ChandlerMom Posted January 22, 2011 Share Posted January 22, 2011 DD's (5 and 7) LOVE their SSL. I'm doing it at a snail pace (daily lessons, but only 1-2 lessons a week progress), mainly so my K'r can keep up (she's still learning to read and has some speech issues). Some days I just play the songs on the CD up to the current lesson while they draw in the free (100+ page) coloring books I downloaded for the SSL site. They sing along and it's great. The 7yo could burn thru SSL in a couple weeks if I let her, but is content to dawdle with her sis. I'm planning on stretching SSL until summer, then move either to Minimus or BB of Lively Latin. By then DD#2 with be 6yo and have finished 100EL. 1) Any suggestions on doing latin with a 1st and 3rd grader at the same time? 2) Should I move to BBLL or Minimus first? 3) Any exp with the Minimus CD? TIA! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
blakereese Posted January 22, 2011 Share Posted January 22, 2011 Bumping! :bigear: Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
redsquirrel Posted January 22, 2011 Share Posted January 22, 2011 well, we have been working on BBLL for a couple years...it is a very big book, lol. I am not sure it is for 6 year olds. I hope other people will chime in with their experience. My son started when he was about 8 and that was after doing a year of prima latin. We are secular but I wanted to start latin right away and PL looked to be at a good level for a 6 or 7 year old. Even with that, I think we started LL a bit early. It would have been fine waiting another year. There are lots of worksheets to read and fill in with tiny little spaces. For the first 18 months, I did the writing for him. It was too much to ask him to do the latin work and then write it all out. I asked him the questions and wrote his answers. Looking back on it, I think I should have waited a year until his writing was caught up. It was good that he had a couple years of english grammar finished before we began latin grammar. It was much easier for him to already know the terms etc before he had to start applying them to a different language. He frequently commented that his 'regular' (meaning English) grammar made latin grammer 'easy'. That was good to hear. I didn't like minimus that much. I am not fond of parts to whole language instruction. I don't teach other things that way and I wanted consistency. It is written by a latin teacher for other latin teachers. With a very young child, I wanted some guidance about how to use it. There wasn't much that was helpful for a homeschooler. Now that ds1 is finishing with BBLL, I am fine with him spending some time with minimus. I think it will be fun for him to do on his own before we start BBLL2. Again, plenty of people start with minimus. I just didn't like it. So, overall, I am not much help am I? :lol: Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
abbeyej Posted January 22, 2011 Share Posted January 22, 2011 I think you'll be happier waiting 1-3 years for Lively Latin, if you want to include both kids. You'll want your younger one to be reading truly fluently in English, and it will help if both of them have covered some basic grammar (at the least a good understanding of the parts of speech). I think you could probably adapt Minimus to work okay for you next year though. Much like SSL, you could whip through it or you can slow it down and bring in extras and make it last you for a year or so. (I'm less of a fan of Secundus -- it keeps bringing in more and more vocabulary without really systematizing the grammar, so it becomes rather unwieldy.) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
redsquirrel Posted January 22, 2011 Share Posted January 22, 2011 I just wanted to add that I can't remember if it is whole to parts or parts to whole.. I didn't get much sleep last night and am running on 2 pots of coffee, lol. What ever method minimus is, that is the method I don't like. Clear as mud, I am sure. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
abbeyej Posted January 22, 2011 Share Posted January 22, 2011 I just wanted to add that I can't remember if it is whole to parts or parts to whole.. I didn't get much sleep last night and am running on 2 pots of coffee, lol. What ever method minimus is, that is the method I don't like. Clear as mud, I am sure. It's whole-to-parts. Kids are expected to jump in with the "whole" (you know, lol, kind of!), and eventually figure out the parts and how they work together. :) You're right -- it's a tougher program for a mom with no Latin background to teach. ... But it's also easier to adapt to a child who isn't yet ready for Lively Latin. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SophiaH Posted January 22, 2011 Share Posted January 22, 2011 I started LL with a just-turned 8 year old in the middle of 2nd grade who had already done Prima Latina and half of Latina Christiana, and some of Minimus (which we did on Fridays). She had been reading for a couple of years and had been through FLL 1/2. We finished LLBB1 this week. By the end of the book there is quite a bit of maturity required just to be able to hold all the different components in one's head in order to translate. Looking back, I think LL is best started no earlier than 3rd grade. Now I'm in a position where I'm going to have to go back and review or move to another program because I don't think she is quite ready for the work required to go onto LL2, which is a step up, I've heard.:rolleyes: (I started a thread just yesterday asking for advice about this very issue.) For my ds, I will not be starting Latin as early as I did with dd in order to avoid this problem. I will probably start Prima with him in 2nd, if he's ready, then move to LL in 3rd. With the experience I've had with dd, I will not be bothered at all to start even later with ds if he needs to wait even another year--and Latin is one of our core subjects. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Alice Posted January 22, 2011 Share Posted January 22, 2011 We started LL this year, Book 1. I haven't used any other Latin program so I don't have a lot to compare to. So far, both ds and I love it. He's in second grade this year. I've actually found it correlates very well to where we are in grammar with FLL2. We did FLL1 last year and I do think that was helpful background but I find that often the Latin and English grammar provide a review of each other. I do write for him sometimes, depending on how much other writing/workbook stuff he did that day. I look at it more as us learning Latin together since I only took one year in 8th grade. So, it's something we for the most part do together rather than him doing it on his own. That may be a different experience from others. I find it very easy to teach not knowing Latin myself. He loves the book as I mentioned earlier. Latin is one of his favorite subjects. We are doing it fairly slowly. My plan is to do LL Book 1 over two years. It seems to be a good rate and he's learning and remembering what he learns. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ChandlerMom Posted January 23, 2011 Author Share Posted January 23, 2011 Thank you everyone -- your comments are truly helpful! Do you ladies think Prima Latina would work for next year? Can I use classical pronunciation with it? Or is there something better I could do for a year or so, maybe SSG or some other easy-going kiddie foriegn language intro? My 7yo breezed thru 4th grade LA, so she'd be ready, but I'm worried my younger one does need english/reading/grammar better nailed down before doing anything too "serious". My older one is happy doing easy stuff (not a "I'm bored" kinda kid since the perfectionist likes being good at stuff, :lol:). Any suggestions from all you wonderful moms who've btdt? I want to keep tapped into their enthusiasm for foreign language, even if it does mean they ask me (out of the blue) 20 times a day, "Quid agis?" :D Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mammaofbean Posted January 23, 2011 Share Posted January 23, 2011 I just started Lively Latin a month ago with my 6 yo and my plan is to stretch out the first book 2 years. I waited until after she was reading well to start. very user friendly. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ravin Posted January 23, 2011 Share Posted January 23, 2011 I'd say go with Minimus. We plan on starting LL next year in 3rd; I want DD reading well first. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
abbeyej Posted January 23, 2011 Share Posted January 23, 2011 Thank you everyone -- your comments are truly helpful! Do you ladies think Prima Latina would work for next year? Can I use classical pronunciation with it? Or is there something better I could do for a year or so, maybe SSG or some other easy-going kiddie foriegn language intro? My 7yo breezed thru 4th grade LA, so she'd be ready, but I'm worried my younger one does need english/reading/grammar better nailed down before doing anything too "serious". My older one is happy doing easy stuff (not a "I'm bored" kinda kid since the perfectionist likes being good at stuff, :lol:). Any suggestions from all you wonderful moms who've btdt? I want to keep tapped into their enthusiasm for foreign language, even if it does mean they ask me (out of the blue) 20 times a day, "Quid agis?" :D You may find in the mean time that they do well just learning more words and phrases (as SSL introduces them) and playing with those. The Usborne Latin for Beginners has two-page spreads with various real-life situations and you can pick up words here and there... Possibly a nice follow up to SSL before you're ready to head into a program that actually expects reading and teaches grammar. You might also like the I Am Reading Latin series from Bolchazy-Carducci... All of these things are really whole-to-parts, as Minimus is, but at this stage, your younger one at least really doesn't have the foundation to learn about the parts and how to assemble them into language. At this stage, if you want to do Latin, whole-to-parts really is the way to go. You can do a more systematic study of the way the language works when both kids are a little bit older. There are a lot of things I love about Prima, but I don't think it would work well for you. It's very much a church Latin program, and some of the best aspects of it (the memorization of ancient prayers and songs still in use today) are tied to that. Instead, since what you're doing is working well for you, I'd stick with the format you've got... Learning words here and there, playing with the phrases throughout the day, working on reading with your younger child and continuing to work on grammar with both... It's also possible that you won't be able to keep them combined with Latin always. You may decide to go ahead and teach them separately, since it does sound like your older daughter might well be ready for Lively Latin sooner. And that's okay too. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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