Jump to content

Menu

Latin - beginning


Recommended Posts

I want to start my dd in Latin next year and am looking for opinions on the best route to take for a gentle approach. She'll be in 2nd grade and is 7 years old, but is ready for the challenge. What's your thoughts on the different programs out there.

 

Janelle

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Not sure what you mean by a gentle challenge, but take a look at Song School Latin by Classical Academic Press. It's supposed to be K-3rd, but I'd say 3rd is really pushing it. It's really for the younger crowd. I'd do SSL with 1st or 2nd and then Latin for Children with 3rd+.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I would use Getting Started with Latin for a gentle yet challenging approach. I've used this with DD when she was very young and we were able to transition very easily into Henle. Each lesson has 10 translation exercises and you could do 2 lessons per day. It's an efficient and straightforward book with lots of white space and font size that is comfortable for a 7-year old. The author provides a free pronunciation downloadable MP3 file on his website. It's not considered "fun" if you compare it to Song School Latin, but there is a sense of accomplishment after the last lesson and your child could easily transition into any other elementary program.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I like Lively Latin for this age. Very child-friendly. You can decide how quickly to move. But there's more meat to it than Song School Latin (which teaches a handful of words over the course of the year) or Prima Latina, and more teaching than Minimus...

Link to comment
Share on other sites

We use both Song School Latin and Getting Started with Latin with my 6y.o. I thought he would like the fun approach of SSL, but he definitely prefers GSWL. He adores logic, and I think GSWL's approach emphasizes the thought process which he enjoys. GSWL is not colorful or visually fun at all so may not work for some kids.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Dd is finishing up second grade. She did Prima Latina (videos & workbook) this year along w/ SSL audio only. We listen to Lingua Angelica. My girls love Leigh Lowe on the PL videos. She's a peach.

 

We get weekly Latin memory work at CC.

 

We took a 'gentle approach' also -- with doing Latin 2-3x/week at home. I tried to keep it fresh. The girls seem to enjoy it. It has opened their eyes to how language works.

 

Dd will do LFC A online class w/ VP for 3rd starting in Sept. She might do that level twice depending on grammar retention.

 

My older dc did LC1 & 2 followed by Lingua Latin w/ Mr. Spotts via TPS. They didn't start Latin until middle school.

 

HTH! :)

 

ETA: I need the hand-holding of an online class. Without outside accountability and instruction, Latin would die on the vine here. (I'm inherently lazy.) :)

Edited by Beth in SW WA
more info
Link to comment
Share on other sites

I (thirdly) recommend Lively Latin. We have been used it for 3+ years now and have started this year with the younger ones. If your dd is a good reader, then it is a good time to start Latin. I like Lively Latin because it shows the logical and organized part of Latin. It teaches part to whole. It includes some Roman history and has games and audio files on the website. Plus, you can download and use it for all your children.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

My daughter enjoyed Minimus in 2nd grade. I thought it was a pretty awesome choice.

 

We like Lively Latin too, but I think my daughter preferred having a story line and being able to translate, which doesn't happen really in Lively Latin 1.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

My dd6 and I started Latin when she was about 3 1/2 with Song School Latin. Because her writing wasn't very good at that time we learned the song each week first then did the workbook together. We took our time probably averaging 2 weeks per lesson. When she finished her writing was better but I didn't think she was ready for Latin for Children so we did Prima Latina. It was great because it it reinforced grammar concepts and covered a lot of derivatives but wasn't very fun for her. We just start LFC from Classical Academic Press 2 weeks ago after finishing Prima Latina and she is excited about Latin again. We're doing it together as a family and it's fun and engaging but challenging (especially for grown-ups whose memories aren't as good as our 6 year old :)).

Link to comment
Share on other sites

My DD fell in love with Latin at age 5, and in a year she's gone through SSL, LfC A, Minimus, and Minimus Secundus. The planned next step is to combine CLC A (whole-part) with LfC B (part-whole), because she really likes READING in Latin, like in Minimus and the readers, as well as just memorizing words and translating sentences, and CLC gives her that.

 

Both CLC and CAP have good websites-having said that, I have a high school Latin teacher friend who lists DD as one of her students, so DD has access to the resources for students at schools that have adopted CLC without my having to pay for the website access.

 

I wish we could find resources for Greek that fit her as well as combining the Cambridge Latin and CAP Latin resources do.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

someone commented that the LFC dvd had only small children. I think mine is the newest version and it has a girl who is about 15 or 16 leading a group of elementary age students.

 

Not great at working this board thing yet so I didn't manage to get the quote in here but for the person who asked about Greek resources have you tried Classical Academic Press? I think the Greek for Children looks pretty good. We're just doing the Code Cracker for the alphabet now but planned to move on to that later and their website is pretty good.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

GfC doesn't have the DVD/Audio yet, and I'm not confident enough in my skills to teach it without the DVD. I could do it for Latin or Spanish (and DD has enjoyed LfC and is enjoying SfC), but not Greek. Unfortunately, Hey, Andrew seems to just plain move too slowly for D, especially after Code Cracker and SSG. Next month, we'll be in a city with a decent sounding Homeschool store, so I'm hoping that DD and I can look at some curricula and pick one that will be a better fit.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Thank you for all the options to consider! I will look through them all and make my decisions. I want her to fully learn it later, but wanted a gentle/fun introduction now. Being raised in the public you can safely bet I didn't have Latin! :) Language/reading is her strongest point...so am capitalizing on that. We're going slowly through Grammar Island and loving it. Have the other books too and will start them shortly. Had a lot of breaks this year due to Daddy losing a toe and then having open wounds in feet. But are getting back up to speed and so am planning for next year.

 

Thanks again for all the options and opinions. This board rocks! :)

Janelle

Link to comment
Share on other sites

GfC doesn't have the DVD/Audio yet, and I'm not confident enough in my skills to teach it without the DVD. I could do it for Latin or Spanish (and DD has enjoyed LfC and is enjoying SfC), but not Greek. Unfortunately, Hey, Andrew seems to just plain move too slowly for D, especially after Code Cracker and SSG. Next month, we'll be in a city with a decent sounding Homeschool store, so I'm hoping that DD and I can look at some curricula and pick one that will be a better fit.

 

How did the SSG go? Was it challenging? I'm trying to decide when to start that. DD is flying through the Code Cracker now and just started LFC A and I'm debating whether or not to start this fall or hold off on the Greek. I have a great homeschool store near me but the Greek choices are limited and so far the Classical Academic Press stuff is the best I've seen.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I would use Getting Started with Latin for a gentle yet challenging approach. I've used this with DD when she was very young and we were able to transition very easily into Henle. Each lesson has 10 translation exercises and you could do 2 lessons per day. It's an efficient and straightforward book with lots of white space and font size that is comfortable for a 7-year old. The author provides a free pronunciation downloadable MP3 file on his website. It's not considered "fun" if you compare it to Song School Latin, but there is a sense of accomplishment after the last lesson and your child could easily transition into any other elementary program.

 

This is the route we're going too. We'll be starting GSL this year, but I'm leaning on going with Latin Prep down the road.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

How did the SSG go? Was it challenging? I'm trying to decide when to start that. DD is flying through the Code Cracker now and just started LFC A and I'm debating whether or not to start this fall or hold off on the Greek. I have a great homeschool store near me but the Greek choices are limited and so far the Classical Academic Press stuff is the best I've seen.

 

SSG is fun, but not as well structured as SSL-there are far more cases where the word form changes from the vocabulary list to the song, and far more sections where the song is completely in Greek and then completely in English, rather than having word/definition/supporting words in English around the Greek. My daughter enjoyed it, but struggled much more to learn the words-which is why I was concerned about jumping to GfC, especially without the audio reinforcement.

 

Have you looked at Biblical Greek 4 Kids? My DD was one of Ashlyn's beta testers for the first book, and it's a nice bridge from GCC-the first section is largely the same, but then gets into decoding words. SSG assumes that the student either can already decode words, or that they're learning them by sight.

 

I also found several boxes of Lang-o-Learn cards on discount at Rainbow, which have 16 languages for each word, one of which is Greek. It's modern Greek, I'm sure, but my DD is enjoying decoding and learning words for things like Shark, Jellyfish, Stingray, and so on in Greek (which is what's keeping her engaged right now-I really want to look at GfC or other Greek texts before buying something else!).

 

 

Ah, the joys of having a young child who loves ancient languages!

Link to comment
Share on other sites

SSG is fun, but not as well structured as SSL-there are far more cases where the word form changes from the vocabulary list to the song, and far more sections where the song is completely in Greek and then completely in English, rather than having word/definition/supporting words in English around the Greek. My daughter enjoyed it, but struggled much more to learn the words-which is why I was concerned about jumping to GfC, especially without the audio reinforcement.

 

Have you looked at Biblical Greek 4 Kids? My DD was one of Ashlyn's beta testers for the first book, and it's a nice bridge from GCC-the first section is largely the same, but then gets into decoding words. SSG assumes that the student either can already decode words, or that they're learning them by sight.

 

I also found several boxes of Lang-o-Learn cards on discount at Rainbow, which have 16 languages for each word, one of which is Greek. It's modern Greek, I'm sure, but my DD is enjoying decoding and learning words for things like Shark, Jellyfish, Stingray, and so on in Greek (which is what's keeping her engaged right now-I really want to look at GfC or other Greek texts before buying something else!).

 

 

Ah, the joys of having a young child who loves ancient languages!

 

I have to completely agree with you about SSG. I've never tried SSL because I thought it was less structured than what I need, but after going through a couple of tracks of SSG, we've dropped it and have slowly gotten back to using Greek Code Cracker, but even that is not exactly what I would like in a program.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I am going to begin working through Athenaze with my younger two at a very relaxed pace, as there don't seem to be any curricula that are really geared toward younger children. They seem to spend the bulk of a year teaching the alphabet which can be learned fairly quickly.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Thank you for all the options to consider! I will look through them all and make my decisions. I want her to fully learn it later, but wanted a gentle/fun introduction now. Being raised in the public you can safely bet I didn't have Latin! :) Language/reading is her strongest point...so am capitalizing on that. We're going slowly through Grammar Island and loving it. Have the other books too and will start them shortly. Had a lot of breaks this year due to Daddy losing a toe and then having open wounds in feet. But are getting back up to speed and so am planning for next year.

 

Thanks again for all the options and opinions. This board rocks! :)

Janelle

 

If you want to do full Latin later, then the first priority right now is for you to learn Latin. Get a good high school program and begin working through it. Give your dd bits of memory work (vocabulary, declensions, etc.) from that as you go. Meanwhile, start getting her excited aboutlearning Latin (I have some tips on my blog.)

 

I actually had four years of Latin in a public school. It was pretty common (I'm probably a bit older than you :001_smile:.)

Link to comment
Share on other sites

DS has been doing Prima Latina (orally, no written work) for second grade.

 

I've been looking at future Latin curricula, and honestly I don't see much reason to do more than have some fun learning Latin words and a tiny bit about the structure of the language at this age.

 

I took Latin in college, so I'm somewhat familiar with the language (although that's getting to have been a while ago, and I'm intending to go through Wheelock--the text I used in college--again over the next year or so, just so I'm better equipped to teach DS, and because I think it's fun), but a lot of the Christian Latin (like the prayers) are new to me, so DS has fun with me learning with him. His favorite part of doing Latin is having us take turns quizzing each other on vocabulary, because he loves trying to find a word that will stump me.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

The girls have really enjoyed Prima Latina thus far. To keep up the fun factor, I created bingo boards for review, however both enjoy "showing me" they have memorized these beginning latin words. We have also created a game of being aware of words spoken or read that are rooted in latin. If your child is a word person, then most definitely try latin!

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

 Share

×
×
  • Create New...