Qeustion for those teaching Greek AND Latin...

[happygrrl]

Can you share your schedule? How often, for how long? How old are your dc?

I am trying to figure out how/ when to add in the Greek.

 

Thanks so much; you are all such an inspiration! I would have never thought I could do any of this, and here I am asking about Latin and Greek:svengo:

I would not be here with out you!!!!!!!!

[swellmomma]

We are currently doing latin and French and our greek books are on order(they have been backdated). Right now I alternate days between the 2 of them. When we add in greek I am going to change it up a bit. We run on a 4 day schedule right now but do 5 days of school per week. Days 1 and 3 are latin, days 2 and 4 are french. So one week have 3 days of latin and 2 of french and vice versa the following week.

 

When our greek books arrive I am adding in the 5th day of scheduling, so the days will be set not fluctuating each week. Greek will be on days 2 and 5, that way we will be doing greek twice a week, french twice a week and latin twice a week. On the non-assigned days they will have flashcard review of vocab words in other 2 subjects. So Monday they will do Latin, and greek& french flash cards etc.

 

Like I said we have not added greek in yet but with the other 2 subjects the alternating days seems to be working. It does slow the program down quite a bit compared to those studying only 1 language but I am okay with that.

[AudreyTN]

Thanks for asking! That helps me too. We are doing Latin right now. I'm going to add in French some time very soon... hopefully by the beginning of Nov. We're also doing Greek roots, but I was considering studying Greek as a language.

[samba]

DD9 does Greek and Latin everyday. Last year I was inconsistent with our Latin time and she started to struggle as the difficulty level increased. I decided to switch from LFC (we were heading into Primer C) to First Form. It has the daily practice built into it, along with clear cut drills and goals. Even though there is a lot of review for us as a result, I needed this to get us back on track, increase dd's confidence and firm up weaknesses. I wish First Form had been available sooner. We use Lingua Latina informally right now, just reading and listening.

 

We started Greek last year with Greek Alphabet Code Cracker (fun intro) and moved into Elementary Greek after that. DD is almost through level 1. She does one section from each language each day. Both programs are broken into small daily lessons so she doesn't spend more than 30 min. on each, greek is usually much less.

 

These are core parts of our program and we are much looser with history and science so the time commitment works for us.

 

Carolyn

[Laura Corin]

Greek is only once a week, plus a memorisation session - it's our least important language (out of Latin, Greek, French and Mandarin). Latin is twice a week plus memorisation. I don't have set days for them, I just make sure that the sessions get done.

 

Laura

[Melissa B]

We do all foreign languages daily. Dd 11 spends about three hours daily on Latin, Greek and French.

 

My youngest two will start Latin and French around age six (the older two already having both Latin and French.) Only dd 11 has Greek - it is added around 5th grade.

[Melanie]

My son (8th grade) spends an hour on Henle Latin and 15-20 minutes on Greek six days a week. This is his fourth year of Latin and his first year of Greek; he will work through the Elementary Greek program this year and then begin Athenaze next fall. My daughter will begin Greek after she finishes the first half of the first book of Henle Latin; that will probably be by the beginning of 7th grade, and she'll probably follow the same time schedule.

[happygrrl]

These are great responses, thank you!!

[Kfamily]

We're doing French 4 times a week and Latin 5 times a week. We just added the Code Cracker this year to ease into Greek. We're only doing that twice a week right now but they really like it so I may have to increase that to get older dd into Elem. Greek sooner. My younger dd is not doing Latin right now. I can't find a program I like for her so I will start her as soon as I find the right one.

 

HTH

[dragons in the flower bed]

Greek only takes us 15 minutes every day, not including flashcard time.

 

It's one of those subjects the kid likes and is motivated to do. It's pretty easy to teach since I switched to Elementary Greek. I had tried Hey Andrew and the Code Cracker from CAP, and found both of those took more teacher time. EG has an intuitive layout that's a cinch to implement.

 

We also do Latin every day. Those, composition, memory work, mathematics and music are the core daily subjects here.

 

Oh, and this is my 9yo I'm talking about. The 6yo also wants to do Greek, but I made him choose between it and Hebrew because I didn't feel like he could handle three languages at his age. He picked Hebrew.

[Ester Maria]

Up until now, we had Latin 4 days a week + 10-15 minutes daily, and Greek 3 days a week + 10-15 minutes daily. As we schooled six days a week, it meant that one day they had both, while in the other days they had either Latin either Greek.

The daily 10-15 minutes of each language were basically vocabulary/metric/syntax reviewing from the texts they've been working on, so even in days when they don't do some language, they at least review it; and while they work on one, it's usually about 40 minutes of work on a text (or grammar, while they were younger and when we were drilling morphology).

 

This year I'm experimenting by giving them a fixed amount of text to go through (with partial translation), vocabulary to learn and cultural notions to go through, and sometimes metrics, the equivalent of about 4-5 hours of work (my estimation), and allowing them entire week to do it, when they want, with about an hour or two of one-on-one time with me at the end of week for evaluation. Basically, I'm trying to make them more independent and focus on Hebrew this year.

 

Previous years, Hebrew wasn't really in our focus, we had Hebrew time for shabat and studied it formally usually twice or thrice a week (though they've been using it in their free time too, and we go to Israel each year, so...). This year, we'll put emphasis on Hebrew and do it 3-4 times a week (I talked them into working together) for about an hour, and I'll assign them weekly readings on their own as well.

[Malenki]

We do Greek and Latin with the 8.5 year old. This is his 3rd year of Latin and his 2nd year of Greek. We'll be adding Hebrew next year. (Or German if I can ever find a program I like! DH is close to fluent, but rusty, and we have a handful of friends who are fluent so we'd like to take advantage of that.)

 

They are core to our curriculum along with math, English (grammar, writing), and memory work. History and science are both done daily but are both literature intensive and brief (about 45 minutes total).

 

We're using Lively Latin Big Book 1 and do one worksheet a day plus flashcards. It takes us about 10 minutes a day, five days a week.

 

In Greek we're doing Elementary Greek 1 and we do one lesson/worksheet a day plus review flashcards and the memory verse. That's also about 10 minutes a day, five days a week.

 

We used to do both languages back to back when it was just the alphabet for Greek and some introductory work. Now I've found he does better with more of a break between the two. We do seatwork in two sessions; Latin is in the first, Greek is in the second.

 

Our younger son will probably start Latin at age 7 and Greek at age 8. So a different schedule then older brother but he has different gifts and needs. He probably won't get the third language until much older as well.

[Joy at Home]

Can I hijack, please :D

 

Do you recommend starting Latin first and adding in Greek later? We are just starting Latin and wondering if a grounding in Latin helps them with Greek?

 

Also, can you recommend your favorite resources for Greek?

 

Thanks so much!

 

Blessings,

Lisa

[plimsoll]

We do Latin and Greek every day. Latin 15-30 minutes, Greek, 5-15 minutes.

 

When we finish Lively Latin I, we plan to move to LC I. This we will do more seriously, with more memorization, using the videos, etc., so Latin will probably move to 45-60 minutes/day.

 

When we finish Level 3 of Hey Andrew (probably by December), we'll start Elementary Greek. Will start doing Greek more seriously with more memorization and grammar, so we will probably go to 15-30 minutes of Greek per day.

 

Latin, Greek, math, writing, and music are the subjects we take the most seriously, so they get the most time.

[happygrrl]

Can I hijack, please :D

 

 

 

Of course! :)

[happygrrl]

This is great, thank you so much!

 

It is also nice to hear that so many are doing this. I am getting the "you want to do WHAT?" looks when I bring it up irl.

[Ester Maria]

Can I hijack, please :D

 

Do you recommend starting Latin first and adding in Greek later? We are just starting Latin and wondering if a grounding in Latin helps them with Greek?

 

Also, can you recommend your favorite resources for Greek?

 

Thanks so much!

 

Blessings,

Lisa

I recommend not to START two languages at the same time, and to have at least six months of distance (though a year or two would be ideal, to start a new language with a solid grounding in previous one), but you can STUDY simultaneously, on various level, several languages with no problems, and in fact people do it all the time, and in Europe it's not unusual to study 3-4 foreign languages at school. The only problem is starting them all at once, because then you can't focus properly on getting the basics of one done first, and because chances of mixing them are bigger.

 

Whether you will start with Latin or Greek is really irrelevant, most people are more comfortable with Latin because it's easier, lexically closer and in a familiar script.

 

Grounding in Latin helps with Greek, simply because it clears some grammatical concepts to you which are the same, but lexically, not really, they're very apart in that aspect.

 

The resources I use for texts and grammar are mainly Italian ones (and for Greek I have also sets of Ancient Greek textbooks kids in Greece use), so I doubt they would be of much help to you, but maybe some other members can help out more.

[Saille]

We started with Latin, and added Greek 1-2 years in. That worked well for us.

 

Ds8 has been working through Lively Latin I for a long time (this is his third year, and he's on Chapter 8 of 17). We've done one page twice a week for the first two years, and are now doing approximately two pages twice a week, as well as incorporating parts into our memory work.

 

Dd6 started last year with Song School Latin, and is doing Rosetta Stone until her reading is up to a level that allows for Lively Latin. She also does Latin twice a week.

 

We started Greek Code Cracker this year, and love it. I've found scrap paper with Greek Alphabet doodles on it, and we tend to sing the Greek alphabet song at odd moments. I think the "crime fighting" aspect of Code Cracker is a major factor. Between September and now we've finished almost half the book, so it's clear we're going to have to pick another program soon. I'm leaning toward Song School Greek, but waiting for reviews. Playful would be a plus. I don't think Elementary Greek will work for us right now.

 

We do Latin M-W, Greek T-Th, and spend about half an hour each day.

[Melanie]

My son got through Latina Christiana 1 and 2 and through Unit 3, I think, of Henle, before starting with Athenaze. Neither one of us was prepared for the amount of work it entailed, so we went with A Greek Hupogrammon and Alphabetarion by Harvey Bluedorn followed by Elementary Greek instead, and that has been a good match. It's too easy for him, but I'm fine with that for now since he needs all the time he can get for math. I also bought Basic Greek in 30 Minutes a Day by James Found and An Introduction to Ancient Greek by Alfred Mollin and Robert Williamson for myself, but I have to admit that I haven't used them yet. The Mollin book looks fantastic, though.