Latin-Centered Homeschoolers

[elegantlion]

LCC arrived in the mail :D I was so excited I had to tell someone lol

 

:party: :hurray:

[dragons in the flower bed]

doing all of history over 4 years and cycling 3 times over 12 years of school (like Tapestry of Grace).

l

 

I've been trying to do this. It's hard to get the entire medieval to early renaissance in during one school year, devoting only one afternoon a week. I'm pretty much ready to throw in the towel.

 

With my little guys it's no problem; a picture book takes fifteen minutes to read.

 

But with my upper elementary, I found historical fiction crowding out all the other free reading we were doing.

 

With my junior high age kid, I just can't do it. There is no way I can do mapwork, primary source analysis, and the outlining of a good spine, and still get through a whole SOTW period in one school year, unless we do history for five hours a week.

 

And we're not doing history for five hours a week, because what's important is LATIN. History is just an elective. This is so hard to remember when switching from WTM methods, but that's the shift in thinking I'm trying to accomplish.

[SophiaH]

It was in part my study of early American history that made me want to give my children a classical education. There's a lot of this. A great book on it is The Ideological Origins of the American Revolution.

 

 

Thank you for the link to this book! I've never heard of it and it looks absolutely fascinating! Off to our library website...

[Saille]

I've been trying to do this. It's hard to get the entire medieval to early renaissance in during one school year, devoting only one afternoon a week. I'm pretty much ready to throw in the towel.

 

With my little guys it's no problem; a picture book takes fifteen minutes to read.

 

But with my upper elementary, I found historical fiction crowding out all the other free reading we were doing.

 

With my junior high age kid, I just can't do it. There is no way I can do mapwork, primary source analysis, and the outlining of a good spine, and still get through a whole SOTW period in one school year, unless we do history for five hours a week.

 

And we're not doing history for five hours a week, because what's important is LATIN. History is just an elective. This is so hard to remember when switching from WTM methods, but that's the shift in thinking I'm trying to accomplish.

 

I am struggling with this. Right now, we can get it done in 2/3 hours a week, including SOTW chapter, side reading and some crafts. Keep in mind that I put primary source quotes in their copywork and Mnemosyne. I *do* consider this whetting of their appetites for the large story of human history to be essential, and it takes so long not because I'm cramming more in, but because I'm unwilling to rush it.

 

My suspicion, yet to be played out, is that if you are the child's magistra/mama all the way through, by the time s/he's old enough to need all the primary source material, his or her appetite will be whetted, and perhaps you'll know enough yourself to do away with a spine, or to choose specific books, such as The Middle Ages by Morris Bishop, and couple them with primary sources, and still get history done in a brief time frame.

 

I'm...slowly modifying our hs to become more Latin-Centered. Right now, we deal with it by doing Greek/Latin, Math and Writing in longer chunks, with fifteen minutes of lighter fare between. So, we do Mnemosyne, then Latin/Greek, a quick group Logic puzzle, then Math, one Trail Guide question, then Writing. Then a long break for lunch and chores, with SSR and History/Science/whatever afterwards.

[Saille]

Hmmm...I was trying to keep that general, but now all the "yous" just look bossypants. Sorry about that.

[Guest RecumbentHeart]

Hmmm...I was trying to keep that general, but now all the "yous" just look bossypants. Sorry about that.

 

lol I didn't read it that way at all. In fact, I scrolled back up to find what you were referring to. :)

 

Here's where I'm a little confused .. ok .. a lot.

 

I had been intending to do ToG, partly because it included history, geography, writing, literature and more together and you do the same lessons with multiple children at different levels at the same time. Seemed like a time saver. However, I'm not sure ToG could be utilized with a Latin-centered curriculum and I haven't been able to determine if their writing component would be able to substitute for something like CW.

 

So I'm also looking at Veritas Press's History curriculum .. have no idea how much time would be involved in that either and then I'm also looking up the books LCC recommends.

 

What about The Lost Tools of Writing or WWE? Do those follow the progymnasmata?

 

I feel so clueless!

[Cindy in NY]

If I;m not mistaken Mamalynx uses TOG in a LCC way. Maybe she will chime in.

[happygrrl]

Last year I used TOG in an LCC-ish way. Difficult to do, really, as TOG is anything *but* M.N.M. Basically it involves being willing to rip TOG apart at the seams and do it *your* way, as it would be impossible to do the program as written. Our schedule looked like this:

 

9-10: Math

10-11: Language Arts (CW, Light Rod and Staff and Spelling)

11-12: Latin

 

after lunch-

M: TOG- Read aloud and Discussion

T: Science

W: TOG-Culture and Geography Emphasis

Th: Piano Lessons (SOTW in car, review past week)

F: Start next week's TOG

Over the Weekend: TOG books in book basket

 

I pre- made a workbook for the kids with main threads of our week stated. Then came a "people to know" list, vocab, maps, worksheets, and the quizzes from the evaluations. It took a great deal of work (for me) to distill the info to something we could cover in a week. I used the LG and UG levels; I am sure I would need to re-structure this if I were using D level. I totally ignored their writing and project recs., though my daughter would occasionally do a project on her own. Some people might call this system "an expensive book list", as most of the teacher's info could be gathered from other sources. For me, I liked using it as a spine and also liked the prompting of the discussion questions (and hey, I already had it!). I liked the LCC lit and history recs., so we used these as family read-alouds in the evening.

 

This year in particular I have circumstances that required a new schedule (and the suspension of TOG). I made the mistake of buying another program, tempted in a moment of weakness by the magic words "open and go", convincing myself we could do it in an LCC way. Our mornings still look the same, but now our afternoons no longer feel so free. There is not enough "room" to really chew on the material we are learning. I am so disappointed! Now I am trying to figure out what is best to do (the kids love the new program, of course!). I did not feel the kids were ready to move to a true Jr.Hi / D level in lit, so perhaps this is a year for us to focus and really progress on the basics of Latin and Writing. I am inspired by this thread to keep refining and keep going! Thanks, y'all!

 

 

 

 

 

 

lol I didn't read it that way at all. In fact, I scrolled back up to find what you were referring to. :)

 

Here's where I'm a little confused .. ok .. a lot.

 

I had been intending to do ToG, partly because it included history, geography, writing, literature and more together and you do the same lessons with multiple children at different levels at the same time. Seemed like a time saver. However, I'm not sure ToG could be utilized with a Latin-centered curriculum and I haven't been able to determine if their writing component would be able to substitute for something like CW.

 

So I'm also looking at Veritas Press's History curriculum .. have no idea how much time would be involved in that either and then I'm also looking up the books LCC recommends.

 

What about The Lost Tools of Writing or WWE? Do those follow the progymnasmata?

 

I feel so clueless!

[Guest RecumbentHeart]

Last year I used TOG in an LCC-ish way. Difficult to do, really, as TOG is anything *but* M.N.M. Basically it involves being willing to rip TOG apart at the seams and do it *your* way, as it would be impossible to do the program as written.

 

As I was looking over the examples at the ToG website I was thinking it looked that way - like I would need to totally scratch some parts and rearrange the rest - but that was just a cursory glance over. It's so much information to take in just trying to understand it all although I love the idea.

 

One thing, I had thought the primary content for the subjects was contained within ToG but it appears from looking at the examples that it requires either the purchase or borrowing of other books so .. are you basically paying for a lesson plan and book list? I can see how the lesson plans I've looked at and the organization would be extremely useful but now I'm not sure if there is maybe a less expensive but equally effective way to go about these subjects.

 

This is so overwhelming. The more I look into all these different things the more the simple suggestions in LCC look appealing. lol I was looking at SOTW too ...

 

Does anyone mind if I just stand here and scream? I know I have at least a year to figure this out but considering my decision making skills .. that's not very long lol

[kwg]

For those that followed LCC in younger years- did you have notebooks for each subject with narrations and such? Did you keep list of reading ala WTM?

 

I can't decide on that.

[dragons in the flower bed]

If I;m not mistaken Mamalynx uses TOG in a LCC way. Maybe she will chime in.

 

If she doesn't, you could look at her blog posts about using TOG in an LCC way.

Edited September 6, 2009 by dragons in the flower bed

[dragons in the flower bed]

For those that followed LCC in younger years- did you have notebooks for each subject with narrations and such? Did you keep list of reading ala WTM?

 

I can't decide on that.

 

We do notebook many things, but not quite the same way that WTM recommends.

 

For all reading, across the subjects, ideally we use GoodReads. The child at least assigns a number of stars to a book, dates his reading and clicks on the proper category ("historical fiction, science, fantasy, etc.). Realistically, I've been slack on making my first grader do this, in part because I don't care to see him spend time on the computer and I often don't know how many stars he wants to give a book. My eleven year old doesn't read across the subjects enough to make it worth it; mostly he reads the same fantasy books over and over, and excerpts from things, or he studies one book over a loooooong period of time. But the middle kid does a great job with GoodReads and I like this system.

 

My 9yo has always hated notebooking. The child is a reluctant writer and a reluctant artist. Only this year am I forcing it.

 

I don't have to force my 6yo at all. That child loves to notebooking and needs to write to learn, and will say, "I need to write this somewhere to remember it." So my 6yo notebooks history, literature, copywork, even a lot of his free reading goes in here just because he wants to write it down. He sometimes takes down Emberley books and fills up pages too.

 

My nine year old has a composition book to use for anything that has to be written down in math or English. I insist that the kiddo also make entries into a nice sketchbook for religion and nature study. My six-year-old has a composition book to use for anything he learns in history and English, and a nice sketchbook for religion and nature study.

 

Science experiments are mainly outsourced and I have no idea what the folks who supervise them do with the science experiment forms I insisted the kiddo keep. I suspect they take pictures of the good ones and throw them all out, which is fine with me. I recycle the six-year-old's experiment forms after we do them because the point (to me) is the process, not the product.

 

We produce art, too, and that goes into an art portfolio because that's what it will do when kiddo's a high schooler and we might as well get practice now.

 

This post is completely unorganized. I'm sorry. It's early and I'm rushing.

[Smithie]

My copy of LCC came yesterday and I am really enjoying it!

 

One of my biggest worries about ds' current kindy curriculum (K12 through a VA) and my memories of my own schooling is how very, very inefficient the standard LA approach is. I went on to get a master's degree in English Lit, so obviously I like books and can put together a decent sentence, but my appreciation for literature (and whatever knowledge of grammar I possess) came from free-reading the good stuff all through childhood. The idea of eliminating "children's literature" as a formal academic subject is tremendously freeing to me. And let's not even talk about the worksheets, the endless interminable worthless worksheets, which taught me nothing about how to write and speak correctly. I'm sure FLL is more inspiring than the "writing prompts" of my youth, but really, I'd like to skip the whole **** thing. I'd like to teach Latin, Hebrew, Mathematics, History, Writing, Science and Music in the early grammar years, and have the kids pick up what they need of other subjects through those.

 

So here's a question for others with young kids: did you start Latin in the first grade? Or even in kindy? Are you happy with that choice? What curriculum did you use? (Prima Latina and Latina Christiana look to contain a lot of Greek Testament material which I don't think I need to affix in my Jewish children's minds at such a young age, so I'd rather use a secular Latin program, and let them pick up the Hebrew Scriptures through study of the Hebrew language). However, I really DO want a text/program that is centered around the grammar - else how can I expect the kids to internalize the grammatical knowledge they require to use English well? LCC doesn't seem to have anything to recommend for this - have any of you found the perfect curriculum to meet these needs?

[dragons in the flower bed]

Smithie,

 

Lively Latin is a program that has only ancient Roman religious material and teaches both Latin and English grammar. There's also Latin Prep from Galore Park. It's intended for fourth graders and up, whereas Lively is more suited to younger kids (so long as they can read, I think).

 

As for our experiences...

 

I tried to use Matin Latin with my middle kid who is now nine, was then seven, and quickly switched to Lively, but the kiddo had been reading well even before we started Matin Latin. We have been aiming towards using Lively Latin II, but I think instead we will switch to Latin Prep, just so we can stop printing out pages. I've been happy with our choices. I don't regret not doing FLL or any other English grammar. Lively has taught my kid to diagram English sentences and a bunch of other English grammar and I'm content with that. If we do need to supplement Prep with grammar, I've got English Grammar for Students of Latin waiting on the classical studies shelf.

 

So I supplement? A little.

 

This year with that middle kid I am using The Language Mechanic, a humorous workbook that points out hard-to-intuit English usage foibles. We also talk about the grammar in WWE.

 

Copywork and narration and dictation are all recommended in LCC, if I recall correctly; WWE lays these things out in a nice progression from first to fourth grade. I'm using it with both middle and younger kids. It's intended to be taught before the progym is taught. Classical Composition, my preferred progym program, suggests that kids don't start until they are ten because of maturity issues. So we'll do WWE from 1st-4th and start the progym in 5th.

 

I took a different tact with the kid who was next-up and decided to focus on language immersion. We did Song School Latin with him even before he could read well, in "kindergarten." He learned to read English while we were in the middle of Song School, and he reads just fine now, although he has somewhat weirder pronunciation than the older kids did. He's using Rosetta Stone Latin this year in "first grade", and next year will go on to either Lingua Latina (another secular immersion program) or Lively Latin.

 

Lively Latin does have plenty of grammar, really. It explains the English equivalent when it teaches Latin, something I have deeply appreciated during the time we have used it. It is secular. And though Drew doesn't have it in his book, he used it with his daughter. I suspect it's the inconvenience of the ebook format and the occasional errors Ms. Drown is still correcting that kept it out of LCC2.

Edited September 6, 2009 by dragons in the flower bed

[Smithie]

Thanks, that was deeply helpful!

 

James is chugging away through the K12 phonics program, but it seems to be mostly review for him (beneficial review, I hope!). Hopefully when we get to the digraphs he'll have something new to learn. I didn't actually realize how well he could read until we started with K12. So maybe I'll give Lively Latin a try this year and see if he's ready. Otherwise, I'm going to spend the whole year talking about dinosaurs, since prehistory is our only current "additional" subject and the K12 curriculum is just really, really basic at this point and takes us a very small amount of time to complete.

[happygrrl]

[quote name=RecumbentHeart;1182863)

 

One thing' date=' I had thought the primary content for the subjects was contained within ToG but it appears from looking at the examples that it requires either the purchase or borrowing of other books so .. are you basically paying for a lesson plan and book list? I can see how the lesson plans I've looked at and the organization would be extremely useful but now I'm not sure if there is maybe a less expensive but equally effective way to go about these subjects.

 

Yes, you are basically paying for the lesson plan and book list. Granted, the teacher's notes are extensive (thought mostly drawn from the encyclopedia) and the discussion questions are well done. There is a great deal of convenience having a huge book list, maps, etc. in one place.... IF you have multiple ages you are trying to fold together, IF you are willing and able to plan and tweak, IF you are comfortable with the Christian worldview, IF you are spending a great deal of time on history every week, and IF you can afford all the books (or have a good library). It was not a question for me: we had it, I could use it. However we got just as much "bang for the buck" using SOTW on CD in the car. I have a "special needs" kid that does his best when history is a main focus. For him, we'll do TOG, for the others we'll go back to pure LCC.

[Trixie]

So here's a question for others with young kids: did you start Latin in the first grade? Or even in kindy? Are you happy with that choice? What curriculum did you use? (Prima Latina and Latina Christiana look to contain a lot of Greek Testament material which I don't think I need to affix in my Jewish children's minds at such a young age, so I'd rather use a secular Latin program, and let them pick up the Hebrew Scriptures through study of the Hebrew language). However, I really DO want a text/program that is centered around the grammar - else how can I expect the kids to internalize the grammatical knowledge they require to use English well? LCC doesn't seem to have anything to recommend for this - have any of you found the perfect curriculum to meet these needs?

 

We started with Lively Latin when ds was 8 and it went very well. The program is secular (a *must* for us) and the material is paced well and definitely centered around grammar. We tried Minimus (also secular) before finding Lively Latin, but it just wasn't my cup of tea. I would say either of those programs could be used with a 6-8 year old child who is reading well, though Minimus is probably the more user-friendly program for a younger child--lots of colorful pictures, more "fun" layout than LL, consistent family of characters throughout, slower pace.

 

DS is now 10 and we're about to begin supplementing Lively Latin 2 with Latin Prep (should arrive soon!), which is also a secular program.

Edited September 6, 2009 by Trixie

[kwg]

 

This post is completely unorganized. I'm sorry. It's early and I'm rushing.

 

 

It was not unorganized! Thank you for your time and thoughts!

[Guest RecumbentHeart]

Yes, you are basically paying for the lesson plan and book list. Granted, the teacher's notes are extensive (thought mostly drawn from the encyclopedia) and the discussion questions are well done. There is a great deal of convenience having a huge book list, maps, etc. in one place.... IF you have multiple ages you are trying to fold together, IF you are willing and able to plan and tweak, IF you are comfortable with the Christian worldview, IF you are spending a great deal of time on history every week, and IF you can afford all the books (or have a good library). It was not a question for me: we had it, I could use it. However we got just as much "bang for the buck" using SOTW on CD in the car. I have a "special needs" kid that does his best when history is a main focus. For him, we'll do TOG, for the others we'll go back to pure LCC.

 

I'm just flip-flopping back and forth here. One minute I'm thinking ToG would be best, the next I'm set on following LCC.

 

You know, it's because I'm scared I'll miss something or just generally give my child a mediocre education in this area if someone else doesn't hold my hand through it so the thought of having everything lined out for me and being walked through it all with questions and suggested activities and book lists, especially from a source that shares our world view, is exceptionally inviting. On the other had I think about my experience with teaching phonics and discovering I could have accomplished this myself without spending all this money.

 

I guess I need to do more reading around during this year. For kindergarten we'll read through a Child's History of the World while I'm learning more about ToG, SOTW, and the suggestions in LCC.

 

dragons, thank-you for the blog link. I appreciate it.

[happygrrl]

I'm just flip-flopping back and forth here. One minute I'm thinking ToG would be best, the next I'm set on following LCC.

 

You know, it's because I'm scared I'll miss something or just generally give my child a mediocre education in this area if someone else doesn't hold my hand through it so the thought of having everything lined out for me and being walked through it all with questions and suggested activities and book lists, especially from a source that shares our world view, is exceptionally inviting. On the other had I think about my experience with teaching phonics and discovering I could have accomplished this myself without spending all this money.

 

I guess I need to do more reading around during this year. For kindergarten we'll read through a Child's History of the World while I'm learning more about ToG, SOTW, and the suggestions in LCC.

 

dragons, thank-you for the blog link. I appreciate it.

 

I could have written this :). Fortunately you have some time to figure out what works best for you and yours. I love to plan, so that part of TOG ended up being very easy. I am also not afraid to only do what *I* decide without feeling guilty about all that I am leaving out. If you can do those things, then you might not have to decide either/or.

[Guest RecumbentHeart]

I don't think I'd feel guilty about leaving stuff out but I think I would feel dissatisfied with spending the money on it considering all the stuff I would leave out. I'm also thinking now that I don't want to do the 4 by 3 thing from 1st to 12th but would prefer something more like what Drew has laid out in the 2nd edition LCC.

 

So, with a few days more of thought I'm now considering either what is suggested in LCC or substituting for the Veritas Press History curriculum which follows the same order/structure.

 

I'm tempted to stop reading so that I'll stop changing my mind already!

[iwka]

So here's a question for others with young kids: did you start Latin in the first grade? Or even in kindy? Are you happy with that choice? What curriculum did you use?

 

 

There is a Petty School Reading Course at the CLAA that teaches Latin and English in that order.

Edited September 13, 2009 by iwka