I have worked with classical schools that often feel constrained to assess students using the typical public school methods that have evolved over the last 100 years (multiple choice, fill-in-the-blank, data-driven, "machine readable" tests, all covertable to a number). It seems to me that homeschoolers, less constrained by these methods, have returned to more humane, soulful, ways of evaluating and assessing students. What does an "organic" assessment look like in your view? Could you share some examples?

Just read this thread and am thrilled to hear of so many of you reading Pieper's book (Leisure The Basis of Culture)! Pax, Christopher P.

Just to note: Song School Spanish does feature native speakers on the album of songs (a man from Honduras and a woman from Puerto Rico) on about 90% of the songs on the album. Lydia George (singer from Puerto Rico) is the featured vocalist throughout most of the album. There are few songs without native speakers, and this fact must have generated the idea that there are no native speakers are featured. Pax, Christopher Perrin Classical Academic Press

I am doing some final preparation for a seminar on "The Lighter Side of Education: How to Relax, Enjoy and Laugh and Still Be a Parent Educator." While home-schooling is a serious endeavor, it can sometimes become a crushing burden on parents and children. How have you learned to create a measure of joy, laughter and even rest/relaxation in your homeschooling? Your insights will be appreciated and passed on! Pax, Christopher Perrin

I will be there.... The organizers did a great job in Memphis...looking forward to the Greenville version.

Just so you know, the Art of Argument was thoroughly edited last year and addressed the concerns expressed in the thread dating back to 2008. Best, C. Perrin

Thanks for the tip regarding the previous thread and the helpful comments. I learned Latin and Greek at the same time but that was when I was 18!

Are your students studying two foreign languages? (Latin and Greek, Latin and Spanish, etc.) What are your tips to someone who wants to teach two foreign languages? How do you minimize or avoid potential confusion?

I love dictionary.com and have it saved as permanent link on my browser!

Maybe you are like me and sometimes HAVE to know what the root of a word is. I remember when I realized that I did not know the root for the word "derivative"...derivative is a derivative of...what? De + rivus (down from the river). One of my favorites! I and my kids enjoy an interesting word history... I am looking for some good, off-the-path resources for etymology study. I currently have: Dictionary of Word Origins (Ayto) Word Origins: An Exploration and History of Words and Language (Funk) Word Histories (Merriam-Webster) The Origin of English Words (Shipley) Latin-English Derivative Dictionary (Schaeffer) -- a great pamphlet-sized resource of 48 pages. Please suggest other resources that you have used and liked, the quirkier the better. Christopher P.

Here is my favorite Latin review game for four to ten people: Latin Vocabulary "Beat the Buzzer": Needed: four to ten people; one timed game buzzer or kitchen timer; Latin word list or flash cards Get four or more students in a circle. Assign each student a partner who sits directly across from him or her in the circle. Moving around the circle, each pair must correctly translate a Latin word (from a Latin flash card or word list) without the buzzer going off, or else receive a point. After say five to ten minutes, the pair with the least points wins! Any other vocabulary review games to recommend? What works well with just one or two children? Christopher P.

Dear Hot Lava Mama, Patricia in WA, et al: The one consistent and accurate criticism of our publications has been the unacceptable amount of errors in our books--mainly typos and formatting mistakes. As a young company (we are finishing our 5th year) we learned the hard way not to trust "internal" editing as we were often blind to the errors in our own work. That is why two years ago we decided to hire professional editors for every book we publish. We hired two editors who cleaned up our LFC series over a two year period. Are they perfect? No, but we think we can stand behind them as "industry standard." Since the release of 3.2 of LFC we have received very few complaints about errors. Unfortunately for us, some of the complaints about LFC errors go back to earlier versions. We are concerned that some of our past problems with errors have caused some to assume that any error in a new release must mean that these new releases contain an unaccepted amount of errors. We understand how some might think this way...but so far we have not discovered tons of errors in any of our new releases, though we are open (and eager) to hear of any errors that are found. All of our new releases have been edited and proofed by professional editors. Now to address some specific errors mentioned in this thread: Greek Code Cracker: the letter alpha does actually look like a lower case, English "a"--this was not an oversight or a mistake. It is true that Hey Andrew, Teach Me Some Greek teaches another form of the letter alpha, but we chose a font that is used most commonly in Greek texts. Regarding the pronunciation of alpha as "ah": when we ask students to spell "hat" using Greek letters, they do have to pronounce the word somewhat differently than in American English, though it works quite well for the British who indeed do pronounce "hat" as "haht"! This subtlety we will address with a comment or two in the introduction to the text. Song School Latin: There is a consistency problem in the "diglot weaves" (English stories peppered with some Latin vocabulary) in the text in that some of the Latin words are left in the nominative case rather than being inflected according to their use. This is irritating, but not a crucial concern. We will be posting an errata for this shortly. Spanish for Children: We spent a great deal of time editing this text. We have not heard of hardly any errors in the text, certainly not "tons of errors." The pronunciation CD has a few errors (where the speaker repeats herself) which has been corrected. We know that a few errors are irritating but that many errors will render a book unusable to some customers. We are doing everything we can to ensure that our books have as few errors as possible. We certainly appreciate the critical feedback from the WTM boards that helps us to improve our texts and service. Pax, Christopher Perrin Publisher, Classical Academic Press