Latin, Latin, Latin....why is it so hard to choose?

[truebluexf]

So many discussions about Latin, yet none have lead me to my answer....lol!!! I have SSL, and was thinking of starting the year off with that for my 2nd and 4th graders, but after that...who knows? The older could obviously skip SSL, but I was thinking it would be easier to keep them more together on the subject. The two I'm looking at are LFC and LL, and they seem very different. LL may be easier to implement since it's all in one place, but LFC looks very thorough too and has the potential to be a fun with videos for chants. Thoughts, opinions, experiences??:001_smile:

[truebluexf]

Really? No one wants to compare and contrast these two programs with me? :bigear:

[wapiti]

No (I don't have any experience with them), but I'll add another: GSWL :D. I think you may find it more useful than SSL for these ages.

[truebluexf]

AAACK!!! LOL.........must check that out now too..... :D

[Tam101]

We love GSWL! We should be done in the next week or so and then are going to move into LL in the fall. I would think it would be great for a 2nd and 4th grader working together. It is really hard to chose and it's made harder by the fact that you can rarely put your hands on the materiel and look at it! You have go by limited samples, reviews, and recommendations. And the recommendations are as endless as the choices! LOL

[truebluexf]

It's so hard to tell from the samples, I wish it showed a few pages in succession. How does GSWL work? Is it a consumable workbook? I'm just not getting a vision of how a day would go.

[wapiti]

It is non-consumable. There is a lesson on the top of each page, usually a single word or a single piece of grammar/part of speech (though occasionally there are things that need more fleshing out). Then there are 10 sentences in Latin that you translate to English. We did this orally, though certainly it could be done in writing. The answers are in the back.

 

The sample pages for Lessons 50 and 101 are what the vast majority of the lessons look like - just one word at a time. And see those sentences in Lesson 101 - your dc WILL be able to translate those when they get to that point. It's an easy, gradual progression. My kids did from one to three lessons per day (maybe 20-30 min?), though you can cover more than that per day in the first week or so, if you wanted to. About halfway through the book, it gets a little bit harder, so you may naturally slow down the pace at that point. One of the things I loved about it was the great flexibility - we could cover as many or as few lessons as we felt like or had time for. This is why it works equally well for a middle schooler as mid-elementary age - you can set your own pace.

 

There is no TOC, which I would have liked. The grammar concepts covered are listed in the FAQ on the website.

 

My only advice would be to do at least one lesson every school day (you could do this easily in 15 min). That way the kids won't forget. If you skip too many days, they may start to forget things, and then you may have to go back and review. Doing it daily is part of what keeps it easy, IMO. Generally, review is built into the translations. The book isn't that long, so if you wanted to string it over the whole school year, you could do one lesson per day, and then toward the end of the school year, add in a tiny bit of translating in the other direction. I think a little bit every day is preferable to one or two longer periods per week.

 

It may also be a nice summer project, if you wanted to finish it immediately prior to your next Latin program. Doing multiple lessons per day, even with younger students, you could have it done in three months.

 

I love that it is grammar and translation focused and without fluff. I love the white space. I think it's a fantastic, substantial intro to the workings of the language. It is what enabled dd10 to start Henle - Henle would have been too overwhelming in the first lessons if she hadn't done GSWL first. My kids really enjoyed it.

[truebluexf]

Thanks for that review. :) I have SLL already, but maybe I can start that for fun soon...even just listening to it in the car and not really using the book. I also have the flashcards, which would be a fun game. Maybe we could go into this after that, then move into the other curricula. It would also give my 2nd grader time to catch up, bc I know she couldn't handle the grammar in LFC at this point.

[wapiti]

GSWL contains quite a good bit of grammar. I don't know LFC, so I don't know what grade levels it's appropriate for, but I have a hard time imagining that your second grader would still need more grammar than GSWL provides before starting LFC.

 

We have SSL, though we never listened to the cd. Honestly for their ages, I'd skip SSL unless they really liked it, and wouldn't bother with flash cards, though listening to the cd in the car might not hurt. I didn't see anything in SSL that is important, from a substantive point of view, to learn before beginning another Latin program. Like you said, the focus of SSL is fun. (My boys thought GSWL was fun :) - they loved the translating).

 

I forgot to add in my other post, GSWL has pronunciation files on the website. We never used them so I forget they're there.

 

(ETA: I feel like I keep comparing GSWL and SSL, but that is not my intention - they are in different categories in terms of purpose and age group, even though both are often referred to as being "introductory." For their ages and your purpose, i.e., giving them a leg up before starting another program, GSWL would be the way to go.)

Edited June 26, 2011 by wapiti

[truebluexf]

Thanks. :) And now that I've opened this can of worms, where does Minimus fall in here?

[Tam101]

I forgot to add in my other post, GSWL has pronunciation files on the website. We never used them so I forget they're there.

 

In addition to pronunciation files Mr. Linney also has audio lessons for GSWL and he goes through and explains each translation. We listen to to the lesson and follow along in the book, pausing before each of the of the ten translations, I read the odd numbers to my son in Latin and he translates, then he reads the evens and I translate. Then we listen to Mr. Linney's explanation. We have a lot fun it, laughing at each others pronunciations or if one of us forgets what a word means. :lol: