which, of course, uses the unabridged dialogue from TMV), rather than the Pacino version which felt much more like a *movie*.

Kathie- One of the biggie bonuses I've enjoyed this year (my son is in the regular Maxim class) is that my son is doing his very best work, knowing that he's posting his work where his fellow classmates can see it. And he enjoys reading their work. His writing projects, I think, are much more fun for him this way. AND all this sharing of work is keeping him quite humble, methinks, because there are some terrific writers in his class!! :-) So, besides Kathy W's terrific instruction, the classroom camaraderie has made the online class well-worth the money spent, in my opinion.

Another quickie vote for remaining with LL. Certainly you *could* switch over to LP, but it's way more likely to require more hand-holding by you and instruction from you (and it sounds like your hands are already full!!). :-)

Merry Christmas, Everyone!!! Link in sig...

Late to the conversation: a couple ideas in the spirit of brainstorming... 1. you'll probably find that you can begin Lively sooner than 8y. The pencil pushing being the main deterent (is that a word?) 2. Latin Primer (Canon Press) is minimal writing (and, can in fact be done completely orally). Straight up vocabulary and paradigm memorization. 3. Latin Memory Songs (issacharpress.com) - a song book and cd (warning: the voices are nauseatingly bad) that aids in memorizing a bunch of paradigms (all 5 declensions, all 4+ conjugations present & perfect, sum, reflexive/possessive/relative/demonstrative pronouns, & cardinal numbers). 4. play around with Minimus and first couple chapters Lingua and take a break til 8yo. or 5. skip it all, free-pass-go til 8yo. The problem you describe is so totally typical of starting Latin in kindergarten. At some point you more than likely run into the necessity of "treading water." You can't really move forward and you don't want to lose what you've gained. Fwiw, there's a local classical school near me. My eldest (now 7th) attended 3rd grade there, and my middle is currently attending 3rd grade. The school opened 5 years ago, and they were considered fairly "groundbreaking", even in the classical movement, because they chose to begin both Latin and Greek in kindergarten. So here we are, five years into the "experiment" and here are my casual observations: My 8yo son's class has 5 original-to-the-school (in other words, they've been there since kindergarten) students. Surprisingly, those five students are no more advanced in Latin/Greek than those 3 students (my son included) who haven't had 3 previous years of classical language study. The school has used Sattler's Elementary Latin with youngers, and currently uses SSL, also. Then in 3rd grade, they "start over" using Latin for Children. So even the school has the tricky job of "treading" and giving age-appropriate experiences with the languages while really, kinda waiting to begin "for real" in 3rd grade. Just my humble observations. I know there's no harm to beginning classical languages young, especially if it's all kept light and fun, but I do wonder if there's tremendous benefit to beginning so early?

'Tis my Christmas card with our annual family photo...

Now, Kim ... when have we ever disagreed??? (ok, there was that one time about the LOTR movies and maybe Star Wars? :tongue_smilie:). Anyway, fun to see you here! Heather - This is just my off-the-cuff response. I kinda look at the online class the same way I look at the CW material in general. In any given week, there's a TON of stuff to do. Over the years with all our CW work, we've picked and chosen what to do and what NOT to do (often alternating - ie. one week concentrating on grammar, next week skipping grammar exercises to concentrate on writing). Re: the online class (shhhhh.... [looking over my shoulder to make sure ds isn't seeing] ... I'm letting my son believe that pretty much everything assigned is required to be done. I'm finding him capable of being a much quicker writer than I suspected. And he's able to rise to the tasks at hand.) That said, we don't do any of the Harvey's assignments. My son might do a cursory read thru the book to see the specific topic, but it's usually stuff he's already seen in Latin, and we treat it as review. I do have him do some (not all) of the 6 sentence shuffle work, because I think that work is good for building his "copia" muscles. Yes, part of each class time is devoted to discussing grammar. Even if your student has skipped the Harvey's work, it's pretty easy either to participate in that discussion anyway, or to remain "silent" during that part. Your choice. Oh, and my son has just turned 12. I had been planning to hold off a year before beginning Diogenes with him (which I do think might be a very good plan for students who struggle with writing. Diogenes is MEATY. And requires much analytical thought.). But Kim's enthusiasm and gentle nudging encouraged me to join the class this year. And it's been great! My last confession: I've always LOVED CW, but (dare I say?) hated teaching it. This class has been the PERFECT solution. I still love CW AND the wonderful, brilliant Kathy Weitz teaches it for me :-). I'm just really, really, really hoping she's gonna teach all the way thru the series!!!

Ditto-ing Laura and NMoira. We've never used the workbooks and never felt the need for them.

Sorry for my tardy response. I've been absent from the boards the last couple months. My ds12 is taking the online Maxim Diogenes class. I can't say enough great things about it. Kathy is super-duper fantastic with the kids - enthusiastic, knowledgeable, fun & witty, insightful, pulls great discussion from them ... really, really wonderful. The course load is pretty hefty (but then, that's kinda the nature of CW in general). The kids all post their work so everyone can see and comment. This element alone spurs my son to do his best work, and he's excited to share his stuff (this is a way different scenario than if it's just the two of us and he's merely slogging along to get it done). I know Kathy makes herself available for checking/correcting/giving input on essays. I think the fee is something like $10 per essay, which isn't really unreasonable for that kind of service. I'm thinking that near the end of the year I might have her correct one or two of my son's papers, just so he can have feedback other than my own. I think that would be good for him. Also, Kathy is totally available by email for any questions the students have during the week. Really, truly, I feel like this is some of the best money I've spent this year.

Just another voice... Echo-ing Stephanie: we do Latin and CW. And no additional English grammar. Homer is GRAMMAR RICH, with heavy emphasis on the application and understanding of the concepts. We kept Harvey's English and R&S8 on hand, for reference only. If we needed further clarification of a concept, we grabbed one of those. But, mostly, we found the Homer explanations to be quite adequate.

Yikes, it's a while since I've checked in. I'm offering up my latest "art" project. Well, we're counting it as art, anyway. (shhh.... I'm not well known for pulling together an art-project-rich program around here. sigh) Anyway, our gingerbread house for this year. My eldest opted out, but my 9yo & 5yo had a blast. Oh, and Darcy (Life with My 3 Boybarians) beautifully updated my blog so I can post HUGE pictures now :-). Happy WW, everybody!

I'm a huge Henle fan. The explanations for everything are incredibly clear. The exercises are good and thorough and incremental. It's a time-tested text (50+ years now). LitCT NEVER would have worked for my son. Way too much pencil pushing.

We did all the levels of Saxon up thru about the first half of 7/6. But 7/6 was the deal breaker for us. My son just started HATING math, even tho he was doing "fine." All the jumping around, and the everyday variety of questions drove him nuts. He needed something that was heavier on mastery with *some* review regularly mixed in. So we ditched Saxon and finished the year with some Key to... books. The next year we switched to Lials Basic College Math. It was a great text.

I'm in this week. Come see my husband's *very scary* Dow Jones pumpkin...

I wouldn't switch to Harvey's if you already have a grammar that you use and like. Harvey's isn't *exactly* coordinated with the Homer exercises/assignments; but in general, you cover the grammar concept in Harvey's before you see it in greater depth in Homer.

Karen - Yes! Exactly - the long term stuff wasn't hard to retain. But the 4th/5th declension, nevermind the whole subjunctive mood ... those had to be relearned. Shasta Mom - Yes - we needed/wanted a break, so we took it. But it did take 6 weeks to get back to where we left off. I always think of Latin grammar as a building like a house of cards. At least for me, if I don't keep at it diligently, that knowledge easily & quickly blows over and scatters in the wind (just like the house of cards). :-} Beth - We do Latin Prep daily at home, 1-2 exercises per day. We pull out Lingua Latina 2-3x per week when we're in the car - we listen to the cd, and my son reads along in the book. We listen to each Capitula 3-5x to internalize it. My son seems to be *really* enjoying LL. I keep hearing him quoting different parts of it outloud, thru-out the day. :-) It's like Latin candy, so far (tho I know it will ramp up quickly. The man reading on the cd is super animated and wonderful). Omnibus is going .... slowly. We've only completed Genesis, and my son has begun the reading for Exodus. Quite honestly, when everything else gets pretty heavy, Omnibus is the subject that gets slighted. The online CW Diogenes class has been a quite hefty load each week (supposedly it will lighten a bit once the Homer review is done, which is right about now). Once CW evens out, I definitely need to beef up our history studies a bit.

and there was definitely a price to pay. We've been back at school now for 6 weeks. Tomorrow will be the first day we begin new material. In the past, we've done some minimal Latin & Greek thru the summer - something to the tune of 1/2 a lesson a day, alternating Latin & Greek days, about 15-20 minutes per day. A small price to pay to stay current... That said, we (my oldest son & I) were both a bit burned out, so I think we'd both agree that the break was worth it. But you'd better believe that at the end of this year, I'll probably be back to insisting on that minimal summer investment, so as not to lose another 6 weeks...

I'm in, too. Light saber battles ensue ... again. :-)

I'm in. My pics are from the Tall Ships Festival that took place here last weekend. The ships are all amazing replicas of famous boats of the last 300 years...

Hmmm, I can't answer your questions specifically, but I might be able to lend a reassuring "it's ok to skip" opinion... I used Abeka Language 1-3 & C with my oldest son. We never did a single "writing" exercise, only the grammar exercises. In 3rd grade, we began using Classical Writing for all our "writing" exercises. Thus far, we've never regretted NOT doing Abeka writing assignments. :-)

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