Thank you, LMD, for your kind words! But I look forward to seeing how you do it!

I'd say that for most children--even with a good head start on English grammar--something like the indirect object in an inflected language is a topic for grade 4 at the earliest. (Yes, I know a few exceptions, but they are . . . exceptions.) You can easily teach the paradigms earlier, and you could teach the words "the indirect object goes into the dative case" (or whatever the--ahem--case may be in the target language), but to actually translate sentences that contain indirect objects, most children won't be ready until grade 4. From experience with GLA I'd say that using syntax can begin (slowly) in grade 3, and that before that, if you do anything, you do pronunciation, vocabulary, and forms. The more words the merrier--they will only make things easier once it comes time to translate--however then the question of how to structure the program for those who come to it a bit older and need to make up the vocabulary (as in acquire, not invent) becomes worth pondering!

Slache, it's exciting that you've decided to take the plunge! If I could give you just a few logistical hints, both of these helped me in managing the (pretty big) Great Latin Adventure project: --once you produce a chapter that you think is excellent, figure out what is excellent about it and then make a checklist for yourself to use in evaluating and polishing later chapters (e.g. "re-used vocabulary words from previous several chapters along with the new words in the new chapter sentences," or "worksheet has review questions along with new material," or "exercises test all forms," or whatever is important to you) --every time you find yourself scratching your head and having to look something up--a spelling or punctuation or formatting issue--record the decision you made on a editing standards checklist. ("Flashcard" vs. "flash card . . . " and on and on!) The same issue is bound to come up another time and it's easier to check your list of decisions and standards than to try to find the other place in your draft where you encountered the same issue to see what you did there. This is an easy (well, not easy, but doable!) way to produce uniformity. You will be not just the writer, but the editor, and both jobs matter to the end user! LMD, I was a Russian major--glad to have someone doing something for Russian. I've been asked, but haven't done it. Latin is it for now!

Writing Tales is a friendly, progymnasmata program that might be worth a look as well.

Foreign language programs are going to vary--some will explain grammar concepts in detail, while many, especially those written for somewhat older students, will assume your child is already familiar with a given grammar topic from English. So for instance, if, say, German, which I think is inflected, puts the direct object into the accusative case, a German program may not spend as long as you might like explaining what a direct object is. That will depend on the program. So I think you will find that your child does better, especially in German, with an English grammar foundation. (Our church used to train men for the ministry and some of the men had trouble with Greek that wasn't trouble with Greek at all--it was trouble with English. They had trouble with the Greek case system because they didn't know what a direct object or indirect object was in English.) We can (I admit) speak our own language without knowing how to label a noun as a direct or indirect object (though I think we'll be better off if we can), but lack of grammar background will hurt when it comes to learning a spoken inflected foreign language. You could conceivably choose a very solid, grammar-translation German program and let it dictate the topics and sequence of your English grammar instruction, doing that ad hoc, but that will require you to dip in and out of other resources, and I think you'd find that it was taking you longer than you might want it to to get through English grammar that way.

I pm'd you, and emailed someone who would know, but here's another thought. You could try it, I think. If in Level II the vocabulary index shows you what chapter of Level I each word comes from, then learn those words that you missed from the last Level I chapter, before you tackle Level II. Also, see if you can determine what grammar topic was covered in the last chapter of Level I. You may be able to find out online from a table of contents, if those are posted. You can then come here for an explanation of that topic or go online to read about it, and see if that gets you all the way there to be able to start Level II. Unless LP has some special method or worksheets, this may well work, especially if your child is older and a good Latin learner. Once you unpack, give the missing chapter a good review just in case. (I wouldn't recommend this for a slower-paced book for younger students, like mine, with lots of worksheets--but I believe LP is faster-paced and for older students.) HTH!

An indie film called Jayhawkers is about the integration of the KU basketball team by Wilt Chamberlain. Disclosure, if it needs one: a relative is in the movie. I'm not sure about your younger one but I'm told it is family-friendly--but as it does cover some threatening aspects of prejudice, it's not completely tame. It's not at Netflix--you can find it by Googling and watch it at Vimeo.

The OP asked, "is one robot option better for her, because the language will overlap with her interest in coding?" I asked my husband about C++ vs. Python as he has returned to programming and works extensively with C++. I dropped him off at the train to Manhattan and came back to write this while I still remember. He said that there's a move towards using Python as the beginning programming language at college. The jury is out in his mind on whether that's the best choice. The pro and the con of Python as a language is that it "allows you to ignore whole areas of programming." I can see why that would be a pro and why it could be a con! C++ is a big language and can be used in many different ways, but one of its capabilities, Norman said, is the ability to be extremely parsimonious with the underlying hardware resources, and so it is excellent for any resource-intensive programming situations such as those involving huge data structures and lots of number-crunching. He works for a financial services company at present and they deal with complex data libraries and lots of real-time, critical data processing. This really does push up against the limits of what the underlying hardware can physically do, so these proficiencies of C++ are helpful. He said that even if you learn Python first and program in it, at some point you are going to have to learn something from the C family--he said C++ or one other, and I will have to get him to remind me what the other one was, as it wasn't plain C--to make up for Python's deficiencies in the resource-sparing area. (That is, Python and C++ are often used together on the same project, with certain functions outsourced to the C++, which is better at them.) So in some ways he leans towards learning C++ first, after which everything else will seem easy, but he realizes that may be a personal preference and not a pedagogical absolute for others. It sounds to me as if he echoes Farrar that Python may in fact be easier to learn at first. But, in a robotics situation C++ could come in handy as there also you may be wanting to be sparing with the hardware resources in order to get the most performance out of your robot. (I'll add that you may want your DD to take her logic vitamins too--logic that relates natural language to symbolic language is a great help in programming, as he has found IRL.)

FWIW, in the 1970's Warriner's still had diagramming. Well, in the late '70's my school used two editions of Warriners, one with a 70's vibe cover and one older, and I believe they both had diagramming, though maybe I am wrong and it was only the older one. I don't know if that was kept in later editions.

I agree with others that the distinction in this case is pretty fine, but here's a thought on why the program may have assessed these two this way: "impressed" can definitely be used in clearly adjectival contexts, while "described" isn't used that way. We can say "Impressed, he took a moment to let the words sink in" but we wouldn't say "described, the the man hung his head in shame"--not likely, anyway! This usage fact may have colored the author's assessment that "impressed" in the first example should best be classified as an adjective. I think also the somewhat metaphorical and evolved character of "impressed" here may be playing a role--in which it has evolved into a description of a state, not so much a description of the receiving of an action. So, if I say "the wax was impressed with the shape of the seal," that's a passive verb construction. I really do mean there that something made a mark--the action is very definitely an action, a verb for sure. But if I say "the speaker was brilliant and I was impressed," my focus isn't really on the action by which his brilliance made its mark on me, but more on the state I found myself in as a result. I'd classify "impressed" there as a predicate adjective. [Edited after reading Steven's remarks, below, to supply a stronger example.] I'm not sure this is the last word, but interesting examples and good question!

There's someone on this board who specifically loves the ones from the fifties or sixties. I'll pm her and see if she will drop in to this thread to share her reasons.

You're very welcome! Hope it's a great year for you all--this year or next. Unpacking will only get easier with another year, yet you may find that everyone is already ready. Happy finding out!

Since you haven't gotten any answers, I'll venture my (relevant-but-not-quite-what-you-asked-since-I-haven't-done-it) answer. I think you are on the right track by recognizing that you may not be able to do the book as written with a sixth-grader, but that you may still be able to do it. But definitely only with a very bright one. The reason I think this is that one woman who has taught my husband's logic book to both seventh graders and eighth graders said that the material wasn't any harder for the seventh graders to learn, but that the text was harder for them, and she had to unpack it more. Once she did that, they were fine. If your sixth grader could hold his own with many seventh graders, it just might work for you--if you're enthusiastic about being the "unpacker"! But I think it's safe to say that that will take a special sixth grader (which of course yours is). For Norman's book we recommend grade 8 for most and grade 7 only for the very well prepared, and I would think you'd find something similar holds true for other presentations of formal logic. It wouldn't be a discredit to either you or your son if it didn't work out. But the fact that your tenth struggles and your eighth is middle of the road is important. That really does pull them all quite close together. If your plan doesn't work for this year, I think it'll definitely work next year, and you can do all three together.

Rosie, I admire what you do and why, and I also enjoy your understatement. You make an excellent point--there's a whole world of people who are going to spend a lot more time interacting with the printed word, for unimpeachable reasons.

You're welcome! I had to laugh that you loved dictation. I did too--it's one of the very "details" I left out for brevity's sake. I do think it's valuable--how can we understand what we've heard until we know what we've heard? Dictations let the teacher test our oral comprehension--at least, our ability to tell what was said. I hope you find what you are looking for!

Colleen, I don't consider myself an expert on this but I'll share what I was thinking, FWIW. I really was drawing on my own experiences studying French and Russian in the 1970s and 1980s. Whether that makes me dangerous or sage, I'll leave it to others to decide. I had the privilege of studying at academically strong schools (New England prep school/Ivy League) and for both languages the approach was what we would call parts-to-whole or grammar-translation. I wrote a longer post with more details of how we were taught, but have saved it for later as maybe it is overkill in this thread. But in short, the methods and results convinced me that this type of language program is at the very least an outstanding foundation for eventual, grammatically-correct oral fluency (and what other kind would we want?) Grammar and writing ability were emphasized somewhat at the expense of short-term oral work, but we did do some oral work, and what we did was parts-to-whole based and tied tightly to the grammar and vocabulary we had been taught. I found myself thinking in French, which strikes me as a good sign. Also in French, we reached the point of quite fluent writing (as on the A.P.), which I think is also good sign. (Russian is harder so it takes longer to reach the same point, though a native speaker I met later told me my grammar was very good and that if I went to Russia, I'd be speaking well soon. Her compliments to my college teachers and to my university, which had a strong foreign service program.) In a Spanish thread a while back I posted a link that you might find helpful. The writer is not involved in homeschooling, but she is a fluent French teacher who wanted to learn Spanish, and she put together a program for herself using free, old Foreign Service materials and lots of audio resources. She is a wealth of information. http://www.tobefluent.com/free-online-spanish-resources/ In this thread she describes how forms-and-drills based the old FSI program is and how that is helping her in speaking: http://www.tobefluent.com/2014/02/07/talk-like-a-diplomat-from-1961-how-i-use-fsi-spanish/ The FSI program might or might not be suitable for children--it's from the sixties and I gather there are some sexist moments--but it illustrates the point that conversation can be taught on a parts-to-whole basis. (BTW she is also Canadian--you are in Nova Scotia, yes?) Overall, I feel on stronger ground saying "yes there could be such a thing as a parts-to-whole conversation program" than I do saying "yes you definitely can create one yourself for your child if there isn't one out there," which is certainly a harder problem. That said, there are some great tools available now--like the free audio editor Audacity, which lets you slow down the audio of a native speaker--which would make great adjuncts to anything you might try at home. Last of all, depending on university policies and your goals, I suppose you might not have to have a huge oral component to your homeschool foreign language program. What they require for admission and what they require for placement credit may be two different things. But others are much more knowledgeable than I am about that, and you wouldn't want your child put into a truly boring level for lack of oral proficiency. So this is "thinking out loud" but I hope it is helpful. Maybe others will chime in.

Still Waters Revival sells a digital compendium of Reformed Christian resources which is absolutely huge--also searchable by topic. It has thousands of works-- familiar and obscure, devotional and historical. Their best-ever price expires today. I'm not affiliated with them in any way and I don't agree with their every position, but they have done a very valuable service in digitizing these works and this is a great deal on the collection which could be useful if you are studying church history. Their website is clunky and it took me some looking to find the collection contents, so here it is: http://www.puritandownloads.com/whats-on-the-puritan-hard-drive/ HTH!

I may have missed something, so please feel free to take this with a grain of salt, but possibly some further discussion of the non-Latin foreign language curriculum choices could be helpful to readers, along these lines: --how "parts to whole" are the conversation programs? (I think you imply that they are less so than the written programs, but is there variation even between the conversational programs that you mention?) --how "parts to whole" are the written programs? (If someone is sold on your endorsement of the parts-to-whole approach to Latin, will she be just as happy with the offerings for other foreign languages?) --how to decide whether to start with a conversation program or start with a written program --how to weave the two together (maybe drawing on experiences here) if done simultaneously --how to evaluate how "parts to whole" a non-listed program is? or how "parts to whole" an online course or community college program is? (This could influence the decision whether to teach the language at home.) Maybe I missed something located elsewhere in the book, but in the foreign language sections by grade level, I thought there was room to say more about how the Latin approach you recommend relates to the realities of non-Latin language curricula and materials available to the homeschooler. I agree with you about the value of parts-to-whole approaches, and many readers of WTM will be convinced as well. But this gives rise to a bit of a puzzle. There's no intrinsic reason why modern language conversation can't be taught on a parts-to-whole basis--it used to be--but the trend in language instruction is away from that, and this will be reflected in programs to various degrees. Would some homeschoolers be more satisfied with outsourcing their non-Latin foreign language instruction in hopes of obtaining a more parts-to-whole approach even for the conversation component? I don't know the answers--but thought I would ask. (I don't offer such a thing for Spanish and don't plan to, but maybe someone does.)

I'd like to add something in case I confuse anyone. What I've suggested to Slache above is the way I'd go about teaching a child without a curriculum. It amounts to making up a child-friendly curriculum! I've done some Spanish self-study (see blog below) but there the way I went about it reflects my being an adult, and an adult with a language background, and an odd, determined sort of adult. What I did there might work with a much older independent learner, but not a third-grader!

5wolfcubs, I'm glad you enjoyed it. And that you're a fan of flash cards! Just writing out that phrase brings back memories. I actually spent time on GLA doing things like choosing a spelling of "flash cards"--with or without the space--I think I settled for with--putting it on my editing standards list, and sticking to it. Details, details. The strange things authors do behind the scenes!

You're very welcome, Slache! Most of this you don't have to have all figured out right away--I was thinking your child is already grade 3, but I think I missed that she is only in K at present and you are thinking K-2 first? The pronunciation part will be fun to work on during those years, plus learning vocabulary words. If you'd like the PDF of the pronunciation chapter from Great Latin Adventure, pm me and I'll send it to you. It has more types of exercise than I described here and you could figure out a Greek version. The part about translation and a whole "chapter" sequence applies more to what you'll be doing a bit later, maybe grade 3 or 4. So you have time to plan. I'd just recommend that you choose your vocabulary carefully now, thinking what your language goals are. In GLA I tried to choose words that would see a lot of use in the program. Young children are good memorizers but they still only have so much space. Why use it on words you or they won't care about? If you are interested in New Testament Greek then you might want to work up vocabulary lists from some of the easier-to-read sections of the Bible, like John 1. Decide whether you want to teach vocabulary from all declensions at once, or one declension at a time. Well, you will also have the lists from that adult text to guide you . . . I'd encourage you to have her learn the full "vocabulary list" entry of every word while you are at it. This will help so much later and is more easily done from the beginning. So, nominative s., genitive s., and gender in Latin. I don't recall for sure at present, but I think it's the same in Greek. Knowing these forms in Latin tells which declension a noun belongs to, and therefore which endings to use when declining the noun. Something similar happens in other inflected languages. Likewise for verbs, you might as well teach all the principal parts while you are at it, for similar reasons. To me the challenging part is what to offer if by grade 2 she wants to see some sentences! She won't be ready for grammar explanations in much detail but you could certainly introduce sentences consisting of subject plus is plus predicate nominative. There you wouldn't have to explain cases yet! Likewise subject plus transitive verb. Or just transitive verbs! A whole sentence in each form! Have fun!

Some great leads here that I didn't know about! Currently I'm exploring just a few, but with a new wireless speaker am ready for more. http://www.worldmag.com/podcast/ is a daily (well, almost) news roundup from World Magazine, a Christian bi-weekly print magazine branching out into a website and audio materials. I just listen on my computer--I don't have an iphone or anything like that. You can listen whenever you want. Once a week they do a longer interview with someone interesting: http://www.worldmag.com/podcast/listeningin/ I think the World podcasts are available at iTunes. This isn't exactly a podcast but here you can listen to sermons from a large number of churches: http://sermonaudio.com/ There have been some threads over at the bilingual board on Spanish resources and so on, and there are some online audio materials listed there. In fact, I'll give my favorite online Spanish Bible: http://www.biblia-cristiana.com/la-biblia-en-audio It's the Reina Valera 1960. Again not officially a podcast, but audio you can listen to anytime you can get online. A beautiful, expressive, reverent reading with just a few voices.

It could be interesting to tie Susan's list to verses from Proverbs; to Colossians 3: 1-17; and to I Corinthians 13, the part on love. Huge amounts of material on character traits God desires in those places. Interesting point about obedience and tolerance. "Tolerance" depending on how defined overlaps with "love is patient, love is kind, love does not seek its own" and so on. But then again sometimes "boldness" and "honesty" from the list may require something in tension with tolerance. Life . . . wisdom needed!

Why Is It Always About You might be of some help.

You absolutely could do that, though it will take a fair bit of your time. I speak from long, long experience on that :001_smile:. My first ever smiley on this board, I think. But it will take less time if you only do it for your child, than it will if you decide to turn it into a curriculum for others to use. For your own child, you are always there to amplify if needed. But once it's worked for you and your child, you may want to formalize it and share it with us! It's an exciting thing that you are thinking of doing! Since I've written a language program (Latin), your fun question is setting my mind spinning. Pronunciation will come first. Once upon a time I did a little New Testament Greek using Machen's text, and for my brain, the very first thing I needed to do was divide the Greek letters up into categories: the ones that look just like English and sound the same, too; the ones that look the same but make a sound we wouldn't expect, but it's a sound we have in English; the ones that look different but make a sound we have in English; and the ones that are just different in every way. There may have been one other. Learning them in something like this order, least obscure to most obscure, helped me. To teach pronunciation and to be sure it's sinking in as a system, a game I made up for Great Latin Adventure is Latin Code. It's fun and it's helpful. Once I taught the sounds, I would take Latin letters, complete with macrons, and arrange them into words that look like Latin, but aren't: instead, if you pronounce correctly, you will hear English words. E.g. "laek" sounds like "like." "Say you like Snoopy" can be spelled so it looks Latin and uses diphthongs and macrons! I think the same would work with Greek, and it's a lot of fun. That way you can tell if the phonics is sinking in in a way that will let your child pronounce any Greek word correctly. Another fun way to test pronunciation is to ask children whether a given Latin/Greek word rhymes with a given English word. If they can decode the foreign pronunciation accurately, they will know. Multiple choice and easy to grade! I don't know if your desire is to do a parts-to-whole approach, but if it is, then any Latin program that carefully unfolds Latin grammar--not only mine, but any that suits your child's age and covers grammar in a sequence that makes sense to you--could serve as a very helpful guide to you as you decide what types of exercises and drills to include and how much repetition you need to include to make sure concepts are mastered before you move on. I am totally convinced that the right amount of drilling and repetition is key. Younger children can do an amazing amount, they just need the right amount of review of concepts. It doesn't have to be boring, but it does have to happen. The main problem with a college or high school pace for a younger child is that too many case uses will probably be introduced at one time. You need a way to introduce the concept of a declension, but then deal with the case uses much more gradually. That's where a parallel program that has already tackled that could help you a lot. For vocabulary, I love that you want to do actual flash cards. Writing them out is good for the students. Multi-sensory! I hope it's not out of order, since my writing experience is with Latin and not Greek, but since they are both inflected languages I believe the advantages would be the same: I've found that a vocabulary quiz on new vocabulary done no later than halfway through the translation work for the chapter (for you, the translation you've designed for your new grammar concept) is a huge, huge help. Children just are not learning as much if they are always having to look up the words. It competes with the syntax for brain cells. In GLA I introduce vocabulary, then do derivatives before any translation. Meanwhile they are learning the vocabulary; we start a translation worksheet, while they still get to look up words; they keep learning the vocab. and get tested on it (and the grade counts!); then they do the rest of their translation and a chapter quiz, with all the vocab. under their belt by then. The same pattern might work for you as well, since the grammar of the languages is so similar. (And since the target ages are similar.) Please keep us posted on what you do! There's a need for Greek!